Occupation
City of Burnaby manager
Why is he in the news?
This week marked the end of an era at the City of Burnaby.
Monday was longtime city manager Bob Moncur’s final day before retirement, leaving a job he held for 21 years.
In all, he spent 30 years with the city, coming from the City of Regina back in 1986 to take over the position of director of administrative and community services.
In his time, Burnaby has grown from a sleepy suburb of Vancouver, to the third largest municipality in B.C.
The NOW sat down with Moncur in his final days on the job to look back on his long career at the helm of the city.
What brought you to Burnaby all those years ago? What interested you about the job?
Nothing more than that it was in city governance at a high level. I’d been doing the equivalent job in Regina. The administrative and community services was broad enough to be interesting. Any of the much more specific jobs are less appealing to me. Burnaby then had a good reputation and was part of the Lower Mainland and was in B.C., so close to my family.
Why retire now?
Why not? I’m now 71 years old, that’s almost beyond traditional retirement. I’m not sure there was any particularly compelling logic other than I wasn’t going to be here until the next election, which is not until 2018, so it’s a good a time as any. Let someone else do the job.
What are you most proud of as city manager?
Because the city manager is such a general job, any specific accomplishment in Burnaby is more relevant to a particular director than to me. I think my best answer to the question is: maintaining a great staff who do great work. That’s what I walk away from with my head held most high. Some of them were here already when I got here. I’ve had a great group to work with the whole time, and that we’ve kept them together, that we’ve accomplished the things that we have in Burnaby … all of those I take a little bit of credit for, but it’s always shared credit. Manager is a good title because it describes the broad, ‘you manage a lot of things, but you don’t do any specific thing.’ That’s the nature of the job, I guess I’m most proud of doing that since 1995 and not having any kind of qualms or crisis befall us.
Was there any issue or event in the city you would handle differently?
They’re really little things. I kind of regret we haven’t been able to recruit a few more ladies into the fire department. That’s been a shared goal for a long time, and we just haven’t been able to attract enough to apply and have them go through the process, so there’s still quite a gender imbalance. At one point in time, Burnaby proportionally had more women in the fire department than pretty well anybody else in the Lower Mainland, I wouldn’t say that was true now. That’s kind of unfortunate. Maybe it will change over time.
What do you think the number one issue will be for the City of Burnaby in future?
Probably the same as it’s always (been), meeting public expectations at a reasonable price. People want lots of amenities, they want lots of services, but they want the taxes kept reasonable. I think that challenge never goes away. Managing development; Burnaby’s got nowhere to grow physically, so it’s going to be growing upward, as you grow upward those towers replace whatever was closer to the ground. And so you’re seeing it in Metrotown where three-storey walk-ups are being replaced by highrise towers, and it’s not an easy transition, obviously, either, and that issue isn’t going to go away.
Is there any advice you would pass on to the next city manager?
Because the person who follows me will be from within the organization, he or she is going to know who the players are, so keeping the management team working closely together is important, keeping open those lines of communications.
I would say keeping it light. That’s really important, we all have a big job to do and a difficult job to do, but some people kind of get off on taking themselves a bit seriously. Yes, we’ve got a job to do, but surely you’ve got to be able to enjoy it and make sure the other people working with you are enjoying it too.
The word I rely on is balance, to try and keep a balance of working hard but playing hard. Keeping things in balance.
You’ve got such good staff here in Burnaby, I’m a fairly big fan of wine, and often times wine making is to grow good grapes and not screw it up. And managing Burnaby is a little bit the same way, we’ve got good grapes, don’t screw it up.
What will you do in retirement?
More travel, we love to travel my wife and I. Maybe be able to take advantage of more spontaneous travel, trips that appear at a good price on short notice. I’ve got a bunch of things at home, including wine that I would like to spend a little more time on. I really like to eat good food, and I used to be a good cook, but I haven’t had much time to do any cooking lately … I quite look forward to that. I don’t have some hobby or project I’m passionate to get at. I’ll try and keep involved in the community a little bit, do some volunteer work.
