Times have changed since City of Grand Forks chief administrative officer (CAO) Lynne Burch first started working at Grand Forks City Hall in 1987.
Born in Nelson, Burch moved to Grand Forks in 1980 with her husband Jim, when he received a career opportunity and purchased an accounting practice in the city.
At the time, Burch was raising her two children and wasn’t working. In 1983, Burch went back to work at the chamber of commerce once her children entered school.
In 1987, she became the administrative assistant in the reception area at city hall.
As an administrative assistant, Burch pointed out that they are the first contact with the public.
“You get to know the taxpayers and you get to know the issues that you need to solve for them,” she said. “In my own mind I’ve always been a problem-solver, so I enjoyed that part of it because I had contact with the public.”
During her time at city hall, Burch worked closely alongside the then deputy clerk Jean Davis, completing administrative work for the clerk and familiarizing herself with the process.
In the summer of 1990, she was appointed to, as what was then called, the deputy clerk, which is now the corporate officer’s role.
“When she got sick, somebody had to step in there right away,” Burch said. “The interesting thing is that I was appointed to the position on a temporary basis on Monday morning at 10 o’clock and I went to my first council meeting and took all the minutes that same evening. It’s not normal to throw a new person into the job into that role without some sort of training or experience.”
The temporary position as deputy clerk became a permanent appointment after five months. In 1992, when the administrator (clerk/treasurer) Walter Slater for the city left, Burch became the acting clerk, and in the fall of 1993, she was appointed the position of city clerk, which she held until 2009 before becoming the CAO.
“I have acted as the CAO role off and on as different CAOs would come and go in the interim from three to five months, so I knew what I was getting into,” she explained, noting that the managers were already part of her management team and they had been her colleagues for years. “It was an easy adjustment to make.”
However, Burch pointed out that things are very different from back then.
“The way we did things in ’87 is so different from the way we do things today,” she chuckled. “We had a cash register at the time, and we only took cash or cheques – there were no credit cards or debit cards, so you got used to handling enormous amounts of cash, which we don’t do anymore.”
Since Burch first started, she pointed out that the typical day-to-day items haven’t changed.
“You still get the odd complaints about garbage pick up, and no body likes increases in water and sewer rates, but those are the typical complaints,” she said. “This is a small town and my philosophy has always been politics is politics, and at the end of the day I’m here to work for the community. While the elected officials are in charge, on a day-to-day basis I have to find solutions for our taxpayers.”
Otherwise, it has gotten more complicated because life has become more complicated than before.
“The legislation is more permissive than it used to be, which allows us to make more decisions, but it also creates more challenges for us,” she noted.
Through the 25 years of working with the city, what Burch will take away with her are the people she has worked with at the city.
There are also the multiple projects that Burch has undertaken and will continue to be proud of, including: the development of the sewage treatment plants, upgrades to the city’s water and sewer system, and the upgrades to the city parks.
She recalled how the city was also able to acquire the courthouse from the province when they were going to dispose of it. The courthouse became Gallery 2, the Grand Forks and District Art and Heritage Centre.
“It’s now a community asset, rather than an unutilized building,” Burch said. “The project I’m most proud of, simply because it’s the only capital project I ever managed, was the construction of the skateboard park by the Grand Forks Aquatic Centre.”
Burch remembers meeting up some young teenage boys and learning about things, such as cement finishes, that she would have otherwise would not have learned.
“I learned about things like bowls and rails and half pipes, and all those kinds of things that I wouldn’t have learned otherwise,” she laughed. “And no, I was never courageous enough to ride on those things with a skateboard.”
It was during a rainy Saturday morning, when she and some of the teenagers spent the day pounding fence posts into the ground for temporary fencing of the site, that she will always remember.
“I’m very proud of that project because there were community contractors that donated their time and did all the earth work for us,” Burch said. “At the end of the day, we completed the project under budget. It wasn’t by much, but it was still under budget. I still see that it’s very well utilized and I think we all learned to accept that it was there.”
She noted that while there are always some small issues every so often, the children in the community continue to enjoy using the skateboard park.
“For a small community like ours, I think we’ve come a long way,” she said. “In 115 years, we’ve done quite a bit. It’s nice to have ended my career like that and I’m grateful for that. The taxpayers are a great group of people to work with.”
As for the future of Grand Forks, Burch believes that there are plenty of opportunities for growth in the city.
“We have a huge task ahead of us in updating our infrastructure, but as long as we can manage those things as we go forward, it can be done,” she said. “There are lots of flat land in the valley and much of it the city owns. Grand Forks is the best-kept secret there is and I think that one of these days we’ll be discovered.”
With ample outdoor recreation possibilities, beautiful walkways, parks and two rivers, the city is a wonderful place to live and raise a family, Burch added.
“When I first came here, I had never lived in a town this small but this is home now and I wouldn’t live anywhere else,” she said.
Burch plans to travel for some time and go on a holiday, but more than that, she hopes to spend more time with her family and six grandchildren.
“I’m just going to go have some fun,” she chuckled. Her last day at City Hall is on Nov. 1.