BOWDEN — There’s a new chief administrative officer (CAO) in Bowden, but he’s not a new face.
He’s Arno Glover, formerly the town’s legislative and municipal services officer. Glover has worked full-time for the Town of Bowden for seven years.
Glover assumed the role on July 6, the day after former CAO Rudy Friesen left to become CAO of Brazeau County.
Friesen had served as the town’s CAO for two years. Before that, he held the same position in Cremona.
During an interview with the Albertan, Glover said as yet, no one has been hired into his old position.
That’s one of three jobs in the town office that need to be filled. The other two are public works supervisor and bylaw officer.
The town has been without a bylaw officer for several months and without a public works supervisor for about a month.
Glover said Friesen had been looking after bylaw matters after that position became vacant, so he inherited that as well as the public works supervisor position when it became empty.
“I'm spinning plates, because I'm doing two-and-a-half roles at the moment.
“And then we don't have a public works supervisor and I've got all the summer capital projects to deal with – project-manage those,” he said, noting summer is when most capital projects are undertaken in the town.
“It's just a little bit hectic at the moment,” Glover said. “That's where I am. Hopefully it will settle down.”
The Town of Bowden had had an agreement whereby Red Deer County bylaw officers patrolled the community for 10 hours a month.
There had been talk of possibly increasing that presence. However, Glover said, “that’s dependent on resource availability from Red Deer County and I don't think they’ve got that resource.” So he doesn’t think that's not an option.
Besides, Glover would prefer to again utilize someone “in-house” as a bylaw officer, a person who would work for the Town of Bowden.
He said the position of bylaw officer involves talking to residents who may not always understand town bylaws.
“It needs somebody who is in-house, somebody who can, you know, understand the town,” Glover said.
“There’s always a minority of people who cause a majority of the problems, so (we need) someone in-house that understands relationships with the town residents. Bringing in someone from Red Deer County isn't ideal to me.”
By the same token, Glover indicated that there’s an advantage to the fact that he’s moving into the CAO position from his former one with the town.
“I had a very good relationship working relationship with (Friesen),” Glover said.
Personally, it's just a continuation of the work that I've done.
“You've got continuity. That's the main word here, continuity by just me moving sideways, basically.
“My personal concern at the moment is not one of being on a learning curve, it's one of just spinning plates or firefighting until I can just get some resemblance of order,” he said.
“But it will be what it will be until I can get my head around a lot of things.”
Glover noted he’s not the only Bowden employee spinning several plates at the same time.
“We’re a small town here and we're only 10 staff in total, so we all wear many hats, we all do many things. We cross over a lot. We're not compartmentalized like bigger towns or certainly big cities,” he said.
“You don't get one person sitting at a desk just doing one role. Everyone wears many hats some days, so you’ve got to get the right team in place (where) people can work efficiently and constructively with each other.”