By Pepper Parr
April 21, 2014.
BURLINGTON, ON.
Sometime on Tuesday Mayor Rick Goldring will announce the name of the interim city manager who will take over from current city manager Jeff Fielding who has taken up a job in Calgary.
The decision was made last Tuesday in a CLOSED session of a Standing Committee meeting. Unfortunately there was a glitch in the taping of the meeting. The web cast of the portion of the meeting that covered events after Council came out of closed session did not have any audio attached to it.
Ensuring that the web caster is in place before a meeting actually resumes would have helped. City Clerk Angela Morgan seemed to have some difficulty controlling the meeting which resulted in people talking without being properly recorded.
Council was in closed session for close to an hour and a half and we now know that they made a decision to hire an interim city manager who will start May 1. Jeff Fielding, who has been in Calgary a few times since the announcement of his resignation, will be away for all of the week of the 21st. He completes his time with the city on May 16th and starts in Calgary June 1.
The Mayor will announce who the interim city manager is to be on Tuesday. We do know that the person will not be a current city employee and we are told he is not from Hamilton. Most of the sources we talked to were pretty tight lipped on Sunday and Monday.
Before Jeff Fielding, on the left, was hired as city manager General Mangers Kim Phillips and Scott Stewart shared the role of acting city manager for several months. That’s not the route council is taking this time around. Council has decided to bring in an outsider on an interim basis. There are some noses out of joint over this decision. Councillor Craven voted against the decision.
Council members are putting a brave face on the situation and saying “off the record” that staff has everything well in hand and that the city manager isn’t needed at this stage. And if you believe that – there is a bridge in Brooklyn I can get you a very good deal on.
City staff is going to have to now undergo the third significant cultural change since this Council took office. The city parted ways with Roman Martiuk in July of 2011 and brought in Jeff Fielding in December and gave him a five year contract that came to an end 26 months later.
Every leader brings in a style, a culture and a way of doing things that is unique to them. Martiuk would not allow his general managers to hold meetings without his being in the room. Fielding was much more open and encouraged his staff to look at things differently.
He also brought a new approach to the way the city is going to develop its budget with the focus on Results Based Accountability, Business Process Management and Service Based Budgeting. There is no rocket science to these approaches but they are significantly different than what has been done in the past and the staff implementing these changes need direction and guidance until everything is in place and the knots worked out.
Burlington’s 2015 budget process is going to be something to watch.
The discussion during the CLOSED session of the Standing Committee decided on who was to be hired – there apparently wasn’t any time to actually interview at any length. Former city manager Tim Dobbie, who is part of the Mayor’s re-election campaign, is believed to have been one of the advisers to Council.
The vote to hire the interim city manager was not unanimous. Councillor Craven voted against the decision Council had made and apparently asked that the vote be identified. Recorded votes are not taken at Standing Committee but Councillor Craven wanted his vote on the record.
Councillor Sharman spoke for a minute or two at the end of the meeting but his voice was not captured – so we do not know what he had to say.
There is awkwardness to the way the hiring on an interim city manager is being handled. Council are still reeling from the decision and are, it is reported, none too happy with their city manager being in Calgary at this point in time.
Few believe Fielding left Burlington for an annual salary increase of $65,000 Did he leave just because there was a better opportunity? After just 26 months in the job? There is a reason for all this and in time it will all come out.
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