How many of the senior staff at city hall have been impacted by Covid 19?

By Pepper Parr

October 9th, 2020

BURLINGTON. ON

Ward 2 Councillor Lisa Kearns reports in her newsletter that her office is continuing to work at full capacity. Nice to know that.

What we don’t know is the degree to which city employees are able to work at full capacity.

Executive Director Sheila Jones

In a report to Council yesterday Executive Director Sheila Jones took Council through a report on the status of Burlington’s financial position, where things are in terms of service deliver and an update on what is being done for the commercial sector.

These monthly reports are part of what Jones does very well. Her approach is very crisp, efficient and to the point. She calls on several people to participate, opens it up to questions and ensures that Council is well informed.

There is usually a comment from city manager Tim Commisso and often an occasion when they slip into a closed session for matters that relate to property issues or situations where an individual is named – which is a no no in the municipal world.

City manager Tim Commisso

Yesterday, Commisso was getting ready to comment on staffing, he paused and said something to the effect that when talking about staffing individuals might get named and so he wanted to keep that level of detail private – as well he should.

There appear to be some people who are city employees who have been infected with covid 19. How many – we don’t know. We do know that most of the staff are working from home.

What is disturbing is the public doesn’t know how many people have been infected; how seriously the infections are and how diminished  staffing levels have become.

We certainly understand the need for personal privacy. However, the city manager could have created categories of staff. Top level senior people, Directors, Managers and the balance of the close to 1000 people who work for the city.

He could have then said that there are xx people at the senior level and that yy of them have had to quarantine themselves.

There are some departments where the leadership is critical: transit and finance, the city managers office and probably information technology are vital to the operation of the city – especially given the seriousness of the covid threat.

There is a practice of using provisions of the Municipal Act to slip into a closed session to discuss issues that are becoming habits. Not a healthy habit.

Be transparent and be accountable – please.