Where Did All the Senior Officials Go?
Part 3 of 12 — Vancouver City Hall: Following the Paper Trail
Something has been happening at Vancouver City Hall that is difficult to ignore.
Senior people have been leaving.
That doesn't automatically mean something is wrong.
People retire.
People resign.
People are recruited elsewhere.
Administrations change.
Departments are reorganized.
Sometimes governments and senior executives simply decide they are no longer a good fit.
All of that is normal.
But when several senior positions change within a relatively short period of time — particularly positions with significant statutory, regulatory or administrative responsibilities — it's reasonable for citizens to ask:
What's happening?
And that's what we're going to look at.
Not rumours.
Not assumptions.
The timeline.
Let's start with the departures we can document.
2023 — Donnie Rosa
Donnie Rosa left his position as Vancouver's General Manager of Parks, Recreation and Culture in 2023.
Rosa had been a prominent senior City official and had served in the position during a period of major debate over parks, public space and municipal services.
His departure was publicly reported.
2023 — Theresa O'Donnell
Theresa O'Donnell, Vancouver's General Manager of Planning, also departed in 2023.
Again, a senior position.
Again, a major City department.
Again, a personnel change that matters because planning decisions affect virtually every Vancouver resident.
2025 — Paul Mochrie
Then came the departure of City Manager Paul Mochrie.
This one attracted considerably more attention.
The City Manager is effectively the senior administrative leader of the municipal government.
Mochrie's departure was handled through an agreed separation arrangement, rather than simply being described as an ordinary retirement.
The City subsequently released information about his separation agreement.
And soon afterward, Vancouver appointed Donny van Dyk as the new City Manager.
That raises legitimate questions about how Vancouver's most senior administrative position is managed.
But again:
A negotiated separation isn't evidence of wrongdoing.
We need to know what happened before deciding what it means.
2026 — More senior positions change
Then came a series of departures involving positions that are particularly interesting from a governance perspective.
Katrina Leckovic
Leckovic served as Vancouver's City Clerk.
The City Clerk's office isn't simply another administrative department.
It has important responsibilities relating to Council, legislative administration and elections.
Tina Penney
Tina Penney served as Deputy City Clerk and Director of Legislative Operations.
These are positions that sit close to the machinery of democratic government itself.
Both Leckovic and Penney left their positions in 2026 and were subsequently replaced.
The public explanation for personnel changes has been limited.
And that's where councillors began publicly questioning what was happening.
Pete Fry asked questions.
Green Councillor Pete Fry publicly questioned the departures and said he had not been given a compelling explanation for why Leckovic, Penney and Chief Building Official Saul Schwebs were no longer in their positions.
That's a statement from an elected councillor.
It is not proof that the departures were improper.
But it is evidence that there was disagreement among elected officials about how much information they were receiving.
And that's worth paying attention to.
Then there's Saul Schwebs.
Schwebs was Vancouver's Chief Building Official.
That position carries an important public-safety responsibility.
Building codes aren't abstract political arguments.
They concern whether buildings are designed and constructed in ways that protect the people who live and work inside them.
And Schwebs had publicly raised concerns about Single Egress Stair / Space Efficient Stair provisions.
His concern was that allowing certain residential buildings to rely on a single stair could increase life-safety risks by reducing alternatives for emergency evacuation and response.
Council ultimately approved the use of these stair configurations.
And in 2026, Schwebs left his position.
Is there a connection?
This is where we need to be extremely careful.
It's tempting to draw a straight line:
Schwebs raised safety concerns → Council approved the change → Schwebs left.
But a sequence is not proof of causation.
We don't currently have evidence proving that Schwebs left because of the single-stair issue.
There could be another explanation entirely.
So we're not going to claim one.
Instead, we're going to ask:
What happened?
Why did it happen?
Who made the decision?
Was Council involved?
Was there a separation agreement?
What does the City say?
And what information is still unavailable?
Those are reasonable questions.
Why does senior turnover matter?
Here's the bigger issue.
A municipal government isn't just a mayor and council.
There is an enormous amount of institutional knowledge sitting inside the professional public service.
People learn:
How the organization works.
Where the files are.
Why previous decisions were made.
Which mistakes have already been made.
Which policies have failed.
Which recommendations were never implemented.
Which agreements contain unusual provisions.
Which departments depend upon which others.
When senior officials leave, that knowledge can leave with them.
Sometimes fresh leadership is exactly what an organization needs.
Sometimes continuity is equally important.
The public has a legitimate interest in understanding which is happening.
And remember Part 1.
We started this series with the $6 million in 2025 severance agreements.
We aren't claiming that these senior departures account for that entire amount.
We don't know that.
That's exactly what we want to find out.
If the City has paid substantial severance to departing senior officials, the public should be able to understand:
Who received it?
How much?
Under what authority?
Why?
Was the payment required by an employment contract?
Was it negotiated?
Was it approved by Council?
And what did taxpayers receive in return?
Those are not unreasonable questions about public money.
And remember Part 2.
We also talked about QuickFind, Vancouver's old public employee directory.
Again, we're not claiming it was removed to conceal anything.
It was an old system.
It needed modernization.
But without a modern replacement, tracking changes in the City's workforce becomes harder.
And that makes today's question more difficult to answer:
Who is actually running Vancouver?
Not politically.
Administratively.
Who holds the positions?
Who makes recommendations?
Who administers Council's decisions?
Who oversees public safety?
Who manages public property?
Who administers elections?
Who handles procurement?
And when those people leave...
Who replaces them?
This is where our investigation gets interesting.
Because the next posts aren't going to simply list names.
We're going to start examining the positions themselves.
What authority do they have?
Who appoints them?
Who can remove them?
What does the Vancouver Charter say?
What does Council control?
What does the Mayor control?
And what should the public reasonably expect to know?
Because sometimes the most important story isn't who left.
It's what powers that position carried — and who now holds them.
A note to readers
We are deliberately not calling this a "purge."
That word implies motive.
We don't know the motive.
We're also not saying the departures were illegal, improper or politically motivated.
We don't know that either.
We're doing something much simpler:
We're building a public record.
And if the evidence eventually shows that these were completely ordinary personnel changes, we'll say so.
If the evidence raises further questions, we'll say that too.
If we've got something wrong, we'll correct it.
That's how this series is going to work.
Your homework — if you're curious. π€ͺ
Look at the City's own records.
Look at Council minutes.
Look at old City reports.
Look at the Vancouver Charter.
Look at the Auditor General's reports.
Look at the FOI releases.
Look at reputable journalism from different perspectives.
And then ask yourself:
Does this look like ordinary turnover — or is something unusual happening at Vancouver City Hall?
You don't have to agree with us.
Do your own research.
Bring what you find.
We'll keep following the paper trail together.
Because these are public institutions.
And we're not just spectators.
We are witnesses.
Part 4: Who Watches the Watchers? — The City Clerk, the Deputy City Clerk and the machinery of municipal democracy.
#Vancouver #CityHall #Accountability #Transparency #MunicipalGovernment #PublicService #CivicPolitics #FollowThePaperTrail #DoYourOwnResearch #WeAreWitnesses
