Councillors were summoned to an urgent private briefing at midday today where a grim faced Moore announced that the CEO Peter Seamer had offered his resignation 'for personal reasons.'
However when asked by Liberal Councilor Shayne Mallard if the CEO 'jumped or was pushed' she refused to answer but confirmed an undisclosed financial payout had been negotiated.
"Any way you cut this it’s a sacking and Clover Moore has again demonstrated her inability to work with independently minded people." Mallard said.
The sacking of Peter Seamer follows Moore's earlier sacking of CEO Robert Domm and her undermining of former Deputy Lord Mayor Councillor John McInerney.
"Peter Seamer is a popular, respected and very competent organisational leader head-hunted from Federation Square in Victoria. He has successfully worked for both Jeff Kennett and Steve Bracks,"
"Peter Seamer's sacking will leave a significant leadership void and a shaken demoralised management and staff at a critical time in the Council's history,” Mallard said.
"This is a terrible outcome for the City of Sydney and the biggest mistake Clover Moore has made."
"At a time when the City of Sydney is embarking on ambitious new City planning codes and running down financial reserves by 70%, sound and stable organisational leadership is essential.”
Peter Seamer's sacking follows murmurs of disagreements between him and Moore and was bought to a head by the proposal for a seven storey building on part of the former Water Police Site at Pyrmont. At the Council meeting last night Clover Moore attacked staff for the inclusion of the building in the Masterplan.
“The fact that the building proposal got through to the Council stage causing community concern demonstrates that Clover Moore is not paying attention to the detail of the Lord Mayor's job.”
“Peter Seamer is being made a scapegoat for Clover Moore’s inability to manage two highly demanding elected jobs as Lord Mayor and member for Bligh,”
“Rather than sacking another CEO, perhaps the Lord Mayor should heed the advice of Oscar Wilde: ‘To lose one CEO may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness,”
Background Peter Seamer & Clover Moore
http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/citynews/2005_February/stories/NewCEO.html
Clover Moore and Peter Seamer in happier days. Picture City of Sydney
3 comments:
This latest loss of a CEO is another blow to Ms Moore's credibility. Perhaps she was good as an independent MP who only had to complain without leading, but her style as Lord Mayor has been disastrous for our City.
We need a leader with vision, not someone who is only concerned with power.
How much has Ms Moore cost the City with payouts to two CEOs and a huge spin machine?
Valid points especially how much money this will cost the City and the ratepayers? At Council community organisations scramble for grants and money crumbs of a few thousand dollars here and there. Seamer's 'resignation' has probably cost up to half a million dollars. There is his severence and the cost to recruit a new CEO. I was advised yesterday that being unfairly forced out of his 5 year contract could cost up to two years salary - that's more than $500,000! add to that an easy 25% of the salary for recruitment consultants to find a new CEO. So that's another $100,000!! All would go a long way to help quite a few worthy community organisations. A disgusting waste of taxpayer's money by Clover Moore and her 'independents'.
I've just read this with amazement. Two CEOs in two years, hundreds of thousands dollars wasted, careers interrupted for no good reason, and so on.
Where are the other independent councillors on this matter? They seem to take their orders from Clover like sheep. Why? Are they afaird, incompetent,lazy, uninformed?
Surely it is time for them to stand up and take responsibility for what is happening in Sydney Council.
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