City boss Jeff Fielding leaving Calgary for Toronto

CALGARY (660 NEWS) – A big change is happening at Calgary City Hall.

City Manager Jeff Fielding announced his departure Tuesday, citing family reasons as the reason he is departing.

Fielding has found work as the new Chief of Staff at Toronto City Hall.

“We first hired Jeff five years ago in the aftermath of the 2013 flood when we as a city were both rebuilding and thinking about what we were going to be and what the new reality for this city was going to be and Councillor Sutherland, Councillor Keating and I formed a search committee in which we did an international search looking for the best change agent we could find but also someone who had a deep passion,” said Mayor Naheed Nenshi.

Nenshi says they lucked out when they found Fielding.

Fielding had already been a general manager for Calgary and then left to gain city manager experience.

“I could not have hoped for a better partner,” said the mayor. “Someone working with us as we did a big process of transforming government of putting the citizen at the centre of everything we do, of reinvigorating our nearly 20,000 colleagues at the city of Calgary into customer service, into serving citizens every single day.”

Nenshi credits Fielding with finding over $600 million dollars in efficiencies in a $4 billion dollar budget, helping to keep the city’s taxes among the lowest in the country.

“It’s been an incredible ride in these last 4 and a half years,” said Fielding. “I’ve lived apart from my family for these last 4 and a half years, they’ve been incredibly supportive of me doing this work out here while being apart. Circumstances have changed for my family that requires that I return back to Ontario.”

Fielding says he leaves the post with extreme sadness.

His advice to his successor is to be true to yourself, be honest and be faithful.

“There’s times you need to be frank with council but you also know you can’t use that tactic too often if you overplay your hand it’ll come back to bite you. There are a number of times, I think, where I might have overstepped by bounds and I was reminded of that,” he said.

The mayor says he valued Fielding for his honest opinion and he never once crossed the line.

The search now begins for his replacement and the mayor says that international search will begin on Monday.

Nenshi says they have some great candidates within City Hall that he’s hoping will throw their hat in and they will likely have an acting manager for sometime while they go through the process of filling the post.

Fielding’s last day will be April 1, 2019.