Job crunch in city hall.
That was the headline of a special report in The Record back on May 5, 2007, when staff vacancies in the planning department had reached record highs. Staff were leaving in droves (10 to 15 in the preceding two years), meaning policy work was put on hold and people had longer waits for services because of staff shortages.
When Lisa Spitale was appointed the city’s director of development services in June 2007, the department was in shambles. Her first order of business was to fill eight vacancies in development services, including several in the planning division, and to bring stability to the department.
One of the key positions filled was that of the planning manager, a job that went to Bev Grieve.
“She was there from the beginning helping me rebuild that whole planning division. She understands where we have come from,” Spitale told The Record. “She came in at a time when it wasn’t easy, when we were struggling keeping it together.”
In June, city council appointed Spitale as the city’s new chief administrative officer; last week, the city announced Grieve had been named its new director of development services.
“She earned it,” Spitale said. “She worked really hard as a manager of planning. She puts long hours in. She works hard with the staff. She earned it. She deserves this promotion.”
Spitale said Grieve beat out about a hundred “very good, very seasoned” applicants from across the country during a “rigorous” process, based on her qualifications. While some think internal candidates have an inside track on jobs, she said that’s not the case.
“People will judge you on your last mistake. That’s why it is so difficult being an internal candidate in competitions like this,” she said. “They know everything about you.”
Having said that, Spitale said some council members were surprised to learn of the depth and breadth of Grieve’s planning background. Before coming to the City of New Westminster six years ago, Grieve worked as a senior planner with Metro Vancouver for three years and as a housing planner with the City of Burnaby for nearly two decades.
“Bev has a lot of planning experience,” Spitale said. “Bev is a housing expert in the Lower mainland, in the province.”
Grieve has a master’s degree from the University of British Columbia’s School of Planning and is currently an instructor at Simon Fraser University’s centre for sustainable community development.
“I have always believed in promoting from within – but it’s got to be merit based. I do not like a system where internal candidates have an automatic promotion. People have to work hard. You have to have an organization that allows people to succeed, that allows people the ability to prove themselves and be proactive. That’s what I have always been interested in,” Spitale said. “For me, it’s about giving people that opportunity internally and being able to demonstrate that good old-fashioned hard work leads to success, and giving people the opportunity to do great work.”
As chief administrative officer, Spitale said one of her principles is to ensure that staff feel there are opportunities for them within the organization and they are recognized for their efforts. With a small city, she said it’s difficult to do some of the work required without having staff who have the background and understanding of why things are done – or are not done – in a certain way.
“Continuity is important. Corporate intelligence, history, all of that is important,” she said. “When you have an organization that changes too quickly there is a chaos that happens there.”
