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City stays in-house in choosing its new top executive

Former acting CAO and deputy CAO Scott Stewart is the city's new chief administrative officer
20180302 CAO Derrick Thomson Deputy CAO Scott Stewart KA
New City of Guelph chief administrative officer Scott Stewart, right, is seen chatting with former CAO Derrick Thomson in this GuelphToday file photo. Thomson parted ways with the city in February. GuelphToday file photo

Scott Stewart has been chosen as the new chief administrative officer for the City of Guelph.

City council made the announcement following an in-camera meeting at Monday's council meeting, pending ratification by the city's legal department.

Stewart replaces Derrick Thomson, who "parted ways" with the city in February after three years on the job, just five months after signing a contract extention.

Stewart joined the city in 2015 as the deputy cao in charge of infrastructure, development and enterprise services. He most recently served as interim CAO while the city conducted a search for a new CAO.

He has worked 33 years in the municipal sector.

He previously worked for the City of Burlington for six years and before that the City of Hamilton for eight years, the Region of Peel for six years, the City of Brampton for seven years and the City of Mississauga for two years.

"It's an honour, I'm happy and pleased and thrilled and all of those wonderful adjectives," Stewart said after the announcement.

"I just love working here. I love the community and I love the folks that I work with. It's just been such a good fit in terms of where council have given us direction to go and all the activities we've been up with."

The CAO is the sole city job that is recruited by and is accountable directly to council.

The city struck a new committee to conduct the recruitment search for a new CAO.

"It was a great amount of work over several months and it was a wonderful process to go through to find the candidate who's sitting here," said mayor Cam Guthrie.

"It was transparent, it was fullsome, there was great debate and great questions and now we have the confidence moving forward with you Scott," the mayor said.


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Tony Saxon

About the Author: Tony Saxon

Tony Saxon has had a rich and varied 30 year career as a journalist, an award winning correspondent, columnist, reporter, feature writer and photographer.
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