Rossland council passed a resolution that declassifies information about the recent resignation of Chief Administration Officer (CAO) Victor Kumar.
During Tuesday’s regular meeting, there were only a few sentences exchanged on the subject by council.
Rumours that the city’s CAO had resigned had been circulating for a number of months, before confirmation came through the Sept. 4 city council agenda package.
On Tuesday, council voted to declassify some information from in-camera meetings on June 11 and 27 of this year.
The information that was declassified was the resignation of Victor Kumar and appointment of Cecile Arnott as both CAO and Chief Financial Officer.
Councillor Kathy Moore was the only one to speak up about the appointment and resignation.
“I’d just like to make the comment that I’m happy to see this come forward at this time,” Moore said solemnly. “I’m extremely disappointed that this didn’t come forward earlier. I think we owed it to our citizens to make this announcement earlier and do a thorough search for the replacement, but I’m happy to see it now.”
Mayor Greg Granstrom was quick to respond.
“I think it’s important to note that there are two sides to that coin, we also have to respect the people that are coming in and the people that are leaving," he said. "That’s what we tried to do. There was no motion of council to proceed in any other way. The motion that was made was to proceed in the manner that we proceeded. Thank you very much.”
The mayor finished by asking if there was further discussion. Council then passed the resolution to declassify the minutes.
Kumar resigned back in June in an in-camera meeting and the resignation was kept from public knowledge.
Cecile Arnott has been named the new CAO and CFO (Chief Financial Officer) for Rossland. Arnott is coming from Grand Forks city hall where she held the positions of CFO and deputy CAO.
She will take over as of Oct. 1, 2012
Correction: Rossland News erroneously reported in the Sept. 6 print edition that Mayor Greg Granstrom had stated: "No further descussion." In fact, the mayor had said: "Further discussion?"