What happens when a city loses a Chief Executive Officer

By Pepper Parr

July 7^th, 2025

BURLINGTON, ON

The impact the resignation of Haassan Basit as Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) has yet to be felt. It will turn out to be much stronger and more damaging than most people realize.

Basit had a strong working relationship with a Mayor Meed Ward when he was Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Halton Conservation Authority.

Haassan Basit brought a new level of staff organization to the City. General Managers were named Commissioners.

When the city manager position opened up (Tim Commiso decided not to renew his contract) Haassan Basit applied for the job. He was hired.

The only person a city Council hires is the City Manager. The City Manager does all the staff hiring.

The City Manager hires city staff, organizes that staff into effective operational units and prepares a budget telling Council what will be needed to keep the city running and deliver all the programs City Council decides on.

The relationship between a city manager and a Mayor is unique.

When Tim Dobbie was City Manager and Rob MacIsaac Mayor, City Hall was a very smooth operation. Dobbie knew what Council wanted better than some of the Council members; he worked very very closely with MacIsaac.

Roman Martiuk was the City Manager when Cam Jackson was Mayor

Rick Goldring served as a two term Mayor, first elected as mayor in 2010, and then for a second term in 2014. He was a member of Council representing ward 5.

Rick Goldring, who defeated Jackson, started with Roman Martiuk and ended up with James Ridge. In between Jeff Fielding served as City Manager for close to three years, then left to work with Naheed Nenshi, Mayor of Calgary

One rarely sees this kind of senior-level change in the private sector.

Which brings me around to the relationship Mayor Meed Ward had with Haassan Basit. He was her choice for the City manager that was to replace Tim Commisso.

Meed Ward had worked closely with Haassan when he was CEO of Conservation Halton (CH). Basit did some very good work at CH. The hope was that he would bring about bring some of that to Burlington.

It didn’t work out that way.

Someone said that there were 80 applications for the job of City Manager – no one ever fact checked that number.

Mayor Meed Ward had no time for James Ridge. Her very first act as Mayor, once she was sworn in, was to call a Special Meeting of Council and have them agree to fire Ridge. Most of that meeting would have been closed and the public will never know what the vote was.

With Ridge gone Meed Ward was free to look for a new City Manager. She invited Tim Commisso, who we understand she didn’t know all that well, for coffee – that led to his being named as Interim City Manager. Commisso was, for the most part easy to get along with. He can be tough, Sheila Jones and Bryn Neally learned that when they were both let go at the same time. Why were they let go? – that story has yet to come out.

Tim Commisso texting while Mayor Meed Ward looks on – the relationship was in tatters at this point.

When Meed Ward made an unfortunate remark at an Ontario Big City Mayors group (OBCM) about her dissatisfaction with Commisso – it didn’t take long for that to get back to Commisso. Despite being given a very significant salary increase weeks before, Commissio advised the Mayor that he would not be renewing his contract.

What had become clear is that Marianne Meed Ward does not have the experience or character needed to work with dedicated professionals in a way that allows them to do the job they were hired to do.

Meed Ward must have thought Hassaan Basit would work out – they had worked together at Conservation Halton where he was Chief Executive Officer

He had a very strong relationship with environmental people at Queen’s Park and had an excellent relationship with Premier Doug Ford.

Basit wasn’t with the city long enough to determine if the direction he was taking was going to make a difference.

Was Haassan Basit recruited by the province? Or had he gotten to the point where he had enough of Meed Ward and went after a new opportunity? The role he will play at Queen’s Park is one that didn’t exist before he was hired.

Hassaan leaves the city early in August. The Mayor will now look for an Interim while Council advertises and looks for a new Chief Executive Officer. Mayor Meed Ward put a nice spin on Basit leaving. Don’t expect an exit conversation to take place between those two.

The hiring of a new CAO is a process that takes as much as six months – by that time the city council members will have begun the process of getting themselves re-elected.

The size of the pool of Ontario city managers that Burlington can draw upon is very small – and they all know each other.

It is reasonable to expect that applicants will want to wait until after the municipal election to submit applications.

The administration of the city is going to be bumpy, perhaps for as much as a year. Not what Burlington needs at this point in time.

It gets worse. The city has some very talented people with significant municipal experience. Some of those may begin wondering if Burlington is the place for them to continue developing their careers. Municipalities poach talent from each other all the time.

Jamie Tellier and Nick Anastasopoulos have shown how two departments can work hand in hand with each other and produce superb results. Will those two be polishing resumes – have they had phone calls?

Chad McDonald, Chief Information Officer, who heads up Digital Services, a department that has experienced huge growth. has done some sterling work – I’d be surprised if he hasn’t already had offers – there are private sector corporations that would love to have some of this man’s talent on their team.

The resignation of CAO Hassaan Basit and the messy situation on the allocation of pool time will have an impact that might not be immediately understood. That issue should have been on his desk; no mention so far on what, if any role, Basit played in the decision that was made.

This might be the way some people see the City of Burlington.

Burlington is getting to become a bit of a joke amongst senior civic administrators across the province – not something career civic servants will want to highlight on their resumes.

Anyone thinking of applying for the CAO job will think twice about jumping in – there are greener fields elsewhere.

Municipal level gossip is big – city managers all know each other – they tend to move from city to city every five years. The Tim Dobbie city manager model worked well – these men, and they were mostly men at that time, spent decades with a Mayor. Rob MacIsaac served as the Mayor of Burlington for three consecutive terms, from 1997 to 2006; Dobbie was with him every step of the way.

That model hasn’t been seen for some time.

Senior staff begin to wonder if Burlington is the place to build a career

Their mindsets move from doing some great thinking to – is this a good place for me to grow my career?

Is this all the result of Mayor Marianne Meed Ward’s leadership?