WESTLOCK – Twenty-four hours after a closed-door, councillors-only meeting Feb. 3, Westlock County CAO Kay Spiess began an “unexpected” six-week leave.
In addition, at the conclusion of a four-hour-and-14-minute evening meeting — a gathering that Spiess and community services coordinator Adrienne Finnegan attended but exited after only three minutes — a motion made by Coun. Jared Stitsen and passed by council directed reeve Christine Wiese to get a legal opinion on in-camera item 9.1.
Wiese said Feb. 8 she’s still waiting on that legal opinion, although she didn’t specify what it’s about, or why it’s needed, adding the meeting was originally called to get council “more focused” and “get in a better direction because we’re all over the place.” The Westlock News reached out to Spiess Feb. 8, the municipality’s 10th CAO in the last eight years, but has not received a reply.
“As a new council we seem to be heading in many different directions. As council we had discussions to prioritize what’s the best direction for the municipality and we had a decision that was agreed on as council, but we also wanted to have a legal opinion before we went forward with the decision,” said Wiese.
“Once we have that legal opinion then we’ll be able to go further with finalizing that discussion we had in-camera. I have contacted them (the lawyers) and gave them a list of things council has questions about regarding our priorities. They’re answering them … but I didn’t get an exact time from them and I’m not sure when we’ll be getting that back. And honestly until we get the legal opinion, I don’t really know what’s going to transpire out of this.”
As to whether Spiess, who started as CAO April 2021, will return to her position, Wiese pointed to the fact that she’s been provided a return-to-work date of March 18. The previous council conducted a six-month review of Spiess’ contract Oct. 12, while a formal review of the CAO by this current council is slated for March.
Spiess replaced Leo Ludwig who led the county from 2016 to 2020 — Ludwig’s final five months at the municipality were spent on paid leave and his resignation was officially announced in September that year. Until Spiess was hired, Rick McDonald served as interim CAO, the second time he had filled the position for the municipality.
McDonald said previously that the constant turnover had negatively impacted workplace culture and morale at the county, while Spiess said in her initial interview with the News in April 2021 that, “The constant change in CAOs has been a massive problem here. It's one that’s created a lot of inconsistency.”
“I’m not under any assumptions,” said Wiese when asked if she believes Spiess will return. “As far as I know from what I received is she has given a date for when she’ll return so that’s all I can count on. I can’t say for any person what their plans are. But as far as today, right now, this moment, all I’ve received is that it will be from said date to said date so that’s what I have to go on.”
Due to Spiess’ leave, Wiese had to scramble to find a temporary CAO as regular council meetings cannot be held without one. Rosemary Offrey, who’s previously served as CAO for the Town of Rainbow Lake and manager of corporate services for the MD of Greenview, acted as interim CAO for the Feb. 8 meeting, while on Feb. 9 at another special meeting, the county hired Pat Vincent to act as interim CAO. Vincent, who has 46 years of experience in public service, served as interim CAO for Westlock County from July to September 2016. In the past, county planning and community services director Laurie Strutt has stepped in as interim CAO but was not in attendance at the Feb. 8 meeting.
Spiess’ absence comes at an inopportune time for the municipality with a governance and priorities meeting slated for Feb. 15, then another regular council meeting coming seven days after.
“I’ve been swamped. We need a CAO in order to have meetings and we didn’t want to defer them as they’re very important and we don’t have a lot of time and we have a lot to do,” said Wiese before the hiring of Vincent, who she said came on the recommendation of McDonald.
