By Pepper Parr
April 16th, 2015
BURLINGTON, ON
We don’t get it right all the time – and when we get it wrong we let you know as soon as we can.
Last week we published comments on the resignation of Bruce Zvaniga. Bruce; the Director of Transportation had sent out a note announcing his decision to leave Burlington. There was no referenced as to where he was going – and he was leaving on relatively short notice.
It was the weekend – we couldn’t reach Bruce. We talked to two sources – both were surprised.
We ran with the story on the Monday. Where we erred, and we have apologized to Bruce, was in not calling him on the Monday for comment.
Later in the week we picked up comments from others who found the departure to be sudden.
At the end of the week we ran the story Bruce sent us a note. It follows:
The material on this blog of yours reminds me of the old adage, “Don’t believe everything you hear, don’t believe everything you read and only believe half of what you see.”
I’m deeply disappointed that you didn’t have the journalistic integrity to even speak to me about this article. Your speculation is wrong.
Spreading this type of negativity does a disservice to the people of this great City and those who have the honour to serve it. In the future, I urge you to report factually, honestly and objectively. In so doing, you will be of value to this community.
Bruce Zvaniga – heading for Halifax – they’ll love him
I arranged to apologize to Bruce and had a good conversation with him and learned that when he resigned he wasn’t certain as to where he was going to go. He explained that he was at that point in his life where he wanted some adventure. The kids were grown up and he and his wife wanted to do something different.
There was a private sector opportunity Bruce was exploring as well as an opportunity in the same field with another municipality. Bruce was not able to say which municipality. Later in the day he sent me a copy of the media release announcing his new job and his new home.
Halifax release
Following a national search, I’m very pleased to announce that Bruce Zvaniga has accepted the position of Director, Transportation & Public Works for the Halifax Regional Municipality effective May 11, 2015.
With a career in transportation services spanning 30 years, and experience leading transformational change, Bruce will play a critical role in delivering on the municipality’s renewed commitment to better connect roles to results. As part of the recent realignment of key operations business units, Transportation & Public Works now has more business accountability for the movement of people and goods and asset stewardship of all roadway infrastructure and traffic control.
Bruce has led many innovative transportation projects and initiatives in Ontario, most recently as the Director of Transportation Services Department for the City of Burlington. While working for the City of Toronto, he held various leadership roles including Acting Director of the Traffic Management Centre and Manager of Urban Traffic Control Systems.
A graduate of the University of Waterloo, Bruce holds a degree in Civil Engineering, specializing in transportation engineering. He is a fellow of the Institute of Transportation Engineers and has served on the boards of the Intelligent Transportation Systems Canada (Vice Chairman) and the Transportation Research Board.
We’re looking forward to welcoming Bruce to the team in the coming weeks and working with him to continue moving the dial on two primary goals: providing better recommendations to Council and delivering better outcomes for residents of Halifax.
During my “apology” discussion with Bruce he quickly moved on to what was getting done in Burlington and assured me that we are close to having some high tech parking meters of the city.
Bruce was a delight to work with – he seldom avoided answering a question and he knew how to pull my chain when it needed pulling.
This guy’s support for resisting the niagara highway has cost this region tens of millions in terms of economic stimulus and development; go retire east coast style on the simple servant retirement plan. Should have been fired long time ago. Who is next to go at this city hall?
Who cares. The guy is a career civil servant. He has no right to get so sensitive about his job serving the people, and expect an apology? Apologize to a civil servant? Why? Out with one civil servant who is replaceable, in with another civil servant.
It still takes me a half hour to get from one end of the city to the other. Why do we have any parking meters in this city? What is a high tech parking meter? Sounds expensive and even more expensive to fix.
It’s interesting to note that Bruce Zvaniga referred to the Burlington Gazette as “this blog of yours”, a somewhat condescending remark. It appears that Mr. Zvaniga did not do his homework and check out some facts on local media. If he had, he would have discovered that The Burlington Gazette is an online newspaper that belongs to the Ontario Press Council, an organization of peers that recognizes only legitimate press in Ontario. According to the Ontario Press Council, The Burlington Gazette is an online newspaper. The Burlington Gazette is NOT a blog. Mr. Zvaniga’s wording could be taken as slanderous, defaming the reputation of The Burlington Gazette and the publisher.
To paraphrase Mr.Zvaniga’s old adage “don’t believe everything you read”.
The publisher of the Burlington Gazette apologized for not contacting Mr.Zvaniga prior to the publication of the story. Personally, I did not see anything wrong with the original story, and id not think an apology was warranted. An interview with Mr. Zvaniga would have been nice, but it wasn’t required.
Questions arose as to why Mr. Zvaniga had decided to leave, that’s fair. If Mr. Zvaniga wanted to respond to the story to make a few remarks of his own, there is a spot right below the story to submit an immediate reply. That would have been a better way to approach the situation.
I think it is only correct that Mr. Zvaniga now take his turn and do the honourable thing and apologize to the publisher of The Burlington Gazette for his own uncalled for off-handed remark.
Editor’s note: I had absolutely nothing to do with this comment but thank you Mr. Rance; I wasn’t offended by the Zvaniga comments