Clyde CAO to resign

Village begins search to replace Melanie Beastall

After just a year and a half on the job, Clyde CAO Melanie Beastall will leave the village for greener pastures.

She declined last week to elaborate on her intentions, since her resignation has yet to be formally accepted by the village council.

“It’s a personal decision that I’m making,” she said.

Mayor Wayne Wilcox said while council has yet to formally accept the resignation, it’s his understanding it is a sure thing.

He added Beastall will be missed as her help with a relatively new council in the village has been invaluable — following the Oct. 2011 election four of the five councillors are serving their first time.

“It’s going to be hard until we can get somebody in there to replace her,” he said. “She’s very good at what she does.”

The village has already begun the search to replace Beastall, but Wilcox acknowledged it could be difficult.

“We’re only looking for a CAO on a part-time basis and being in a small village, our budget isn’t that great so we may have a problem there,” he said. “I’m hoping that we can find one and keep carrying on and see how things go from there.”

He said most of the day-to-day work the CAO does can be handled by the village’s administrative assistant, and Beastall has completed much of the more complex work in advance.

“We’re covered and have everything all done until the middle or end of June, so we’ve got a bit of breathing room in there,” Wilcox said.

“We’re not totally stuck so we can kind of carry on until we can get somebody qualified in there to help us out.”

Beastall was hired with the village in 2008 and worked for two years as the administrative assistant before being hired as CAO in August 2010.

She previously submitted her resignation in spring 2011.

Councillors at the time suggested that resignation had to do with personal conflicts between her and then-mayor Doug Nyal.

Council rejected her resignation at that point; an organizational meeting was held removing Nyal as mayor and she subsequently stayed on.