A resignation from the chief executive of Nelson City Council.
“I am resigning in order to make myself available for other opportunities,” Keith Marshall says. “There are a number of prospects open to me that I am not at liberty to disclose. Also, at the end of last year I accepted a directorship on the board of a North Island-based company.”
Mayor Aldo Miccio says that while Keith’s resignation came as a bit of a surprise, he understood the reasons behind Keith’s decision. “I do admire Keith for making this decision at this time – after all, he could simply have hung around for the looming amalgamation and collected a healthy redundancy payment, but that really isn’t his style or attitude.”
Mayor Miccio, on behalf of council, thanked Keith for his leadership of staff for over three years that has resulted in an increase in staff ‘buy-in’ to nearly double the national average for local government, and more than doubled the positive perceptions of customer service performance. “By anyone’s standards these are amazing results.”
Mayor Miccio also highlighted the financial performance of council over the past few years. Those financial results had enabled councillors to propose the lowest rate rise in 20 years in last year’s draft annual plan. Nelson City Council had posted a surplus of around $42 million for the past year, well up from surpluses in previous years. “As a result, the city is in great financial shape.”
The Mayor says Keith will be sorely missed, but he is happy he will be around to help the preparation of the upcoming draft Long Term Plan (LTP). Mayor Miccio says this is likely to be a very difficult LTP to produce given the impacts arising from the recent emergency and the potential magnitude of the recovery efforts and costs.
“I will sit down next week and work up a recommendation to council as to how we move forward with recruiting a replacement CEO,” the Mayor says. “It’s unlikely we will move to recruit a replacement for Keith before knowing the Local Government Commission decision in respect to amalgamating the two councils.”
Mayor Miccio says he is also aware that final interviews for the Tasman District Council CEO role are due to happen later this week.
Mr Marshall says it has been a great experience working for Nelson City Council. “Councillors face exceedingly tough decisions all the time, and not all their decisions are popular.” Keith says that he has been lucky to work with a council that has faced up to those decisions no matter how difficult that has been for them individually.
“Obviously,” he says, “not everyone likes the decisions made by council, but that is what they are elected to do on behalf of residents. As the person who has been present and observed all their decisions, I can assure residents that this Council, and the one before it, considered all issues extremely carefully.
“During the time that I have been in the role, the residents of Nelson are, and have been, in good hands with their Mayor and elected Councillors.”
When reflecting on what things he would say were the highlights throughout his time at Nelson City Council, Keith readily points to the staff who work for council.
“The people who work for council are a talented, capable and committed group. The ongoing financial, customer and staff satisfaction results show off their high level performance in a very tangible way.”
But, above and beyond the statistics that demonstrate that, Keith says that anyone who witnessed the huge efforts put in by council staff throughout the recent emergency would know that Nelson is very lucky to have such a dedicated group of people working for the city.
“People worked tirelessly around the clock knowing that they needed to do everything they could to help during this emergency, and that seeing that dedication in action was a fantastic thing to be part of.
“From a personal perspective, I am proud to have had the chance to have worked with such an amazing group of people.”