Edited sentence: 5% increase when the regular salary negotiation meetings were held, even though all signs were pointing to an improvement in the Alberta economy.A popular ex-city-councillor who had been hired to manage local relations was fired, which further raised the ire of local citizens.Amidst continuing announcements of financial hard times that do not allow it to pay its employees a fair wage, the university continues to expand its infrastructure and maintain  ambitious plans.An additional controversy is that the neighbours to the south of the U of A have been  exceptionally vocal about the threat of the university unilaterally deciding to build a major recreation centre that will interfere with local traffic and the neighborhood as a whole.At the same time, the Canadian Association of University Teachers is investigating the U of A for the first time in its history, for alleged mishandling of tenure decisions in the Faculty of Medicine.But at the same time, an announcement was made that they would be recruiting a new relations-manager to work globally and establish ties with China, presumably at the expense of the goodwill of local taxpayers.Faculty workloads and expectations were not reduced according to the number of days taken; there was an expectation that faculty complete the same amount of work in unpaid time.In the 2010-11 academic year, relations between faculty and the Board of Governors were considerably strained in light of the Board of Governors' failure to recognize the sacrifice made by faculty and support staff when they agreed to take furlough days to assist the university with funding pressures.Senior faculty report that morale is at an all time low and there is a possibility that faculty will attempt to unionize.Shortly before this agreement was made, it became public that the President was earning the highest income of any university president in Canada and that the Board of Governors purchased a million-dollar house for her.Subsequent to the agreement, the Board of Governors refused to offer faculty more than a.The issue was exacerbated  when Chris Cheeseman, head of HR, published a letter in the Edmonton Journal implying that the faculty had already received a 2.3% increase in the 2001-11 year, when in fact, this 2.3% was simply a restoration of the regular faculty-negotiated salaries after the furlough days.The matter is proceeding to arbitration.The university's stated reason for letting Michael Phair go was that the university needed to save money