A new mayor, a small town, and a giant political upheaval: tensions in Lions Bay, B.C.

As a hockey player in the 1980s, Ken Berry competed for ice time with the Stanley Cup winning Edmonton Oilers, played for one of the worst Vancouver Canucks teams of all time, and faced off against the juggernaut USSR at the Olympics. 

All child's play compared to being a small-town mayor. 

"It's totally dysfunctional now," said Rose Dudley, a Lions Bay resident of 50 years who has been critical of the dysfunction in town since Berry was elected mayor four months ago by a margin of 18 votes. 

"People who are supporting him are saying he's got to be given a chance. But it's hard when you see all these good people we had in the village just walking away." 

Since the election, Lions Bay has seen the departure of its top three staff members — two resigned and one was fired — along with a councillor who quit out of protest to Berry's leadership, an overhaul not seen in any other B.C. municipality since the election. 

Several other employees have left abruptly. One insider estimates 10 employees are gone in total — a change that gets residents talking in a quiet seaside town of just 1,400 people on the edge of Metro Vancouver.

"It's horrible what's happened," said Dudley.

"These people have come in to fix something that wasn't broken."

'Changing the culture'

In 2018, Lions Bay decided against democracy: with just one person running for mayor and four people running for the four council positions, all candidates were acclaimed.
 
That wasn't the case last October — eight people ran for council, three for mayor, and voter turnout was 65 per cent, the sixth highest in the province. 

Residents describe a charged atmosphere with rumours and allegations spreading on social media and in cafes. Pushing the hardest for change and eventually winning was Berry, who played up both his hockey career and post-sport life as a CEO in a populist campaign centred on taxes and transparency. 

"Over the last few years there's been significant unrest," he said at Lions Bay's all-candidates meeting, railing against the village's high spending on salaries compared to similarly-sized Anmore. He promised a hiring freeze and an end to using consultants, saying he would leverage the volunteer spirit of the community. 

"What I would be doing is changing the culture of the staff," he said.

"Sometimes that culture change doesn't go as planned, and we may have some natural reduction. But I'd hope we'd have everyone step forward as a team."

Departures, followed by silence

That didn't happen. 

A month after Berry and the new council were sworn in, the mayor announced in the village newsletter that chief administration officer Peter DeJong and chief financial officer Pamela Rooke "will be moving on." 

According to council correspondence released this month, DeJong was terminated without cause and councillors are "not at liberty to advise of the details of [his] termination package."

Rooke resigned soon after, along with Coun. Norm Barmeier, with other staffers soon following. 

In the weeks since, Lions Bay meetings have been marked by acrimony, with Berry and councillors talking over one another, not following the rules under which local government is conducted, and allegations of improper hiring and financial procedures.

Berry originally said he would talk to CBC News about the situation, but cancelled an hour before the interview, saying he was asked to defer by his election officer. 

CBC News reached out to every other member of Lions Bay council, three previous mayors, and several other members of the community for comment about the state of their government. None, except for Dudley, were willing to go on the record. 

"I'm not surprised," said Neil Belenkie, the former mayor of Belcarra — another small community within Metro Vancouver — who resigned in acrimonious fashion in 2020. 

He said in larger municipalities, there's more room for conflicts to resolve amicably because of greater emotional and professional distance between politically-involved people within the community. 

"It's much more personal in all aspects of small-town governance … residents of small municipalities aren't willing to put targets on their back, because they're known by everybody, and it's not unreasonable to think they wouldn't face repercussions," Belenkie said. 

'The Titanic has set sail'

In small towns where city halls turn dysfunctional, sometimes a new mayor promising change is vindicated, as new staff and procedures improve things after a period of turmoil. Sometimes they slowly lose support and are decisively defeated in the next election. 

A potential turning point could come on April 15 when a byelection is scheduled to elect a replacement for Barmeier, which will break the current 2–2 balance of power on council. 

But this week, Lions Bay continued to face troubles.

"Together, we have beaten down a good man, a gentle man, a wise man, and an accomplished man," said Berry at the beginning of Tuesday's council meeting, as he announced the resignation of Anthony Tobin, who was hired just five weeks earlier to replace DeJong as the village's acting chief administrative officer.

Berry then blamed "personal attacks and innuendo" for Tobin's departure before reading a list of his accomplishments.

He then announced chief building inspector David Butler had also resigned. 

It's unclear why he didn't read off a list of Butler's accomplishments. But it might have had something to do with his resignation letter, which CBC News obtained from a source other than Butler.

"I am extremely concerned with the lack of openness and transparency, as outlined in the campaign platform of Mayor Berry …. your new council and new management (CAO) have done more to damage the Village in its first three months than anytime that I have worked here," he wrote. 

"The direction this mayor and council are heading is a dangerous one. The Titanic has set sail. Do not bother rearranging the deck chairs."