City Manager Botches Her Own New Posting

Published 08/24/2023 · Updated 08/23/2023

Maybe the new city manager forgot to tell the interim city manager about the big new appointment at city hall.

You know sometimes things go wrong … like light rail or Lansdowne or the new central library. Sometimes things just happen.

But hiring a new city manager for the municipality is a big deal. A really big deal.

So given that Wendy Stephanson was the interim city manager and Wendy Stephanson is the new city manager means the lack of communication on the appointment to the public and media was abysmally incomprehensible.

Stephanson got the nod for the new job at city council on Wednesday. Unfortunately later last evening, municipal media relations still didn’t have a press release ready for this important announcement. Maybe Stephanson was overcome by modesty and didn’t want a big fanfare for her posting. But when taxpayers are forking out just less than $400,000 per year for the top-knock at city hall, perhaps we should have been able to learn a bit about her.

Stephanson Nails $400,000 Salary For Top City Post

Instead, Happy Town News scrambled around when your agent called to send the motion of the appointment from the council agenda to Bulldog World Headquarters and blew off the posting in three sentences of a council media summary that goes out for every meeting.

Not good.

So the interim city manager couldn’t get that release ready for the new city manager. That the two posts are one-and-the-same person makes it rather difficult to understand. Still no release.

So Stephanson failed at her first task surrounding the appointment of herself as city manager. One decision to make so far and she got it wrong.

Bad start.

And where was Mayor Mark Sutcliffe on this? He could have got this right. After all, Sutcliffe has been a media person for quite some time. Even before Kanata South Councillor Allan Hubley started looking for a light-rail station in Kanata after believing it was at Nepean’s Moodie Drive. You can’t make this stuff up.

But there’s a deeper issue.

With an organization as pathetically run as the municipality, one would think that Sutcliffe and company would have chosen someone from outside the organization. A new person doesn’t carry the baggage of familiarity or even friendship with an underperforming staff. A new person can clean house in a place that very badly needs a good housecleaning.

You promote from within (always a good idea when possible) if an organization is running well. In the understatement of the year, the City of Ottawa could use a little outside help. Instead, Ottawans get more of the same.

Councillor Opts For Noversight: WHOPPER WATCH

So, incredulously, Stephanson got her own announcement wrong. The mind wobbles.

Maybe today will be better.

But so far, it’s business as usual and the national capital follies continue.

Ken Gray

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Tags: city manager Ottawa Wendy Stephanson

Lorne Cutler says:
08/24/2023 at 9:17 AM
Steve Kanellakos, the former disgraced City Manager, was supposed to be the best of both worlds. He had worked for Ottawa in senior positions but then left the Ottawa and became a City Manager in a GTA municipality. Both internal and external experience. We saw how well that one worked out.
Ron Benn says:
08/24/2023 at 10:15 AM
Lorne, it wasn’t Kanellakos experience that led to his failures as City Manager. Kanellakos decided, perhaps to curry favour with Mayor Watson, that his role should be more political in nature, rather than administrative. When the LRT Commissioner censured Kanellakos for his active role in withholding information from council it was a reflection of a flaw in his character, not a lack of experience.