Stewart came to us from Hamilton is now heading for Guelph. We wish him well - replacing him is the city manager's newest problem.

By Pepper Parr

November 12, 2015

Burlington,ON

It is true – the city is losing Scott Stewart – he will become the Deputy Chief, Administrative Officer, Infrastructure, Development and Enterprise Services for the city of Guelph. His start date is very early in December. Stewart will commute to Guelph for the first while

He was sometimes gruff – always direct and never passed the blame for mistakes along to others. Hopefully,before he leaves Stewart will tell the full story about the purchase of the piece of property at the intersection of Walkers Line and the North Service Road on the west side.

We have lost a good one – at a time when we can least afford such a loss at this level.

Less than four years ago the city had three General Managers – we got down to one and now that one is leaving.

City Manager James Ridge now has to look at his senior level corporate structure and decide how he wants to organize his staff. And he is going to have to look really hard to find someone of Stewart’s calibre.

There are two people at the Director level who could move into the job Stewart has held but both are critical to the operations they now run.

Scott Stewart the one general manager we have poses with an award he was given for leadership at the inter-municipal level.

The city has a number of people who are doing exceptionally well and can be expected to grow into Director level jobs – most need three to five years to mature in their jobs and develop their leadership skills.

James Ridge has been with the city long enough to have gained the measure of most of his staff compliment but what is known about his past experience does not include this level of management reorganization.

City manager James Ridge with Michelle Dwyer, who has shown considerable leadership in ensuring the Strategic Plan development process runs smoothly. To the left is JC Bourque, one of the two KPMG consultants facilitating the process

He has developed good working relationships with his staff; his personality is such that he works well with people –

is able to draw the best out of most people.

The challenge for Ridge is going to be to get city council to do the job they were elected to do – the previous city manager Jeff Fielding soon realized that this Council was never going to do very much and he pretty well rode rough shod over them.

That isn’t Ridge’s style – his armed forces experience has taught him what a chain of command is and he expects those he serves to do their jobs.  There is some heart ache coming his way.

If this had to happen to him – a year from now would have been better.