They threatened to resign on Tuesday, but tonight the news is that six senior managers at City Hall have revoked their letter of resignation. The decision to withdraw comes after two days of meeting, including a long one last night at the UDP party headquarters and another this morning at city hall. Councilor with responsibility for public relations Laura Esquivel says that basically the managers apologized for going about things in the wrong way.
Laura Esquivel, City Councilor
"Basically what came out of that meeting is that the managers have accepted that the method of procedure in terms of this resignation letter was flawed. In this instance I believe that what happened is that maybe some recommendations were made to the council, more than one recommendation obviously, that the council didn't necessarily agree with and I think that some feelings got hurt in terms of the managers taking it personally that decisions were taken to the contrary and this is the result of that."
Jules Vasquez,
So were the managers not clear on whose the boss?
Laura Esquivel,
"Apparently."
Jules Vasquez,
Was it the view of some that the managers should have been fired? That is in subordination; you write a letter, you have my business in the street. From a political standpoint, it's a disaster. Why not fire them?
Laura Esquivel,
"That certainly has come up and that's why we have had many discussions and various councilors had various views but in the end we have to make a collective decision and at the end of the day all the councilors agreed that we would extend the olive branch and give the managers a chance to give their side to us and we've accepted the apology and we're moving on.
We've had several meetings so there were several instances where things were brought up and explained and decisions were taken from there. We are all human and we all sometimes take things a little bit personally and so I believe now everything is set forth that they understand that the council is guided by the City Council Act and that is how it will stay."
And while all sides have agreed to de-escalate hostilities, our information tells us that while peace may prevail, there is still resentment on both sides of the dispute and we'll keep watching to see if it flares up again.
