By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON. December 29, 2012 With city hall shut down for the holidays, the city manager off on a much deserved vacation and the Mayor in Los Vegas with friends, things are in the hands of General Manager Scott Stewart and Deputy Mayor Marianne Meed Ward – which means we are OK – right?
City Manager Jeff Fielding talked with Our Burlington about his first full year on the job; what he felt he got done and what he thinks about the city he now calls home.
“Some of the friendliest people I’ve ever worked with” was the best way Fielding could put it. He just loves the place and the people he works with; is it all perfect? Not by a long shot but being in Burlington is a lot healthier than London where the Mayor there is facing criminal charges for the misuse of federal funds.
City manager Jeff Fielding always starts his conversations with a smile – but don’t let that lead you to believing he is a push-over. This man wants and expects data that supports the recommendations staff brings him.
Fielding brought a lot of new ideas to the city when he left London, Ontario just over a year ago. His view is that the tax payers are customers and they deserve to be treated as people who pay taxes in return for services. Fielding uses the phrase: “make the business case”, by which he means he wants to give city council the upside and the downside impact on any decisions they make based on recommendations the administration puts forward.
He also focused almost immediately on upgrading the skills of his senior staff members. It was back to the classroom for many of them as he introduced new approaches to running the city. That idea didn’t go down all that well with at least one council member who wanted to reduce the $80,000 Fielding was asking for to pay for this training. Meed Ward wanted to reduce that amount to $50,000 – she lost that one.
When asked what he’d gotten done in that first year, Fielding went through a list that included a Memorandum of Understanding in place with the hospital; the construction of the pier under control, an agreement in place with the Seniors and the King Road underpass close to completion. Burlington didn’t have all that much to do with the King Road underpass; the problems with the city portion of the hospital funding were resolved for the most part before Fielding arrived and General Manager Scott Stewart stick handled the problems with the pier.
When city manager Jeff Fielding showed up at the Senior’s Centre to talk about the new Memorandum of Understanding that would have to be put in place the seniors must have thought he had a bag of cash for them. Turns out he did have a lot of money for the group and here Joe Lamb, on the left, is explaining to Fielding just how grateful the seniors were
Fielding did take on the problems with the seniors and in the process gave them everything but the kitchen sink. We are advised that Fielding was a large part of the BEDC decision to name Pat Paletta the entrepreneur of the Year. The rationale apparently was to put out an olive branch to the Paletta’s and hope they would be a little less aggressive with the city on how their very significant property holdings are developed.
Developers and olive branches are words that don`t go together all that well in Burlington. Ken Greenberg, a noted Toronto based community planner, spoke at one of the Mayor`s Inspire series and pointed out how some developers are working well with municipalities and working towards a common goal – that approach hasn’t reached Burlington yet.
Fielding points out that Burlington might well have negative assessment growth in 2015 unless something is done to improve the growth on the Industrial and Commercial side. Tax assessment is the amount of money the city pulls in from tax payers. Those funds pay for the services the city delivers. As it is it looks as if assessment growth for 2013 will be less than 1% – .87 appears to be the number the finance people are looking at.
City manager Jeff Fielding brings a significantly different approach to the managing of the city. Business case studies and performance measurements are tools he believes make for better decisions.
“Developers can sell anything residential they build in Burlington” said Fielding. Getting them to make their lands more available for industrial and commercial development is another matter.. The thought that giving Pat Paletta an award will make a difference is either pure naiveté or a complete misunderstanding of the way developers operate. It will be interesting to see how the presentation of the Entrepreneur of the Year Award events works out and what the video usually done for the event has to say about what the Paletta’s have done for the city. Will it be the Mother of all snow jobs or a fair and balanced look at what the Paletta’s have done?
Tickets for that event can be had at the BEDC office. The web site over there hasn’t been updated yet to reflect Jackie Isada’s departure to serve as the Mayor’s Chief of Staff or the announcement of the Paletta Award – they will get to that task in their own time and in their own way.
Fielding will tell you that the city has a big agenda. The budget is not going to be a cake walk. The Mayor wants to keep the increase at not more than 2.5% – which is going to be a stretch; we are probably looking at something closer to 4% unless council learns how to say no to some of the plans on the table.
Fielding for his part is focusing on performance measurement. He wants to be able to give council data that sets out what the public is getting for the tax money they send to city hall. “If we can measure the performance of each tax dollar we spend it is much easier to decide where to spend the dollars we have” explains Fielding.
Getting into “performance measurement” and “making the business case” for everything they do is a significant shift in the culture that has prevailed at city hall. Fielding sees 2013 as a “set up year” during which he does his best to shift the culture to one that embraces the changes he thinks are vital.
Between the two of the them, city manager Jeff Fielding, on the right and city general manager Scott Stewart are bringing about a change in the culture of city hall.
He is also restructuring the list of services the city provides and putting each of them through a business case and expects to engage a consultant to work with senior staff in looking at everything the city does and asking: is this something we should be doing and how many tax dollars do we use to deliver the service and is that good value for the money we spend.
The biggest surprise for Fielding was the very positive attitude at city hall. While he saw some changes that had to be made in the culture – he was very impressed with the attitude and the positive approach staff brought to work. It appears all they needed was leadership – and that’s something they are certainly getting from Jeff Fielding.
We asked Fielding what the biggest disappoints were. THE biggest was that he doesn’t have a house to live in yet. Selling the home he and his wife and their children had in London took much longer than expected and by the time that was done they were into an apartment and have decided to stay there until the spring. Fielding likes the “bird land” part of Aldershot.
Right now he can walk to work in less than five minutes and he finds that he passes people on the street and gets a smile. Fielding and his wife Tara are getting to know the city and just love everything they see and experience. A large part of that is the attitude he brings to what he does; he is positive in his approach and looks for the best in people believing that everyone can grow and improve.
This trio, from the left, city manager Jeff Fielding and General Managers Kim Phillips and Scott Stewart ensure that the city gets run smoothly and the services are delivered.
There have been some significant changes in the upper tier organization of city hall. While Council had some reservations over the change Fielding put forward when the city moved from a three General Managers model to just two and ended up with a lot more on his plate than any previous city manager has taken on in the past – he rationalizes and says that it is for a relatively short period of time.
Fielding has taken on a lot of the files that were with one of the General Managers: Finance, Legal and IT – all critical files for the city, are now run from the desk of the city manager. General Manager Scott Stewart didn’t get a raise in pay but he did get a new title and is now clearly the strongest of the General Managers with responsibility for the files that need tough, direct and immediate action.
City hall watchers are seeing a city manager who can be very blunt and direct when a situation calls for some discipline. He once blurted out to council that they had to “do your jobs”, which stunned a couple of the council members and delighted those that watched the council session on the web cast.
The measure of a person’s performance is often seen in how they are treated by their peers. Fielding was called back to London recently to be awarded the first ever award given by the Local Government Alumni Society at Western University to a civil servant for excellence in his field.
“The Local Government Program Alumni Society is one of Western’s most influential and active alumni groups. The establishment of an award of excellence for both alumni and non-alumni is another example of their leadership in recognizing and honouring great public service throughout Canada”, said Josh Morgan, Recruitment and Development Officer, Western University.
Fielding knows that council is going to have to learn to say “no” to some of the requests that come forward. The city recently agreed to forgive the $44,000 + that the Burlington Humane Society owed in taxes and went along with an $85,000 grant to Community Development Halton for some “community building”.
He also finds himself as perhaps the strongest proponent for an Engagement Charter – which city council all but walked away from when the Engagement Charter team made their presentation. Fielding was not prepared to see council shelve the document and he asked that it be deferred to a council governance committee meeting which will take place sometime in the New Year. “Council needs to learn what they’ve been given by the Charter Team” he said. “There is no turning back now but everyone does need some time to think”
While serving as the city manager in London, Ontario Jeff Fielding took part in community events. Here Fielding gets his toe nails painted.
And that just about sums up what Burlington has in the way of a city manager. A very decent man; someone who understands the fiscal situation the city faces and believes he knows what has to be done to deal with what has to be managed.
A man who believes he has a very good staff and is prepared to argue for the resources to upgrade their skills to meet the new reality of a city that must intensify residential development and gets its employment lands to the point where they can be part of the job creation the city also needs.
Jeff Fielding sees 2013 as the year in which he gets things set up so that the changes we are already into can be managed properly. “When we are into 2014 we are looking at a municipal election and the game changes then”, said Fielding.
Indeed it will.
