By Pepper Parr
October 8th, 2023
BURLINGTON, ON
The Tim Commisso story –
On September 18th, City Manager Tim Commisso said at the opening of a city Council Workshop :
Tim Commisso during a Standing Committee meeting in September
“It’s about how precious land is in this community for making things happen. The Burlington Land Partnership was a bit of an experiment, but I think it’s held its own and we are going to be looking coming back to council to say, you know, this model isn’t necessarily right for us now, but we do think it’s time to really put some, ideally permanent funding in place.
“It is not a Municipal Development Corporation. And I want to really be clear about that, because it doesn’t have the same structure and all of that.
“So today what you’re going to see is the work that’s been done.”
He tells Council that sometime in November they will be presented with a prioritized list of the properties the city might want to look at.
He is still very much in the game
Commisso also said “community engagement is our priority”
During the September 18th Workshop Tim Commisso was all in: he was in philosophically, intellectually and emotionally committed. This was work he believed was vital if Burlington was going to manage the huge population growth it was required to accept and had committed to carrying out.
On September 28th, ten days later, the city announced that Tim Commisso’s salary was to be increased from $252,486.00 to $315,499.00 effective September 10th.
The salary increase would have been discussed at some length. We are not sure if Commisso had an agent that negotiated the increase or if he was simply told that his salary was now going to be $315,495,00 – when it was $252,486.00
It is hard to imagine that Commisso would have accepted the increase and then 24 days later (October 3rd),decide he no longer wanted to be the City Manager.
Something happened between the salary increase and the announcement that he no longer wanted to be City Manager.
The public tax money pays these people and they have a right to know why.
We believe that on October 3rd, Commisso informed the Mayor that he was not going to seek a renewal of his contract.
We believe that on October 4th Commisso informed Council members, in a CLOSED session, that he was not going to seek a renewal of his contract.
Included in the Addendum of the Agenda for the October 4th Environmental Infrastructure and Community Services Standing Committee meeting that had both a long list of items that were to be discussed in a CLOSED session and an Addendum to the Agenda with the following:
Confidential verbal update regarding an HR matter.
Note: this item was added to the agenda on October 3, 2023 and requires a 2/3 vote of Council to waive section 36.2 of the Procedure By-law
Pursuant to Section 239(2)(a) of the Municipal Act, personal matters about an identifiable individual, including municipal or local board employees.
While there is no one at City hall who can or is prepared to comment on this item it now appears that this was the occasion when Tim Commisso would have informed the members of Council of his intention to not seek a renewal of his five year contract.
While we are not certain that Commisso was the “identifiable individual” that is our belief.
Kwab Ako-Adjei
The “identifiable person” may have been Kwab Ako-Adjei: Director, Corporate Communications & Engagement There could have been two people on the Agenda – both Commisso and Kwab Ako-Adjei
We were advised by a reliable source that the email address we had for Kwab Ako-Adjei: Director, Corporate Communications & Engagement was no longer valid. We tested it and found tat it was no longer valid
When we asked two councillors and two city staff people for comment on whether or not Kwab was still with the city there was no response.
We had also picked up a news tip about a whistle blower who wanted to make comments he could support about the Director of Communications and Engagement.
We suspect there is a connection between the status of the Director of Communications and the notice Commisso gave Councillors during the closed session.
On October 6th Commisso announces a desire to be closer to family in Thunder Bay. Commisso recently purchased and moved into a condominium in Burlington.
Tim Commisso does not tends to make hasty decisions. He considers the options and consults with others widely.
After accepting the salary increase on September 10th, why did he then decide he wanted to get out of the municipal administrative management business on October 3rd – three weeks later?
It would appear that Commisso had made up his mind to move on and that he was doing the responsible thing, – which is very much in character for Commisso, and giving Council four months’ notice.
What is troubling, and very reflective of the view Commisso has of transparency and engagement; he doesn’t walk the talk.
He has on a number of occasions said that his experience as the City Manager for Burlington has been the most meaningful for him in his 42 years of experience is as a municipal bureaucrat.
That is not something he could say about his 12 years as the City Manager in Thunder Bay, but that is another story the Gazette has not yet had an opportunity to finish researching and then telling.
Had Commisso chosen to use the city channels of communication or use his own Facebook page to speak directly to the citizens of the city he could have, in less than five minutes, let the public see and experience their City Manager talking to them – which is what engagement is all about
That unfortunately is not his style.
Mayor Marianne Meed Ward
Tim Commisso is leaving as city manager under his own steam and a time table that gives City Council the time it will need to find a replacement. Kwab Ako-Adjei: appears to have already left, just not under his own steam.
The timeline suggests that the public does not have the full story and given the way both this Council and the City manager view transparency and accountability we may never know what really happened.
What we do know is that Mayor Meed Ward now has Strong Mayor powers and she can hire whoever she wants; she can move staff around, bring new people in or send others on to a life of retirement.
Stand By for the follow up
Not surprised that the Director of Corporate Communications and Engagement has gone. What does surprise us is that the Clerk remains securely in his position. We have not been quiet with regard to the decimation of public access to Burlington Committee and Council minutes and videos, previously available through a public data base back to June 2009.
Until a few months prior to the 2022 election researching on the public data base for any Burlington council or committee meeting discussion that had taken place back to June 2009 was available. Videos were also available at least back to 2014 that we know of. Such access is protected by legislation and is a key requirement of the required engagement of elected councils with taxpayers. Engagement is in the now missing Director’s title for goodness sake.
The Clerk who is responsible for the safe keeping and availability of council and its standing committee records has known since prior to the 2022 election that the commitment that is made to the public on the current Agenda is simply not true. June, 2016 – January 2018 the calendar for each month remains as blank as it did on the first day we raised this with the Clerk prior to the 2022 election. There is no access to minutes etc. via this page until January 2018 and trying to get what you want through the Clerk’s office is almost impossible.
June, 2016 – January 2018 the calendar for each month remains as blank as it did on the first day we raised this with the Clerk prior to the 2022 election. There is no access to minutes etc. via this page until January 2018 and trying to get what you want through the Clerk’s office is almost impossible. Until a few months prior to the 2022 election researching on the public data base for any Burlington council or committee meeting discussion that had taken place back to June 2009 was available. Videos were also available at least back to 2014 that we know of. Such access is protected by legislation and is a key requirement of the required engagement of elected councils with taxpayers. Engagement is in the now missing Director’s title for goodness sake.
We believe our tenacity in trying to return our council and committee decision making history to the public, is what began the diverting of all our emails to the Clerk’s Office. There is nothing else that we know of that would attract such negative attention. Our recent effort to get information to Tim Commisso and a Committee Clerk while successful left us in a very difficult position. We were told by the Clerk our actions were not welcome and to stop.
We did so, but now have to tolerate once again the fact that our delegation registrations are only likely to produce a registration if the person receiving our emails in the Clerk’s Office or the person who authorized the diversion of our emails wishes us to speak on that item.
Why our City Manager has tolerated this state of affairs, he has certainly known about for the past 15 months is beyond comprehension.