Adam Prudhomme
Editor
Greater Napanee’s new CAO outlined his plans to shake things up a bit as part of an organizational alignment.
John Pinsent, who assumed the role as CAO on Sept. 20, outlined some of his initial observations and actions to council. Chief among his plans are to create a new human resources position. The process of hiring a full time HR manager is underway with the intent to move the current executive assistant/ HR coordinator position to support HR management.
“I would position to council that one person can’t do either one of those jobs by themselves,” said Pinsent. “What I’m doing is splitting that into two and having one person continue on with the HR position while we wait for the HR manager and then hire a new position to help me in terms of executive support.”
In order to streamline communication between recreation services and community services, Pinsent plans to merge the two into one building.
“The management of facilities and the provision of recreation services can be improved by synchronizing those activities in one organization and having access to community engagement to promote recreation in the town,” Pinsent stated in his report.
In an effort to improve communication to residents, Pinsent has also added additional responsibilities to community services, which will now issue a report to the public through social media following council meetings.
A greater emphasise will be placed on the town’s grant application process as well.
“We miss opportunities,” Pinsent said regarding government grants. “I think we need to have more of a focus on that, people with eyes on it specifically. One of the things I’d like to do is synchronize some of the activities my corporate assistant would do with communications in terms of writing stories around what Napanee is and what it needs to do and getting some of that government money. My experience is someone writing grants will easily pay for themselves in terms of getting that money for the organization.”
Pinsent’s report will be taken into account as the town begins planning for the 2022 budget.
“What this represents is three weeks of work with talking to a lot of people,” Pinsent said of his report. “I talked to all staff, we formed a senior leadership team. I talked to all the managers on a collective basis, started peeling back sort of layers of the onion, I think there’s some foundational elements that we should be working on to support this vibrant community in the future.”
Pinsent’s report had the support of all members of council.
“I think it’s a very good start,” said councillor Terry Richardson. “There’s no surprises there. There’s a lot of things that we’ve bounced around in the past and I think it’s time to make it happen.”
Councillor Ellen Johnson agreed.
“I think everyone around this table has felt the constraints of COVID and the lack of movement in some plans, just because that’s what happened,” she said. “We’re looking forward to moving ahead.”
Council voted to endorse and receive the report.