Kneehill County’s Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Al Hoggan has recently put in his employment departure notice as of October.
Since then, a replacement has been identified.
During Rocky View County’s regular meeting held on Tues. Dec. 11, councillors had mixed opinions when it came to the situation they were presented with.
Hoggan had applied to become Rocky View County’s CAO, Kneehill County’s neighbouring municipality.
The vote was split, five in favour to four opposed due to the preliminary review being conducted by Municipal Affairs, but the Rocky View County Reeve was rest-assured there would no issues regarding Hoggan’s hiring.
“It’s disappointing when councils don’t support a motion of council but that’s democracy and people can choose any way they choose,” said Reeve Greg Boehlke. “My take on it is there’s no real reason to not hire him. The issues that are going on in Kneehill, I don’t think anything will come of them and if they do we will have to deal with that when it happens but I’ve been assured by the [Kneehill County] Reeve and the CAO that nothing will come of it.”
Council passed a resolution appointing Al Hoggan as the County’s new Chief Administrative Officer, effective Dec. 17, 2018, after a majority ruled the 5 – 4 vote.
Boehlke has been in touch with Municipal Affairs, finding Kneehill’s administration to pass with ‘flying colours’ as most of the issues arising have been surrounding the council decision making process.
“It didn’t have anything to do with administration. As a matter of fact, their administration just came with flying colours in September on a Municipal Affairs review that they do for municipalities under 5,000 residents,” he said.
Boehlke added that council hired a personnel finder with the intention of hiring someone who held both municipal and non-municipal sector experience; something Hoggan fit the bill perfectly.
“We took their complete advice on everything and they supplied us with good candidates. We narrowed it to four then we narrowed it to two and then we narrowed it to one so we are very confident and looking forward,” Boehlke said.
“You can’t ask for more than that with what we got and we got the guy we wanted.”
The County recently underwent a corporate restructure which is currently being implemented.
“Well, I can tell you, the vast majority of people are very excited about the direction the county is going in,” he said. “We just finished a corporate restructure and I believe Al Hoggan will carry that on and we will end up much better off with the hire.”
Terri Huxley
ECA Review
