Richmond Hill announced last week it has “parted ways” with its CAO / City Manager Neil Garbe.
The Banner piece references his final meeting, which you can watch the item at 1:24:00 here:
You may remember Garbe as he was the Town of Aurora’s CAO for 6 years and 7 months. He was hired to replace John Rogers who was inexplicably removed from office halfway through his contract. You can read more about that on pages 1 and 9 here.
Upon leaving Rogers offered the following advise to the incoming CAO: “The CAO will have to re-establish a good working relationship with staff and council to make sure morale is at a high point.”
From my perspective I never saw that occur. More than a few staffing irregularities occurred including the loss of 6 of 8 senior staff under Garbe’s leadership.
1.) Communications Manager was accused of improperly using his office to help a candidate for re-election — which is inappropriate and a serious accusation under the Code of Conduct governing Town employees as well as the Municipal Elections Act, 1996. More on that here.
2.) The questionable hiring of the Director of Corporate and Financial Services.
3.) The fact that town staff was unable to communicate properly with a Telco resulting in the placement of a cell tower to the surprise of Aurora residents.
We can add to this the fact that there was apparently a lapsed Town Parking Strategy , lapsed Corporate Environmental Action Plan, and an unknown number of Heritage properties removed from designated/listed and demolished as no Strategy is in place to measure and report on this stock.
It appears Garbe’s time in Richmond Hill was marked by being sued by a former staff member. Interesting, considering during his time in Aurora the Town was involved in launching a SLAPP lawsuit on residents.
Upon vacating the office of the CAO in Aurora there were sighs of relief around town. I want to focus on Anna’s take: Successful leaders leave corporations successfully operating after their departure, there should never be a ‘huge void’left. A successful leader also leaves a successor, a next leader, behind. Perhaps the ‘huge void‘ refers to just that.
The other huge void was Garbe’s compensation. He’s the #2 Top earner of all time for the Town of Aurora, costing an estimated $1.3 Million in compensation over his years: https://www.ontariosunshinelist.com/employers/qpyf
In Richmond Hill he cost an additional $1.2 Million https://www.sunshineliststats.com/Salary/neilgarbe/2018/9/?employer=townofrichmondhill
That’s $2.5 Million over 10 years between two municipalities.
A lot of cash to pay for a poor Between Two Ferns impersonator.
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