Halton Hills CAO Austin Retiring in September.

Release March 30th, 2005

Halton Hills - Acton - Recently, Councillor Mike O'Leary's employer - The New Tanner, published a front page article boasting how great CAO Austin has been for the Town, announcing his retirement plans in September.

"Town CAO retiring in September"

The NEW Tanner

April 14th 2005

He joined the Town as Deputy Engineer in 1974, and became engineer the following year, a position that was retitled in the 1990's to director of engineering and public works.

 

"I took it (the CAO's job) at the request of Council to help steady the ship. I think those were their exact words and they thought I had the ability to do that," Austin said on Tuesday.

Mayor Bonnette boasted in a September 05 2003 article of the North Halton Compass - front page story concerning the resignation of CAO Andrews...

Mayor candidates Rick Bonnette, suggest the Town can manage well without a CAO. "Since I was first elected in 1982, we have had a system were we have a rotating acting CAO-of-the-month," says Mr. Bonnette.

So the question is, knowing it was only going to be for a short time, why was a department head, whose department, by his own estimates - is $57 million dollars behind in work orders - be given a promotion, an enormous pay raise and no doubt a golden retirement?

The Tanner article continues...

He said looking back at his tenure as CAO, he is proud of several accomplishments, including being part of the team that helped reached a "monumental" deal between the Town, Region and landowners in the 401 - Steels Avenue to bring services to the area to speed up development, and the recent successful talks to reach a contract with CUPE.

The Taxpayer financed "monumental" deal did not come with any development guarantees.  In fact, the only thing the public knows for sure is - $7.5 million taxpayers dollars were used to raise the development value of private property, equating to - more debt legacy involving Bob Austin.

Mayor Bonnette said the Town was glad to accept Austin as its CAO, even knowing his tenure would not be long, because of his wealth of experience and because they needed someone who would "steady the ship in some kind of rough waters" when there was "some question about staff moral in the building."

Well, now that many of the department heads have graduated to the $100,000.00 per annum club, no doubt staff moral has picked up significantly. The Mayor continued to boast in the Tanner; ..

"We had one of the best budget processes we've ever had this year because of Bob's team approach - he took the corporate approach and showed true leadership,"

One of the best budgets ever? At 5.6%, this community suffered one of the largest tax increases ever, thanks to, in part, Mayor Bonnette's and CAO Austin's leadership.

Wasn't long ago friends of Fairy Lake had the funding and were enthusiastic in playing an active role around the lake. Hard to be enthusiastic when we read in the local papers councillors O'Leary and Sumerville are more interested in cleaning the BIA area during earth week, than our public green spaces.  :?

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