The Sechelt First Nation won’t be hiring away Nanaimo’s chief administrative officer after all.
Tracy Samra was announced at the end of January as the shishalh Nation’s CAO, but that won’t happen now.
Keith Julius, shishalh councillor, said “we will not be hiring her” and said the decision was made Thursday.
“Just because of a lot of things that have been going on over there between her and the mayor of Nanaimo and the council of Nanaimo, we just didn’t want any of that luggage brought over this way,” Julius said.
Samra is currently on leave from the City of Nanaimo and it has been reported that she was the woman arrested Jan. 31 after an incident of threats uttered at city hall.
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“Before we even signed her on board, we were catching wind of some things…” said Julius, saying Sechelt reached out to RCMP and other First Nations for information. “Nobody knew what was going on.”
He said the Sechelt First Nation currently has two staff members sharing the CAO’s workload and “we’ve been doing well, we’ve been doing OK,” but a permanent administrator is desired. He said the First Nation is working with a recruitment firm and has been happy with the work that company has done.
He said while Samra was identified as the No. 1 choice, “there were [candidates] that followed below her that also had great qualifications and certificates and everything of those sorts that we are looking at.”
editor@nanaimobulletin.com
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