Prince Edward County council just wasn’t comfortable establishing their five year strategic plan without a key piece of their senior staff.
Council voted down the recommendation from staff on Tuesday night at Shire Hall to hire MDB Insight to facilitate the 2019 Corporate and Community and Economic Development Commission Strategic Plan without a CAO in place.
Director of Community Development and Strategic Initiatives Neil Carbone told those around the horseshoe that even though they are in a state of transition, they can move forward by creating a list of priorities to help create a vision.
Councillor Brad Nieman questioned why they were looking at the strategic plan again as he felt the current plan is still working.
Carbone told council there is a lot lacking from the current strategic plan.
Councillor Janice Maynard felt a simple update would suffice as she felt they could “take a good foundation and shore it up”.
Councillor John Hirsch was one of the few dissenting voices around the table, as he felt a CAO doesn’t need to be in place for them to identify their priorities.
Mayor Steve Ferguson says this period of transition greatly affected their decision.
He did say once a CAO was in place they would re-visit the strategic plan.
Carbone said they could re-visit the strategic plan later once a CAO is in place but there was no guarantee the consultant would be available at the time.
