Former CAO Jamie Burke goes back to his planning roots with Stantec, ‘nothing but positive things to say’ about time in Sackville
Since January, former Sackville CAO Jamie Burke has been working for Stantec as Atlantic Lead in Urban Planning based out of the company’s Moncton office. It’s a job that could one day land Burke back working for Tantramar, as a contracted consultant.
CHMA spoke to Burke in February, to find out about his new position, and what it was like leaving his old one behind. We asked Burke what kind of projects he might be working on as an urban planning consultant:
Stantec’s business in Atlantic Canada is driven by public sector clients, says Burke, including municipalities, and provincial and federal government departments and agencies. “A lot of municipalities, both big and small, have a variety of planning documents,” says Burke, “whether it’s new municipal plans, official plans, zoning bylaws, or other types of regulatory documents that dictate how land can and cannot be used. So that’s one area where Stantec is around to help.”
And Plan 360—the planning department of the Southeast Regional Service Commission which is responsible for everything from processing building permits and rezoning requests, to writing municipal and regional plans—may need that help. When Tantramar was formed, the former town of Sackville’s 2015 municipal plan was already overdue for a review. Now the expanded municipality is in need of a new plan that will encompass two former municipalities and previously unincorporated districts.… Continue
Burke resigns, Beal pinch hits, and Sackville barely acknowledges the change
Sackville town council met this week for their first public meeting since approving the resignation of the town’s CAO, Jamie Burke. Councillor Sabine Dietz, the human resources liaison for council, acknowledged the resignation at the beginning of Tuesday’s meeting:
“Mr. Jamie Burke, CAO for the town of Sackville, gave his letter of resignation at a special meeting of council on Thursday, October 27, 2022. Council has accepted Mr. Burke’s resignation letter, and council has appointed Michael Beal as acting CAO, effective November 2, 2022 and ending on December 31, 2022.”
No further comments were offered by council members on the resignation of Burke, who has served as CAO since April 2020, and before that as the town’s manager of corporate projects for six years. The silence was in contrast to this spring, when the resignation of then town engineer Dwayne Acton garnered kind words from a number of councillors, the mayor, and then-CAO Jamie Burke.
As Dietz explained, Burke’s resignation was discussed at a special meeting of council at noon on October 27, with all of council but for Bruce Phinney and Ken Hicks in attendance, along with Jamie Burke and town clerk Donna Beal. The town’s bylaws require that the agenda for all special meetings is posted at least 48 hours in advance of a meeting “on the Town’s Webpage and through whatever other reasonable means to notify the public are available.”… Continue
Resignation and call for review after Dorchester’s Borne recommended over Sackville’s Burke
Before a three-person HR committee appointed to recommend a CAO for the soon-to-be-amalgamated town of Tantramar could complete their work, the member representing Sackville resigned over concerns that the process was unfair and rushed. Despite that resignation, consultant Chad Peters passed along a recommendation to hire Dorchester’s Jennifer Borne for the top municipal job.
This week, Sackville mayor Shawn Mesheau wrote to Peters’ boss, Minister Daniel Allain, calling for a review of what he called the “fundamentally flawed” hiring process, and a spokesperson for Allain’s department says a meeting will be scheduled.
‘It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t reasonable’: Andrew Black on why he resigned from committee to hire a new CAO
Sackville Deputy Mayor Andrew Black says that in mid-June, when it became apparent to him that his original misgivings about the CAO hiring process were well-founded, he decided he had to resign. “I felt that it was an unfair process,” says Black. “I felt that it was fairly biased. It wasn’t reasonable, which is, you know, terminology that has been used by the minister and his department for this process, that it would be ‘fair and reasonable’, and it was not,” says Black. “And so I left.”
Black’s resignation left the committee with two members, Dorchester Deputy Mayor Robert Corkerton and Sackville local service district resident Chris Milner, who remained on the committee for the rest of the process and recommended that Dorchester CAO Jennifer Borne take the top job in the new municipality.… Continue
Compressed workweek pilot aims to boost staff morale in Sackville
Workers for the town of Sackville will be trying something a little different this summer, working a compressed workweek of just four days, but with longer hours for those days. CAO Jamie Burke says the new scheduling system will run for three months, from June through August, and then be evaluated as a longer term option for the town’s workforce.
Hear this story as reported on Tantramar Report:
One of the inspirations for the experiment is a small municipality in Nova Scotia, which was one of the first in Canada to try and later adopt a compressed workweek. Barry Carroll is the CAO of the municipality of the District of Guysborough, on the southeastern tip of mainland Nova Scotia. He credits the pandemic with the municipality’s experiment. “It’s kind of a good news story coming out of COVID for us,” says Carroll.
At the outset of the pandemic, Guysborough had split their workforce of about 60 into two teams, and alternated days on site and working from home. The flexibility was popular, as was the ability to keep in operations during COVID. Then one day, Carroll was listening to a federal COVID briefing when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau mentioned the four-day workweek, and the idea was planted. “We said, look, maybe this is something that we can try on a pilot basis,” Carroll recalls.
The municipality implemented a nine month pilot starting in June 2020, with two teams working compressed four-day weeks, either from Monday to Thursday, or Tuesday to Friday.… Continue
Nearly double the repaving planned for 2022 as town engineer Dwayne Acton says farewell
The town of Sackville will be repaving nearly twice as many streets this year, thanks to a 2021 top-up from the Canada Community Building Fund, also known as the gas tax fund. Though the Community Building Fund can be used for a variety of infrastructure projects, Sackville council and staff opted to put the money solely towards road paving projects.
The town has nearly a million dollars to spend on road projects this year, with just over $423,000 coming from this year’s gas tax fund, and just over $410,000 coming from the top-up handed out to municipalities last year. Another nearly $100,000 is leftover from previous gas tax budgets.
At Monday’s special council meeting, outgoing town engineer Dwayne Acton responded to a question about whether this year’s generous list of project would put Sackville ahead of schedule in road paving. “Not necessarily ahead of schedule,” said Acton, “but it definitely can go a long ways in adding additional streets to our paving list.”
“Over the last probably eight years we’ve done a fair amount of repaving which definitely helps in the community and in our residential streets,” said Acton.
The original list of paving projects that was put out to tender will need to be adjusted slightly, because even the lowest bid came in above the amounts budgeted back in 2021. Acton told council that cost increases are not uncommon between budget estimates and actual bids, and that the paving industry is dealing with increased supply costs.… Continue
Talking population growth, affordable housing, and inclusionary zoning with Jamie Burke
Listen here to Tantramar Report for Thursday, February 17, 2022:
In a tense meeting, Sackville council turns down two motions to slow down amalgamation
Things move quickly in the world of New Brunswick municipal reform, and on Monday two Sackville town councillors took a stab at slowing that down.
Councillor Bill Evans presented his motion calling for a boycott of the amalgamation process, instructing staff and councillors not to engage in advisory committees set up by the province. Evans argued that it would be more effective to protest the forced amalgamation by making the province “do their own dirty work.”
“Remember, they’ve only got one facilitator [for] five amalgamations,” said Evans. “They can’t do our amalgamation without our help. So let’s not help them. Let’s try to shame the bully and say, maybe we can’t stop you, but we’ll be damned if we will help you.”
Right off the bat, CAO Jamie Burke reacted with a strong message of alarm. Burke said he consulted with the town’s lawyer about the motion, and was paraphrasing from that conversation when he spoke to council Monday.
Burke made that case that Evans’ motion was actually illegal, because the province has passed Bill 82, giving it the tools to impose municipal amalgamations across the province in the next year. Burke said Bill 82 also gave the province, “the right to make inquiries into the assets and liabilities of local governments affected by restructuring,” which would mean that himself and town staff would be required to cooperate with Chad Peters, the provincially-appointed facilitator.… Continue
Friday on TR: Sackville CAO on the unknowns of amalgamation; Resident turned away from rapid test pickup
On Friday’s Tantramar Report, we talk to CAO Jamie Burke about the knowns and unknowns when it comes to Sackville’s impending amalgamation with Dorchester and surrounding areas.
We’ll also hear from one Sackville resident who was turned away from a rapid test pick up site in Port Elgin on Wednesday, the day the province announced it would no longer hand out test kits to anyone without symptoms and an appointment.
And we hear from CHMA’s new local reporter David Gordon Koch about how local Sackville institutions are being affected by isolating workers.
That, and these other stories:
Winterfest cancellation, by-law changes on council agenda for Monday
Sackville town council will have its first meeting of the year on Monday, January 10th. Council will be asked to approve changes to the street traffic and parks bylaw, and hear about pandemic related changes to upcoming town events, such as the cancellation of the Winterfest festival, which was slated for February.
Southeast Regional Service Commission planner Lori Bickford will present 2021 figures on building permits in the town, which have more than doubled compared to 2020.
The commission issued 52 permits in 2021, with a total construction value of $5.4 million. In 2020, they issued 44 permits worth $2.1 million.
Mt A closes campus to general public
Mount Allison has announced it will be closing its campus to anyone but students, staff and faculty in an effort to control the spread of the Omicron variant. … Continue
Council lifts decades-old skateboard ban in a close vote
Skateboards are no longer banned on the streets of Sackville.
In a 4 to 3 vote, council passed second and third reading of a revised streets bylaw that will allow people to ride skateboards on streets with certain restrictions, such as wearing helmets and refraining from tricks.
In addition to a requirement for Motor Vehicle Act approved helmets, the bylaw requires people on skateboards to:
- wear reflective material between dusk and dawn,
- travel “in a straight line as close as is practicable to the right hand side of the roadway”,
- yield the right-of-way to pedestrians and cyclists, and to
- travel “in a manner and at a speed appropriate to the surface being travelled upon.”
A final vote on the revised bylaw was nearly delayed by a month, after Councillor Mike Tower requested copies of the communication from the town’s solicitor and insurance company, and asked for time to review them. CAO Jamie Burke agreed to provide it, and recapped the process for how staff came up with the proposed bylaw.
“Our lawyer originally said not to do this,” said Burke Monday. “That was very clear… We communicated that to council and council gave us direction to say, well, we want to explore ways to do it.”
Burke said the solicitor then advised that the town could limit risk or exposure by not simply allowing skateboarding, but by applying some regulations to the activity in town streets.… Continue
Sackville town council calls for regional governments, fairness in taxation
Amalgamation is unrealistic, equalization is unfair, and regional collaboration is great if all residents pay a fair share: those are some of the key messages in a letter from Sackville mayor Shawn Mesheau to Minister of Local Government Daniel Allain, unanimously approved by town council on Tuesday evening.
The letter breaks down Sackville’s input on local governance reform into four areas first outlined in the province’s green paper on the topic: structure, land use planning, regional collaboration, and finance.
STRUCTURE: LEAVE THE TOWN, INCORPORATE THE LSDs
Structure is typically the first thing people think of when talking municipal reform.
Currently about 30% of New Brunswickers, like those living in the Sackville Parish local service district (LSD) just outside of town limits, don’t have local level representation. Instead they are governed directly by the province, with no political power over municipal issues.
Daniel Allain has expressed interest in ending that lack of representation, and the town of Sackville supports the idea. The letter suggests “some form of regional government” for unincorporated areas such as local service districts, so that the town will have someone to negotiate with when it comes to collaboration “on projects or other investments that serve a regional benefit.” Currently, the town deals with the province for regional collaborations, and the power balance there means there’s not much negotiation.… Continue