Richmond County warden says council can't function after vote to axe CAO

Asked Wednesday if Richmond County council can continue to carry on the work of the municipality in a functional manner, WardenJason MacLeanwas blunt.

"Not in my opinion."

MacLean was blindsided by a 3-2 vote to fire the county's chief administrative officer Kent MacIntyreduring a special meeting of council on Monday night.

"I just can't wrap my head around it. I still can't. I just find that it's so embarrassing. It's so damaging to this county," he said.

Delay in documents

There were a few issues of contention heading into Monday's meeting, he said.

One involved a request that had been made by Coun. Brian Marchand for a list of certain invoices. Marchand was told he could come into the office to view the documents, but would not be provided with hard copiesdue to concerns about sharing information with the public, said MacLean.

A second issue involved a request by Marchand, following aMarch 11 council meeting, to have the CAO provide him with information about the municipality's sundry budget account.

MacIntyre responded in an email that staff was deeply involved in the 2019-2020 budgeting processand that the information would be provided at an audit committee meeting, which was scheduled for Wednesday of this week.

The delay was unacceptable to Coun.Alvin Martell, who moved during the March 25 council meeting to have the CAO instruct the chief financial officer to print and distribute a copy of the 2018-2019 sundry budget account to all councillors later that evening.

Coun. Brian Marchand then amended the motion in an effort to have the documents produced immediately. MacLean ruled the motion to be out of order.

No advance notice of motion to fire CAO

Discussion of those issues on Monday night included an in-camera session, which dealt with a personnel issue relating to MacIntyre, said MacLean.

But he said he still had no indication coming out of that in camera session that the motion to immediately remove MacIntyre from his position was forthcoming.

"Typically when council comes back from an in-camera session, there's a motion decided upon and everybody's aware what's going on," he said. "That certainly was not the case this time."

The motion was put forward by Coun. Gilbert Boucher.He did not respond to CBC's requests for an interview.

Martell and Marchand, who supported the motion, declined to comment on the matter Wednesday.

Costly and damaging decision?

MacLean expects the decision will prove costly. MacIntyre was 15 months into a five-year contract, with a salary justunder $130,000 per year, he said.

"I don't see any way other and around the municipality being responsible for his salary," he said.

"I'm not a lawyer. But I have great concerns that the decision that was made was way out of line, way out of context, extremely premature, and is going to be very, very expensive for the taxpayers of Richmond County."

MacLean questions who will be willing to step forward to fill the CAO position.

"Anybody that's willing to look into the history of what's been going on here, especially looking into the latest situation here and what led to the dismissal, I can't imagine anybody really wanting to take that on."

Richmond County's former CAO, Warren Olsen, resigned in 2016 in the midst of an expense scandal.

MacLean said he doesn't know how council will move on from here.

"I have no idea what's going to happen." he said. "You've sort of got to ask yourself, what's next? What in the name of God is going on here?"

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