Citco makes peace with disgruntled managers

The notice of mass resignation of six senior managers threatened to send the Belize City Council into a tail spin, but after a series of closed door meetings, tonight it appears a truce has been brokered. The talks began at five-thirty Thursday evening and included three sides: the United Democratic Party executive, headed by Dean Barrow; the City Council represented by Deputy Mayor Anthony Michael, and the disgruntled managers. After three hours, discussions were adjourned until this morning when the details were hammered out. Once an agreement was reached, one representative of each group was elected to write a joint press release and Councillor Laura Esquivel was voted spokeswoman on the situation. This afternoon Esquivel maintained the crisis is over.

Laura Esquivel, City Councillor
“What has happened is that this morning the managers withdrew their resignation letter and the council accepted that withdrawal and along with the Central Executive and the councillors and managers, we came to an agreement that basically this is how we are going to move forward.”

Janelle Chanona
“We were made to understand that this was a conflict of managerial style, obviously it was serious enough for them to take this step, going so far as to hand in resignations. Do you feel that this is something that will take time to transition?”

Laura Esquivel
“Well with everything there is a transition. You have to realise that all the people that were involved were pretty new to this and being in this sort of a situation. But we are guided by the City Council Act, which sets out how the council should be governed which basically says that the City Council and the Mayor act as the board of directors with the Mayor being the executive of that board of directors and then the policies and procedures and decisions are handed down from that level to the managers to then set the course. I believe that what happened in this instance that maybe a few recommendations were made to the council that we did not feel were the right way to go and we made other decisions. And I think it had a lot to do with personal feelings being hurt on the side of the managers and unfortunately they hastily went into writing the letter of resignation. But I am happy to say that it seems to have been resolved now and everybody understands the way the City Council operates.”

In a letter dated Monday, July ninth, the six managers: Human Resources Director Dale Trujeque, Public Relations Officer Kenny Morgan, City Administrator Sharole Saldivar, Robert Allen, the city engineer, City Planner Harry Smith and Director of Finance Dwayne Davis tendered their resignations, objecting to decisions made in caucus by the council.