The amalgamation of Tantramar first announced in November 2021 was a controversial and sometimes tumultuous process which included citizens picketing outside Sackville town hall, letters of protest from Sackville town council, and a call to boycott the process by some Sackville town councillors. And now CHMA has learned that the amalgamation process also led to two separate legal actions by senior municipal staff.
Court documents show that both former Sackville CAO Jamie Burke, and former and current treasurer Michael Beal filed actions against the Minister of Local Government and Local Governance Reform, in response to their treatment in the wake of the restructuring brought on by amalgamation.
Both actions were resolved out of court four months after being filed, but court documents tell the story of why the two longstanding civil servants asked the court to quash decisions by provincially-appointed facilitator Chad Peters, ultimately seeking to keep their jobs in the new municipality.
Beal succeeded his effort, and was appointed treasurer of Tantramar about six weeks after his court filing. But Jamie Burke left municipal government. Burke resigned his Sackville CAO position a few weeks after filing his court action, and by January 2023 had started a position as Atlantic Lead in Urban Planning for Stantec, based out of the company’s Moncton office.
But before that, in October 2022, Burke filed documents alleging unfair treatment by the Minister of Local Government in the hiring process to name a CAO for the newly amalgamated Tantramar, which was then still known at Entity 40.
‘Bias’ and ‘unfairness’
In an affidavit filed with the Court of King’s Bench, Burke said that he was, “subjected to several impediments to a fair process,” when he interviewed for the CAO position in June 2022. Burke’s affidavit says the interview process included, “bias in the favour of another candidate and other procedural unfairness.”
The only other candidate in the competition was former Dorchester and now Tantramar CAO Jennifer Borne.
Burke says that he arrived for his interview on June 8, 2022 at the Coastal Inn in Sackville, prepared with a Power Point presentation on a thumb drive. But in his affidavit Burke says he was, “not given a proper opportunity to address [his] candidacy or present the PowerPoint presentation to the evaluators.”
Burke’s application also says, “the issues were not rectified or addressed,” by Chad Peters’ company Lynwood Strategies, or Jennifer Murray Consulting, who were on contract to run the hiring process.
Shortly after the interviews of both Jamie Burke and Jennifer Borne, then Sackville deputy mayor and now Tantramar mayor Andrew Black resigned from the committee of three appointed to hire the new CAO. Though Black signed a confidentiality agreement and could not share details of the interview or hiring process, he told CHMA in July 2022 that he felt the process was “fairly biased.. And it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t reasonable… So I left.”
Burke mentions Black’s resignation in his affidavit, saying it was, “a result of the interview and candidate evaluation process.” Burke doesn’t mention that in July 2022 Sackville town council passed a motion asking Local Government minister Daniel Allain to review the hiring. Allain responded a few weeks later to say the decision would stand.
When he was first informed of the decision to appoint Borne as the new Tantramar CAO, Burke says he requested information on how the committee arrived at its decision, but received none. Burke also asked Peters about other employment options in Tantramar or elsewhere. Peters immediately wrote back noting that Burke had previously told Peters that “if [he] were unsuccessful in the internal competition that [he] would not stay on in another role.”
Regardless, Peters offered up the possibility of a Deputy CAO position for Burke, with responsibilities to be discussed later by Borne and Peters. He also named a number of other CAO positions (Maple Hills, Butternut Valley and Fundy Albert), as well as the CEO position for the Kings Regional Service Commission based in Sussex. Burke says he had previously told Peters that moving from Sackville was not an option for his family.
Burke became CAO of Sackville in April 2020, after working for about 6 years as director of corporate projects for the town. According to a town of Sackville announcement, the months-long process that hired him started with 64 formal expressions of interest, and included two rounds of interviews by consultants, and two rounds of interviews by Sackville town council, all before Burke was offered the job. That stands in contrast to the internal-only province-led process for Tantramar in 2022, which involved one interview for each candidate, and was completed within weeks.
Four months after he filed his application in court, and one month after starting his new position with Stantec, Burke withdrew his court filing, noting simply that “outstanding issues” had been resolved.
In an email response to CHMA this week, Burke says he is unable to comment on his case and how it was resolved.
When is a treasurer not a treasurer?
Burke was not the only Sackville senior staffer to take issue with hiring decisions in the wake of amalgamation. Longtime Sackville town treasurer and now Tantramar treasurer Michael Beal also filed application to the Court of King’s Bench, in March 2023, against both the Minister of Local Government and the Municipality of Tantramar.
Beal asked the court to quash the decision made by amalgamation consultant Chad Peters and then-recently appointed Tantramar CAO Jennifer Borne to terminate his role as town of Sackville treasurer and then not appoint him to the same role in the newly formed municipality.
Beal first started working for Sackville in 1993, was appointed treasurer in 1999. In the affidavit accompanying his court application Beal says he, “took great pride in serving my community and keeping the town of Sackville’s finances healthy. I truly loved working as Treasurer for the town of Sackville and have always felt that accounting and finance are my callings.”
Beal has also twice served as acting CAO for the town, a job he was doing when new Tantramar CAO Jennifer Borne presented him with a new municipal structure, and a new position.
In December 2022, Borne and Peters informed Beal he would not continue in his official role as treasurer, and put him in charge of a new department called Corporate Compliance. It’s that decision that Beal’s court application called “incorrect or unreasonable.”
Beal says in his affidavit that by March 2023 he had still not received a final version of the job description for Director of Corporate Compliance, and that Tantramar had still not hired a treasurer. He pointed out that, ”despite the change to my position title, I have been serving Tantramar as a Treasurer since January 1, 2023, and have been required to do so.“
He added that without his continued service as treasurer, “the municipality would be unable to function properly.”
It turns out that CAO Jennifer Borne agreed. In a closed council meeting on April 25, 2023, about six weeks after his court application was filed, Beal was appointed treasurer and Director of Financial Services for Tantramar. Speaking to CHMA two days after that appointment, Borne said, “Mr. Beal is certainly the right guy for the position. The years of experience and expertise that he comes with is just, you know, outstanding.”
Beal’s court filings asked for his legal costs to be covered by either the Department of Local Government or Tantramar. The details of the resolution aren’t published, but Beal withdrew his court case on July 11, 2023.
In an email to Warktimes this week, Beal said he was “satisifed with the outcome.”
No more department of corporate compliance
Meanwhile, Tantramar’s corporate structure no longer features a department of Corporate Compliance.
A new flow chart dated 2024 shows just six departments, with corporate compliance dropped from the structure altogether.
And as of March 2025, two departments have vacant director positions.
The Director of Community and Corporate Services post has been vacant since Kieran Miller left in August 2024. The position was posted by the municipality this past October.
A new-since-amalgamation Director of Protective Services position has yet to be filled. A contracted recruitment process this past spring was unsuccessful, but Borne said the municipality would eventually make another effort.
CHMA has requested further information about the resolutions or settlements related to the Beal and Burke legal actions, and are waiting to hear back from the Department of Local Government.
