Monday, June 16, 2014

The Recreation Consultant seeks a Recreation Director

The ongoing makeover of the Recreation Department for the city continues, as the deadline looms for applications for a Director of Recreation and Community Services for the City.

As we outlined on the blog upon the hiring of Brent Meunier as a recreation consultant, the original term of employment was to be six months, at least according to the media release at the time.

Now, it seems that perhaps that timeline may still be in place, especially as one considers some of the background to the career opportunity ad posted to the city's website .

As for that Job Opportunity, would be applicants can review the range the responsibilities of the position, which will have the successful applicant reporting to the City Manager and  delivering a fairly lengthy list of key responsibilities to the City among some of them:

Planning, organizing and directing the delivery of recreation, cultural and community services

Providing leadership for support and recreation staff

Developing systems and implementing "best practices' to ensure the delivery of quality services

Maintain an effective working relationship with the general public, government agencies and local organizations

Engage in Fundraising for Capital Projects and New services

And provide effective communication with City Council, City Departments and local organizations.

The last line perhaps providing a glimpse as to what City Council found to be one of the key problem areas of their relationship with the Recreation Department in recent months.

It was a number of Council concerns last fall and earlier this year (never outlined in a public forum), that led to the surprise introduction of January that heralded the arrival of Mr. Meunier, who was brought in to oversee the change of direction for the department.

Interestingly enough, the new Recreation Commission created as part of the department makeover, is not mentioned by name in the advertisement, leaving one to wonder if that community body has any input into the hiring process at all.

Also of note, the new focus on Fundraising for Capital projects and new services, which would seem to offer up a look at the direction Council seems to be taking when it comes to Recreation services in the city.


The deadline for applications is Wednesday.

The fate of the Recreation Consultant remains to be seen, with that original six month term now coming close to an end.

Perhaps once the New Director is selected and in place,  we will learn more on that part of the process from Council and whether Mr. Meunier's consultancy term has been extended.

The Department has been one of a bit of controversy over the last six months or so, some of our past items on that file can be found below:



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