The City of Parksville has lost another director of engineering, parting ways with Robert Harary as of June 7, and now council is reviewing the entire engineering and operations department.
In a media release today, the city stated: “Effective June 7, 2012, Mr. Robert Harary is no longer employed by the City of Parksville.”
Director of administrative services Debbie Comis said she could not say if the city terminated Harary, who was hired by the city in March of 2011, or if Harary resigned.
“The decision was made in a closed meeting,” she told The News Monday, adding she could not comment on that session.
Comis confirmed the city and councillors will now review the department and make changes, if necessary.
She added the review has no specifics to comment on right now, but the entire department would be included in the review.
Robert “Bob” Harary was hired out of California last year. Originally from New Jersey, Harary attended Arizona State University and spent the previous 27 years working in California, Nevada and Arizona, mostly for municipalities in some form or another.
Harary was hired by the city after the municipality was unable to retain at least their two previous directors of engineering, who left for other jobs.
The vacancies were cited often at the time, as a reason why the city was behind in its handling of development permits and other growth issues.
Comis said the remaining engineering department staff have been through this type of transition before and are extremely qualified to handle the workload during the review.