Third top council exec resigns
OAMARU
THE ‘‘face’’ of the Waitaki District Council’s Ohau fire recovery has resigned.
After seven years, the council’s heritage, planning and regulatory group manager Lichelle Guyan will step down in March, to take time out and consider her future.
Mrs Guyan is the council’s third executive team member to leave this year, with assets group manager Neil Jorgensen finishing next month, and chief executive Fergus Power in June.
During her tenure, Mrs Guyan became the council’s recovery manager for the Ohau fire last year, a position she described as ‘‘incredibly rewarding’’.
‘‘It was quite an eye opener that you can actually achieve a lot with a little bit of knowledge but also putting the theory into practice always identifies how to improve,’’ Mrs Guyan said.
‘‘We had to think on our feet, be quite flexible, we needed to work quite closely and listen to the community’s needs, and the feedback we’ve had from the community in the most has been very very positive. It’s been terrific to be, I guess, the face of how we achieve the future goals for the community.’’
The job provided many highlights throughout the years — creating an electronic building system and the new dog pound among them.
‘‘Council has a dedicated and committed team, and it’s not always an easy environment to work in. Sometimes we have to deliver messages that people don’t want to hear, or there’s multiple factors to a situation and all of them can’t be addressed. Our people are genuinely doing their best to deliver a good outcome.’’