The seven people elected to Estevan city council are voted to those positions to make the tough decisions when they come up.
Council clearly encountered one of those tough decisions after it was announced last week that Jim Puffalt had been removed from his position as city manager.
Puffalt had spent 12 years in the role as the top administrator for the City's management team. He was directly involved in all facets of City operations and the various projects that are currently on the go.
As such, it likely was not easy to dismiss Puffalt, especially with Estevan facing a number of challenges at the moment. There are also some serious financial implications and we are hopeful that, in the interest of transparency, council will come forward with just how much Puffalt's ouster will cost taxpayers.
However, those two factors aside, council made a tough decision that also appears to be the correct one.
It is not news to anyone who's lived in Estevan over the past few years that there is a significant level of dissatisfaction with how the City goes about its business.
For everything they do well - which is actually much more than people give them credit for - the City does a number of other things that often leave many angry or, at the very least scratching their head in wonder.
Lately, the hot button issues have been the shape of our roads or garbage collection. However, the City's financial picture and that so many projects are behind schedule or never seem to be completed are also matters of concern.
Whatever their gripe, the public's dissatisfaction with how the City is operating is souring their overall opinion of Estevan, something that is especially troubling.
For many in this community Puffalt was the face of those issues. And although the members of council each had their own reasons for voting to dismiss Puffalt, it was painfully clear that if the City was to move forward and begin repairing its reputation, a change at the top was needed.
It is patently unfair to blame everything on one person and that is certainly not the intention here. Puffalt deserves credit for his work in helping Affinity Place become a reality and he was directly involved with negotiations that led to cities such as Estevan receiving significantly more operating grant money from the provincial government. His list of accomplishments is much longer than his detractors would ever give him credit for
However as city manager, the proverbial buck stopped directly at his door and when council went looking for a much-needed change of direction, it was Puffalt who found himself on the way out.
In making this move, council has now left themselves with another tough decision to make. The choice of who will replace Puffalt is a major one for the future of Estevan.
Mayor Roy Ludwig said that one important qualification will be experience. That will certainly be an asset but council should also be on the lookout for a progressive thinker who comes from a community which has dealt with, successfully we might add, the challenges of rapid growth.
As we've seen, it is a tough job in a community which can be tough on its civic officials. There will be a thirst to fill the job as soon as possible but council needs to take time to find someone up to the challenge. Needless to say, there is a lot riding on the decision.
