By Pepper Parr
April 17th, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
If you haven’t submitted your application for the job of Burlington’s next city manager – you’ve missed out on the chance to pull in close to a quarter of a million each year + a great pension + a pretty easy work schedule.
Applications closed yesterday afternoon.
The Gazette did a story on the process the city was using to hire the next city manager; a number of our readers had comments from those who looked askance at the process the city appears to be using to hire the next city manager.
It’s a lonely job at times. Interim city manager Tim Commisso
The current interim city manager, Tim Commisso who uses the city manager’s office and uses the city manager’s seat at council meetings – made it clear when he was hired that this was a short term assignment.
It didn’t look that way for a bit. Commisso took to using the title Acting City Manager and during the budget deliberations talked in terms of revising the way reserve funds were being looked at and deployed.
When Mayor Marianne Meed Ward did what in the municipal world was unthinkable – raided some of the reserve accounts to ensure that she came in with a budget that was under a 3% increase over the previous year, Commisso said that in future the finance department would group the reserve funds into a “portfolio” of reserves.
Not a bad idea but not something that gets done in a couple of months. Why was Commisso talking about a very significant and strategically important approach to finance when he has just a few months in his short term contract?
When the Gazette first published a piece on the city manager job posting and asking when the public was going to be brought into the picture we got a notice from the Mayor’s office that there would be a media release issued “shortly”.
That shortly turned out to be the same day – the city issued a statement and included a link to the job posting with a Human Resources recruiting operation that was some distance from a first tier operation had posted.
The Gazette got the information on the 12th for a job posting that was to close on the 16th.
There were a number of things about the statements made and the information released that raised more than an eyebrow and prompted some questions:
Why did it take so long to tell the public what was being done? This Mayor prides herself on being open, transparent and accountable.
When was the job first posted by the head hunters who were given the assignment ?
The whole process that appears to have been used just doesn’t feel all that right.
The Gazette did reach out to the Mayor a day before we wrote the article asking where things were with the hiring of the new city manager – we didn’t get a reply.
Hopefully, whoever the city eventually hires will tighten up the way things get done at 426 Brant Street.
Related news stories.
When was a new city manager going to be hired?
The job posting was to close five days after the public learned about the job,
So you must be writing your conspiracy theorist articlehe from the grassy knoll near City Hall. Is not the City Manager not in the same position as the clerk of the Privy Council ? I.E. he carries out the will of council. He does not drive policy. Maybe the Mayor or Council asked him to begin the implementation of a plan that would continue to be implemented after his short term has expired
If he was to change his mind and throw his hat in the ring for the permanent position, is that necessarily bad thing?
Stop prejudging, and let the process play out, then comment !