City manager search won’t stop for diversity protest

Hamilton will go ahead with interviews for a new city manager this weekend despite a community appeal to diversify the all-white, mostly male council hiring committee.

The head of the YWCA, an expert political scientist and a vocal anti-racism advocate joined other citizen delegates in urging councillors Wednesday to add new faces and perspectives to the committee of councillors steering the search for a new top bureaucrat.

In the end, only new councillors Nrinder Nann, Maureen Wilson and John-Paul Danko voted Wednesday for a failed motion to “pause” the hiring process to discuss the diversity question.

Candidate interviews will go ahead Saturday at a Niagara-onthe-Lake resort in a bid to protect applicant privacy — although an online movement was afoot Wednesday to organize a bus trip of citizens to try to attend the meeting.

Political scientist Karen Bird, who specializes in gender and equity studies, said she was “disturbed” to learn councillors did not receive equity, diversity and inclusion training before choosing the new leader of a municipal workforce of almost 7,000 people. She urged them to do so.

But she also suggested a compromise in the meantime: Adding a new council face to the hiring committee ahead of candidate interviews.

“It’s absolutely not too late. It’s an easy fix,” said Bird, who told councillors she has looked at 15 different Ontario cities and found most allow for more broad participation on such major hiring committees.

The current hiring committee, which sits in on candidate interviews and makes a recommendation to council, includes Mayor Fred Eisenberger and standing committee chairs Chad Collins, Sam Merulla, Lloyd Ferguson and Maria Pearson.

The decision to only include standing committee chairs was set last August by the previous council on the advice of city staff.

But tradition should not trump “best practices,” said Kojo Damptey of the Hamilton Centre for Civic Inclusion, calling for a hiring committee that better reflects the city’s diversity and council’s “near gender parity.”

Communications consultant Jeff Lang-Weir was even more direct with councillors.

“I think we can do better than a committee that is 80-per cent male and 100-per cent white,” he said.

Councillors briefly discussed adding another committee member Wednesday, but the idea was derailed by procedural rules that require a full council meeting to sign off on the change.

The next council meeting is three days after planned candidate interviews.

The diversity debate highlighted divergent opinions among councillors.

Ferguson, who is on the hiring committee, pointed out he is the father of three daughters and suggested “there’s no better training than being a parent.”

“I think I understand diversity issues. I think I understand women’s rights.”

Coun. Terry Whitehead expressed interest in the conversation about “unconscious bias,” but suggested hiring committee members should be chosen based on merit and experience, not “identity politics.”

Eisenberger said he was open to the “compromise” of adding another hiring committee member, but urged councillors not to delay a process that has already extended interview invitations to candidates far and wide.

Wilson still has a motion pending next week — after the first round of interviews — to look at changing the makeup of the hiring committee.