Sitting down for his New Year's interview with CochraneNow.com, Mayor Jeff Genung expressed concern over rumours of an unhappy town workforce and the possibilities of a union being formed. He didn't leave it at that.

A  two-hour staff meeting of town employees on Jan. 29 was held to talk about what ails the staff and sought to find ways to resolve concerns and improve communications.

"The rumours I was hearing around the water cooler, so to speak, was the culture of the employees of the Town of Cochrane is not exactly healthy and I was hearing rumours of organizing a union or union talks. I wanted to be proactive so CAO Dave Devana and I decided it would be in the best interest of the whole organization to call a staff meeting."

"At the staff meeting, I addressed the fact that I had heard these rumours and I wanted to get it out in the open. We talked to the staff about some of the things we heard and what we were going to do to address some of these issues."

"If there are problems we need to hear them and we're willing to listen and willing to work on them."

While he couldn't release particulars of the meeting, Genung says the need to listen to the staff was one of the underlining themes of the meeting and it confirmed what he had previously heard informally.

A suggestion that came forward was the creation a labor-management committee to be chaired by CAO Devana with representation from management and the staff.

"It would not just be to air grievances or things they are unhappy with, but also a venue for vetting change in the organization or discussing things that council has been working on or to ask for feedback on ideas that they can take back to their respective departments for feedback then bring back to the committee. It's a way of communicating throughout all of the staff rather than things being applied top-down."

Genung says he doesn't like to whisper around issues and rather address them before they boil over.

"I'd like to shine a light on some of these issues and air them out and talk about it and try to make changes to solve some of these problems. The root of most issues is communications, so if we need to open a better communication line or change the way of communicating then we'll do it."