- by Hub staff

The departure of Owen Sound's Tourism Marketing Coordinator Paulette Peirol today made us think you might like a program to help keep track of the City's senior trades and drafts of the last four years.

City Council has only one employee – the City Manager. Four months in to the term of this council, it was announced that City Manager Ruth Coursey had "retired" with no notice on April 16, 2015. It was the year she was elected by her peers to serve as president of the Ontario Association of Municipal Administrators.
For the following two years Coursey remained the second-highest paid employee in the City of Owen Sound according to the provincial Sunshine List, although she was no longer working for us.
Wayne Ritchie moved in to Coursey's job, and Kate Allen returned to the City to fill Ritchie's shoes as Director of Finance (now Director of Corporate Services).

That fall the City created a new position, hiring Kristan Shrider to be the Manager of Property. Shrider oversees the management and operation of all city-owned facilities and property, and has been the City's project manager for the City Hall renovation.

Jamie Walpole, the City's Manager of Information Technology, left in May of 2016 after six years and Shawn Hilliker now heads the IT department. His challenges have included temporarily re-locating City Hall and city council meetings and then bringing it all back, plus more departments, to the new building with an all-electronic election six weeks away.

In July 2017, Peter Aylan-Parker stopped replying to email from the media. He had spent 20 months as the City's Communication Advisor, a position that was created by this Council, and was gone with no public announcement. Brent Fisher, the City's Facilities Booking Coordinator, was promoted into another newly-created position - Manager of Community Development and Marketing. It incorporates Aylan-Parker's responsibilities and the work of the Manager of Economic Development and Tourism – the position Steve Furness held before he went to work for Grey County.

Doug Cleverley, the Event Facilitator who had run Canada Days, Home Shows, New Year's Eve and Harbour Nights for 15 years in Owen Sound left in August 2017. He was off to follow love and look for work in Barrie, but with no public acknowledgement of his departure from the City.

In January this year the City's Director of Public Works and Engineering of three-plus years, Ken Becking, was gone in a day -"no longer with the municipality". Dennis Kefalas joined the City to fill that vacancy in June. In February the Director and Curator of the Tom Thomson Art Gallery, Virginia Eichhorn, tendered a retroactive resignation after a tumultuous year and a leave of absence.
Legal and privacy issues kept the announcements brief. Suffice to say the HR department has been busy.

The Staff Directory on the new Owen Sound city website only lists five staff by name as well as position.

It's hard to tell the players without a current program.