Wood staying with NPCA for another five months
Gayle Wood is going to stay on as Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority’s interim chief administrative officer until the end of year.
In a Wednesday news release, NPCA announced Wood — she was hired in February to shepherd the troubled agency for five months after a drastic leadership shakeup — will stay on until Dec 31.
Wood said the contract extension was offered by the NPCA board of directors and will allow to her complete two major projects — the agency’s response to last year’s Auditor General’s report and crafting the 2020 budget.
The process of completing both tasks has been complicated by the changing cast of characters around the board table. Several new members joined recently and with more set to arrive in August.
“It is somewhat unusual,” she said. “Typically, you get your new board in January after an election and they are oriented at the same time, and move in a new direction at the same time.”
When Wood was hired she became NPCA’s third CAO in four months.
The leadership of the organization was thrown into disarray when former CAO Mark Brickell fired then-corporate services manager David Barrick in late November. A few weeks later, Brickell was fired by the then-NPCA board of directors.
Lisa McManus, NPCA’s clerk, was appointed interim CAO. She reappointed Barrick and then went on leave from which she has not returned. On Dec. 10 the former board — it had given all of its authority to then-chair Sandy Annunziata and then-vice-chair James Kaspersetz — made Barrick acting CAO.
Barrick, a former Port Colborne regional councillor, fired the watershed manager and promoted several staffers to senior director positions, giving them $1,000-a-month vehicle allowances.
On Feb. 21, NPCA announced the board and Barrick had signed a “mutual separation agreement.” Details of the severance package are being kept secret.
Wood, a Niagara-on-the-Lake resident and 20-year veteran administrator at conservation authorities, was hired in part to stabilize the organization.
Part of that process was enacting the recommendations in the 2018 Auditor General’s report, which found NPCA was rife with problems including issues with hiring and procurement policies and the agency’s conservation programming.
Asked if she intends to stay on after her new contract expires Dec. 31, Wood said her only longterm plan is to get to the end of the next five months.