Quick Round Up

It's been a while since I've done a Quick Round Up post. Lately with council, work and the online course I'm taking up a pretty fair chunk of my time I've noticed that I'm not posting as much as I used to. So rather than feeling like I have to sit down for an extended period to write a full post I'll try to do these a little more often.

A few quick hits for your reading pleasure

Kelowna Looking At Sister Cities
The city of Kelowna is exploring opportunities to start sister city agreements, with the assistance of grants from the B.C. government.
full story

My Comment:Of course GP just signed a sister city agreement last weekend, with Mazatlan, Mexico. Interesting that the B.C. government sees these kind of connections as valuable enough to actually put $50,000 up to encourage cities to do it.

City Manager of Hamilton Resigns
full story

My Comment: Well, it looks like GP isn't the only city having to deal with changes at the top of the organization. We are currently recruiting to fill the vacancy that will be left by Dave Gourlay's impending retirement as of March 14th. This is probably a part of the shifting demographic of municipal employees, expect more and more top civic officials across the country to retire over the next few years. Anyone out there thinking about a career in municipal government?

City of GP Appoints New Fire Chief
Dan Lemieux is the new city Fire Chief, taking over from Bill Walker who will continue on as Protective Services Director.
full story

My Comment: Bill had been doing double duty for quite a while now and both the Protective Services Director and Fire Chief positions have grown in that time. It makes sense to have someone directly involved in the day to day operations assume the Fire Chief role and Dan is going to be great. He has probably one of the broadest ranges of experience with the city of any one I know having worked in everything from Parks to HR to Public Works.