Kelowna’s former fire chief leaves his post with an 18 month severance package—or a month’s pay for every year he was employed with the city’s fire department. For 18 years worth of service, the chief will receive 18 months of compensation, or roughly $210,000 in salary and benefits according to the documents provided. The severance agreement stipulates the former fire chief’s legal expenses, some $2,500, will also be paid by the city and the car leased for him as a member of city management will be paid for through May 2011, a year after he left his post.
The municipality did not release the severance amount when Blanleil’s departure was announced earlier this year, but the Capital News was able to obtain at least a portion of the information under the Freedom of Information Act on Tuesday afternoon. In a surprise move this spring, René Blanleil stepped down from his position as the city’s top fire fighter saying he was ready to move on to new opportunities. “It’s not performance related,” Charlene Covington, City of Kelowna director of human resources, told media at the time in absence of an interview from the chief. “The chief completed the strategic plan, which was a major initiative on his plate, and we all felt that it was an appropriate time for a change,” she said. But with only four years under his belt in a position fire fighter’s typically spend a career aiming to achieve, his decision to leave generated plenty of questions. Online forums characterized the department as fraught with problems, placing the blame on the chief. Included in the FOI information package is a reference letter Blanleil can use for future employment, but the reasons for his departure, contained in a document known as The Cuff Report, remain largely a mystery as privacy regulations still prevent release of any meat in the document.
The report, which Covington characterized as a review of the fire department’s administrative affairs when Blanleil left in May, indicates the chief was seen as “generally personable” and “an able representative of the department on the public stage” with “good public relations awareness” and an ability to lead fundraising ventures. “He is obviously sincere in his desire to lead the department effectively and to ensure that it is held in high esteem on the street,” it states. Even with masses of blacked-out text, however, the report does indicate, the parting of ways was likely not a simple decision to move on. It does clearly state the contractor hired was asked to conduct a review of an unnamed “issue.” The analysis included more than a page of reasons why this issue had developed—although the marked out sections do not reveal what the issue was. The fire chief was also to be given access to career counselling as part of the severance agreement.
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