Region of Queens fires top staffer CAO Cody Joudry
Cody Joudry and Mayor Scott Christian at a recent Region of Queens council meeting. (Region of Queens YouTube channel)
Region of Queens councillors have fired Chief Administrative Officer Cody Joudry, saying that he wasn’t “the right fit” with the new council.
Mayor Scott Christian told QCCR on Monday that no specific incident led to the dismissal of the municipality’s top staffer.
“I think it just came down to a fit. It’s not uncommon when you get a new slate of publicly elected officials and they have their own vision and priorities for the community and direction they want to take the organization, and I think at the end of the day, the fit just wasn’t there.
“We’re intent on achieving some big things. We have a lot of work to do. And at the end of the day, today’s decision reflected the fact that it was our judgment that in order to best potition ourselves to achieve that work and in the best interest of the community, we’re looking at finding a different person to function in the role of the CAO.”
Councillors called a special meeting late Friday afternoon for Monday morning to discuss a personnel matter in a closed-door session. Christian said the decision to let Joudry go was unanimous.
“I wish Cody all the best in his future endeacours. I think personally we connected and professionally we were able to work well together but at the end of the day, it’s just a matter of the priorities that council has, the vision we have for the future. We weren’t getting traction in advancing some of these priorities.”
Christian said he didn’t want to comment on specifically why Joudry wasn’t the right fit for the new council.
Joudry was hired as the region’s top staffer in September 2023. The region had been without a full-time CAO since that May, when Chris McNeill resigned.
Joudry’s family has roots in Caledonia and he is a member of the L’sitkuk First Nation in Bear River.
Senior staff members filled in as CAO after McNeill left and until the region hired an interim CAO before ultimately recruiting Joudry.
Recently hired municipal clerk Pam Lovelace will take over as acting CAO until council finds an interim replacement for Joudry, while they conduct a longer search for a permanent CAO. Lovelace is a former Halifax councillor and deputy mayor.
Christian said he expects council to hire an interim CAO sometime in January.
“And then we’re really going to take our time and we’re going to be very deliberate about who we think is the appropriate candidate. Everybody knows this organization has a lot of challenges right now,” Christian said.
“There’s a lot of discontent amongst the public in terms of the services that are delivered by the municiapility. There’s a lot of work to do and we need to make sure that we find the best suited person to function in that role and to support the will of council to implement our decision making in a way that is going to advance things in a constructive way.
“There’s a new group of people who are representing the will of the residents of Queens and we are committed to working together, pursuing a new direction and we made the determination that we are going to best be served by undergoing our own process to find our right-fit CAO to work with us because we have a lot of work to do.”
He said councillors ultimately came to their decision during their closed-door session on Monday.
Christian said council decided to appoint Lovelace as acting CAO because they didn’t want to add more work to their senior managers. He said they already have some good candidates to fill the interim CAO position, until they can find a permanent replacement.
Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com
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