By Pepper Parr
December 10th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
It was a meeting that few people knew about.
The Mayor, as is her right, called a Special Meeting of Council the day after she was sworn into office.
There were two items on the agenda – a review and acceptance of an agreement with CUPE, local 2723 and a verbal discussion regarding a confidential employee relations matter.
The announcement of the meeting was posted to the city web site in the calendar section.
Mayor Meed Ward didn’t mention that she had called a Special Meeting of Council during the inauguration.
Few would argue that the city manager was toast the day Meed Ward won the election.
The Gazette learned that the city manager was “asked” to take some vacation and was not at his desk for many of the days between the election and the inauguration.
During that time there would have to have been discussions on what kind of a financial settlement there was going to be; it would not be cheap – some estimate that the total cost to the city will amount to more than half a million dollars.
There wasn’t a vote on the firing of the city manager; council met for a “verbal discussion”.
This all must have been a bit sticky for the Director of Human Resources and the City Solicitor who both had very strong working relationships with the city manager – who now had to handle the paper work that had him out the door.
But he is gone – it will be interesting to see where James Ridge lands next. The Gazette certainly wants to know what his future address is going to be. Skip tracers might be required.
The motion that was before the new city council during their first meeting was:
Move into closed session in accordance with the following provisions under the Municipal Act, sections 239 (2)(d) labour relations or employee negotiations, with respect to Human Resources report HR-04-18 regarding Agreement with CUPE Local 2723, and section 239(2)(b) personal matters about an identifiable individual including Municipal or local board employees for a verbal discussion regarding a confidential employee relations matter.
The meeting started at 3:03 pm and adjourned at 4:55 pm The motion to make all this legal was carried 7-0.
The refreshing part of this is the actual vote was given. Previously the minutes just said carried.
Now that the deed is done – what next?
Members of council have been asked to take some time during the holidays to think about what they want in the way of a city manager.
Paul Sharman, the only member of Council with any large corporation experience.
The problem with that is except for Councillor Sharman, none of the council members have anything in the way of large corporation experience. It is reasonable to assume that none of them, with the possible exception of Rory Nisan, have any training in hiring top level executive talent. The tendency with people who don’t have training is to go with their gut. They will find themselves saying to themselves: “I liked the guy” (it could be a woman). There might be something in his or her experience that appeals to a member of Council. They will have outside help from a head hunter who will be hired to advertise the job and do an early assessment and present this to Council.
The municipal sector is very specialized – city’s tend to want to hire someone with experience, ideally in Ontario. There are 440 municipalities in Ontario with maybe 50 of them that are in the same population – economic development range that Burlington is in. There is only so much talent out there and Hamilton is in the process of looking for a new city manager.
Most of the prime prospects are already aware of the job opening. Whichever head hunter the city hires will have a data base and the day they get the assignment they will be on the phone testing who is out there and who wants to make a career move at this time.
This council cannot fail on this task. Burlington has gone through too many city managers in the past eight years.
Tim Dobbie worked exceptionally well with Mayor Rob MacIsaac, he didn’t want to work with Cam Jackson. The city hired Roman Martiuk who didn’t quite fit in with what Mayor Goldring and his council wanted and he was let go.
Jeff Fielding, former Burlington city manager.
The city then hired Jeff Fielding who proved to be far too energetic, far too strong a manager for this city. Fielding was the city manager in London, Ontario where the Mayor there was facing serious legal issues having to do with the way he handled funds while he was a Member of Parliament. A city manager doesn’t want to be running the show when the Mayor might be going out the door in handcuffs.
Burlington was a nice comfortable place for Fielding to land and during the two and a half years he was in Burlington he certainly shook things up.
Then he got an offer that was just too good to refuse: Naheed Nenshi, Mayor of Calgary and one of the most exciting Mayors the country had ever seen wanted Jeff. He was gone in a flash – not just because Calgary was the dream job for a city manager but also because Burlington wasn’t all that flexible. Fielding was a “big picture” kind of guy and the council he had to work with was as “provincial” as they get.
Stand By says the city motto – for how long one might ask?
Does this new city council have a more progressive outlook? They are skewing that way but far too early to tell what they have in them in terms of reach and the ability to go in a different direction.
With three strong minded women on this council a female from anywhere in the country is going to get a very close look.
The city motto is Stand By – and that is just about all we can do at this point in time.
Salt with Pepper is an opinion column reflecting the observations and musings of the publisher of the Gazette, an on-line newspaper that is in its 8th year as a news source in Burlington and is a member of the National Newsmedia Council.
I really wish you would stop pointing our that we have a “female” Mayor, and more “females” on council. There are capable people doing a job they are capable of doing that the public voted in and they all will hire a capable person to sit as City Manager regardless of their estrogen levels the same way previous councils have.
Council has various options available, but typically, positions at this senior level are usually filled through an executive search firm. What is crucial is how this opportunity is presented, and what are the qualities and characteristics being sought in the successful candidate. Getting the job posting right is all important.
Aside from related municipal government experience the role requires someone with superb leadership and decision-making skills who is also adept in facilitation and community engagement, and who brings exemplary communication and consultative skills. We don’t need an ideologue, we don’t need a “commander-in-chief”, and we certainly don’t need someone who views citizens as an annoyance to be tolerated at best, and dismissed wherever possible.
Personally, I hope the city’s HR department has nothing to do with the selection of candidates for the position of City Manager. I would like to see an outside company do this.
If the search firm the city uses is worth their salt 90% of the heavy lifting will have been done well before this gets to council. Council members could also be taught how to employ the STAR method during interviews. These folks knew how to get elected, so they do have a brain on their shoulders.
Re: “The tendency with people who don’t have training is to go with their gut.” – That’s an astute observation; interviews are known to have very limited usefulness in selection.
Hopefully the city’s HR department will provide relevant criteria and coach those who will make the final selection decision. Selection errors are obviously very costly in a number of ways.