By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON September 12, 2011 – The city is without a City Manager. The task is being done on a rotating basis by the three General Managers with Scott Stewart, GM for Community Services doing duty in September and October, Kim Phillips, GM, Corporate Services will take the helm for November and December and if Roy Male, Director of Human Resources is right – the city should have a new City Manger hired by the end of the year. “We want to have the new city manager in place within 90 days” is the way Male see this happening.
Steve Zorbas, Acting General Manager for Development and Infrastructure has handled the city manager job on a few occasions while others were on vacation.
Burlington has not had that many City Managers – “Just four” advises Male who will oversee parts of the hiring of a new city manager but the bulk of the work on that assignment will get done by the Executive Search firm the city hires.
There is a lot of work to get done before the job is opened up to a competition that will see city council actually make the decision. Male advises that there will be two sets of interviews – the first at which all those who meet the criteria and are recommended by the search group and then those who make the short list.
The rules of the game are that Council members have to attend all the interviews. If for some reason a council member misses an interview then they have to drop out of the interviewing process. So every council member is going to have to find time on a busy schedule to interview what could amount to perhaps as many as a dozen candidates.
So, if your Council member takes a little longer to get back to you on a problem – you know what they are up to – hiring.
Roy Male runs the Human Resources department for the city. He hopes to see the new city manager in place before the end of the year. Male has been with the city during the reign of the four city managers the city has employed
Burlington has a solid reputation within the municipal industry and the job pays well – in excess of $200,000 annually. The city has a lot to offer and at least one very senior staff member intends to be one of the candidates applying for the job says the city is going into a very exciting phase. And indeed Burlington is about to clear a number of significant hurdles.
We will have a contract signed with a contractor to complete the construction of the Brant Street Pier. The Strategic Plan will be in place. We will be well on our way to working through just what it is the city wants in the way of a transit service.
We will have the “community engagement” staffer in place soon – this is the person that was recommended in the Shape Burlington report to help citizens engage with city hall. The Burlington Performing Arts Centre will have part of a season under its belt and they will begin to get a sense of how the community is going to take the place.
Not quite sure what the city is going to do if all those problems are put behind us.
Roman Martiuk left the job of city manager before the end of his five year contract and at the time it wasn’t all that clear just why he left. Martiuk said he “stepped aside” – probably the right thing to do when he realized his contract wasn’t going to be renewed. There was a rather unfortunate social event for Martiuk at which some of his comments were not taken very well by many of those who attended. Martiuk chose that occasion to make comments that didn’t need to be heard about the people he had worked with for the past four years. Sometimes it takes a little stress to being out the true colour of a personality.
The process of selecting the new city manager starts with a profile of the job and the kind of person the city needs to get the job done. That profile is created by council with input from the senior staff and, according to Roy Male, some of the Team Burlington people as well as some community leaders who will be asked to sit in on the creating of the profile.
Team Burlington is a collection of organizations that develop and promote the city. Tourism, Economic Develop are part of the Team.
This profile is a critical part of the process – it sets out just what the city wants their new city manager to do. Maybe the document should be made public – see if there is agreement from the people that pay for this high priced piece of talent as to just what the job entails.
Roman Martiuk had a very short term with the city. He chose to step aside when it was clear to him that his five year contract would not be renewed. . Tim Dobbie, a former city manager has had a street named after him. Will we see a Martiuk Street?
Martiuk was quite candid in an interview when he said he wasn’t all that keen in city engagement and he had major problems with the significant shortfall in infrastructure funding – meaning that we didn’t have the money to pay for the road repairs that have to be done.
It will be interesting to see how council decides to work with the community on how it goes about defining the profile for the job. That’s probably a more important document than the Strategic Plan.
Burlington has about 1600 people on the payroll with a significant number working part time. There are 850+ working full time. The city has a number of senior level committees in place with the three general managers and 17 Directors running the departments that keep the city going day in and day out.
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