"It's not personal...it's strictly business."
That iconic quote from The Godfather is not just a fine example of Al Pacino's acting abilities, but the attitude Rocky View County council appears to have taken in regards to their recent dismissal of Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Dorian Wandzura.
Just 18 months after he was hired in March 2022, Wandzura was given the boot following a special council meeting that was scheduled to discuss "personnel" matters on Aug. 1.
Wandzura is just the latest in what has often felt like a game of musical chairs when it comes to the County's chief staff position. He was preceded by two long-term RVC staff members (Kent Robinson and Byron Riemann) who served in the role on an interim basis after the also abrupt and unexpected departure of Al Hoggan in the spring of 2021.
Now, Riemann finds himself in the CAO chair yet again, and once more it's on an interim basis, until council can find whoever they would like to take on the job permanently. It's not clear what exactly they're looking for.
The latest CAO's firing left a lot of questions, but in examining the quotes from last Tuesday's meeting, it appears Wandzura wasn't working quickly enough, in the eyes of councillors who wanted to see him gone.
Ultimately it was a close vote, with a slim majority of councillors (four out of seven) voting to terminate his contract. The three who voted against firing Wandzura argued it was too soon.
Our newsroom would like to see more transparency from RVC about exactly what Wandzura did wrong to find himself on the way out of RVC Council Chambers so soon after he'd been so warmly welcomed inside it.
After the Aug. 1 meeting, the news release about his firing was not advertised on the County's social media, and it was not posted to the front page of the website. Instead, it was quietly posted to the website's news section, as if the County didn't want it to be advertised.
