Council Not Unanimous on Addition of Staff Member to Municipality

ARICHAT - The addition of a new Community Development and Special Projects Officer to the municipal staffing grid in Richmond County is not sitting well with all members of council. 

The latest regular monthly meeting of Richmond Municipal Council saw the passing of a motion approving a new organizational chart for non-elected staff positions within the municipality. However, District Five councillor Brent Sampson was not convinced that the creation of the new position is financially sound for the county. 

"After consideration, I don't feel I can justify it to the taxpayers at this time," Sampson declared during the October 23 council session at the Richmond Municipal Building in Arichat. 

In contrast, District Two councillor Michael Diggdon felt that the new position was warranted and that the accompanying spending justified. However, he added that the creation of a new position could have been more properly-timed to fit into the county's upcoming discussions for the 2024-25 municipal budget. 

"I support the decision of the [organizational] chart, and I support the decision moving forward," Diggdon told the Richmond council session. "But based on the discussion here tonight, I would have preferred to have seen it deferred until April 1, after our [first] budget meeting [for the following fiscal year]."

Speaking to Roundtable host Adam Cooke on October 27, Richmond Warden Amanda Mombourquette defended the creation of the position and the hiring of Danielle Martell to fill it. The warden suggested that the concept of community development was often falling into the county's Recreation Department, which Mombourquette described as an inappropriate venue to deal with such matters at a staff level. 

"It was no longer appropriate to have a manager of recreation in that position, particularly because when we look at the duties that this person is expected to do now - it's a lot of the same things that the director-level positions do, [such as] HR management, performance management, budgeting, financial-tracking," Warden Mombourquette pointed out. 

"This is a person, a position and a department that will be informing the direction of the municipality going forward," said Mombourquette.