Cambridge Bay (Oct 09/06) - Cambridge Bay is without a senior administrative officer and is seeking government assistance in managing its affairs.

Council fired SAO Mark Calliou following a special meeting on Sept. 27.

"It was a personnel matter, so I can't answer many questions," said Mayor Michelle Gillis.

Six of the eight members of the Cambridge Bay hamlet council attended the meeting, and all voted for the motion to dismiss Calliou.

"A motion to terminate the employment of SAO Mark Calliou with cause effective immediately," was the wording of the motion that ended Calliou's tumultuous term as the chief administrator.

Three other motions came out of that special meeting.

The council met in secret to debate the motions, and emerged to vote publicly.

They moved to "enter into a memorandum of understanding with community and government services for voluntary supervision," as well as authorizing the human resources committee to hire an interim SAO.

That committee eventually chose Denise Ohokak as the interim SAO. She was acting SAO when Calliou went on vacation this summer.

Finally, council moved to have the acting SAO call a staff meeting at 10 a.m. the day after the meeting.

Ohokak held that meeting, and Mayor Michelle Gillis attended.

Calliou was under fire from the volunteer firefighters in his hamlet since early in 2006.

Chief Keith Morrison and most of his department walked off the job on Sept. 6, citing Calliou as the major reason.

"In our view, he (Calliou) was the only problem. We have good relations with the other hamlet staff," said Morrison at the time.

Will the former firefighters return? That is still up in the air.

"I've talked with the mayor. Right now I'm assisting the department. There is a council meeting coming and it will be discussed there," said Morrison. "Everyone is still waiting to see what is going on, but things are better now that the main problem isn't there."

Peter Laube - the fire chief prior to Morrison - also blamed Calliou for his decision to quit.

"With this SAO, things are getting out of hand. He's trying to tell us how to perform our jobs, and is ignoring the fire marshall," said Laube at the time of his March 2006 resignation.

Calliou could not be reached for comment for this story.

He was out of the community when he was dismissed, and hasn't been seen in Cambridge Bay since.