Vaughan lures top Ottawa bureaucrat to fill city's top post

Yorkregion.com
Feb. 10, 2015
By Adam Martin-Robbins

The city has hired a new city manager nearly two years after its former top staffer abruptly stepped down.

Steve Kanellakos takes the helm at city hall starting in May. He comes here after serving as deputy city manager of operations for the City of Ottawa since 2008.

In that role, his responsibilities included community and social services, emergency and protective services, parks, recreation and culture services, public works and transit services, among other things.

“It is with great pleasure that I welcome Mr. Steve Kanellakos to our senior management team,” Mayor Maurizio Bevilacqua said in a news release. “On behalf of council, we look forward to working closely with him as we continue to position Vaughan as a world-class city. Mr. Kanellakos brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the role as well as a strong commitment to public service, which I know will serve us well as we take Vaughan to the next level.”

Kanellakos, who was raised in Ottawa, holds an undergraduate and a master’s degree in public administration from Carleton University.

He spent 15 years in municipal police services with the Gloucester Police Service and the Ottawa-Carleton Regional Police.

From there, Kanellakos went on to hold several positions at the City of Ottawa including deputy city of community and protective services and acting city manager.

He will be taking over from Barbara Cribbett, who has served as Vaughan’s interim city manager since Clayton Harris’s sudden departure in April 2013.

Cribbett is retiring after five years in Vaughan and more than 30 years in public service. She was appointed as the city’s commissioner of finance and city treasurer in late 2009.

It's not known at this point how much Kanellakos will earn, but according to the public salary disclosure list, Kanellakos earned just more than $309,000 in 2013 as deputy city manager of operations for Ottawa, which has a population of about 943,000 almost three times that of Vaughan.

By comparison, Cribbett earned about $218,000 as acting city manager while Harris, who had worked at the City of Vaughan for more than 20 years, was paid about $261,000.