New City Manager Must Respect Council: BENN

Before you start looking for something, it is helpful if you know what you are seeking.

As Ottawa enters the next stage of the process that will lead to the hiring of a new city manager, it would be prudent to consider what needs to change at city hall. It is not so much that organizations need to re-invent themselves as it is that they need to re-evaluate how they do things. Ottawa City Hall is long past the point where it needs to do things differently.

A change in culture needs to be at the top of the list.

It might be instructive if we start with the recent LRT inquiry report. Senior managers colluding with elected officials to willfully mislead city council … to refuse to provide councillors with all the readily available information required to allow council to fulfil its statutory obligations. To actively circumvent the city’s internal communications systems. To intentionally not file a complete set of documents to the provincial inquiry. These are all symptoms of a failed culture at the senior levels of the city administration.

Former city manager Steve Kanellakos resigned with no notice rather than face the prospect of responding publicly to the findings of the inquiry. Former OC Transpo general manager “retired” a year before that. “Retired” as in now providing services to a business that provides services to municipalities. Former mayor Jim Watson deciding not to run for a fourth consecutive term … for reasons that do not, at least publicly, address the findings of the LRT inquiry.

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Just because some of the people at the top of the pyramid are gone does not mean that the culture that led to these examples of egregious malfeasance have disappeared. Those who worked beside or for this senior rank of officials were complicit in creating and maintaining this culture of disrespect for city council and the residents of Ottawa.

I won’t delve too deeply into the history of staff providing councillors with myriad pages that are euphemistically called reports. No substance.

Which takes us back, not to who should be the next city manager, but what the characteristics should be for the successful candidate. Unless you know what you are looking for, you won’t know if you have found them.

So, what should council be looking for? There are two vital characteristics that Ottawa’s next city manager needs.

Be an agent of change. Someone who has been in a senior position in an organization that was no longer meeting its goals. Who identified what needed to change. Who developed the strategy. Who ensured that the organization, from the top on down, were aware of the plan and supported it. Who made it happen.

Someone with the strength of character to say no to opposing forces. No to those who want to retain the status quo. No to those who were uncomfortable with change. Someone to identify and neutralize those who were undermining the plan and was prepared to ask for their resignations.

Hiring a new top administrator is a once-every-decade-or-two event. That is why council needs to make the right decision, this time. Why? Because the culture at city hall has created an environment that regularly and willfully disrespects the role of city council. The role of oversight.

Ron Benn, a finance executive, has been a member of the Centrepointe Community Association for the better part of three decades.

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