I was pleasantly surprised on Wednesday last week that Kathleen Soltis was named the new city manager of Prince George. For the record, I have never met Soltis, I know virtually nothing about her nor do I know how good of a job that she has done or will do at the City of Prince George.
What I do know is that she has temporarily held the reigns at city hall on at least two occasions while a search was underway to fill the vacant position.She has worked for the City since 1986 and from media reports, she appears to be qualified, well-liked and respected at the City. I am glad that she was hired on a permanent basis for a few reasons but the main one being is that Soltis is from Prince George and that this was an internal hire.
There are a few things that infuriate me about Prince George but nothing more so than our inferiority complex about our own people.The last city manager was from out of town, the new presidents of both the college and the university were imported as well.
Let me be clear: I am not implying that any of these positions that I have mentioned have been filled by unqualified or undeserving people. I have nothing either personally or professionally against any of the people who are in these positions. I am merely recording my observations, that in most of these cases, temporary PGers have been found to fill vacant positions in our schools and companies who were then bypassed in favour of imported talent.
I would be interested to see how many high-level positions in Prince George have been filled by out-of-towners over the last ten years. In many of these cases, the high-level positions have been filled for months or even years at a time before a "suitable" candidate was found. In many cases, such as Beth James in her stint as city manager, the new talent ends up trying to "fix" the company or Prince George and they end up meeting resistance, unsatisfactory working environments, and disregard for fresh, new ideas. In some cases, the new hires to Prince George are unprepared to be living here and then leave after twenty months. They have come from Toronto or Vancouver or other large metropolises and are taking the wage and title bump to further their careers. Sometimes the imported talent stays in Prince George and they eventually buy-in to the city's personality and they will begin to love it but, let's be frank about this, Prince George is not for everyone. And that is why Prince George is great.
In my opinion, there is a lack of regard for institutional knowledge in our companies and work environments in Prince George. When someone new is hired, there is great excitement about "changes" and "new ways of doing things". When something goes pear-shaped, everyone is confused and we think we need someone else to tell us what went wrong.With the great snow removal debacle from two winters ago, for example, the city paid for a study done by a company in the U.S. so we could have a report of what went wrong with the snow removal.
I would propose that every single snow removal operator working for the city of Prince George, could have told you the problems with the system for free.I remember when representatives from other cities would travel to Prince George to find out why our system worked so well. What went wrong?
Lack of trust and training in current workplaces is how we end up here. I would like to see Canfor, UNBC, CNC and the City of Prince George, set up a mentorship and training program for their current employees.There are young people working at all of these companies who, with a little bit of training, could be groomed for high-level positions at their respective companies. Low turnover, high job-satisfaction and something to work towards at work would be valuable to our community.Dead-end jobs kill the spirit and so does constantly being overlooked in favour of outsiders.
