County brings in new CAO
Troy Speck will take over for Gary King as of Sept. 25, county announces Friday
Peterborough County has hired a new chief administrative officer (CAO) to replace Gary King, who’s retiring.
Troy Speck will start his new job as CAO on Sept. 25.
Speck is currently CAO of the Town of the Blue Mountains in Grey County, southwestern Ontario. He’s held that job for six years.
Speck has a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Western Ontario (UWO), states the press release from the county, and is now pursuing a Master of Public Administration from UWO.
He’ll replace Gary King, who has been CAO and deputy clerk of the County of Peterborough for the last 13 years.
King’s career in planning and municipal administration spans 35 years.
In the last reported Sunshine List, for 2016, King earned a salary of $190,139, plus $9,974 in taxable benefits.
A release from the County of Peterborough states that Speck was chosen from more than 100 applicants.
His job will see him serve as the chief administrator for the county, which is made up of eight townships surrounding the city and administers services including roads, waste collection and shares paramedic and socials services with the City of Peterborough.
Previously, Speck worked for four years as the city of Kitchener’s manager of corporate services.
Before that he was a city councillor and CAO for the city of Elliot Lake, in northern Ontario.
That’s where a mall roof collapsed in 2012, killing two people and leaving dozens of others hurt.
Two months after the incident at the Algo Centre Mall, The Globe and Mail reported that Speck wrote a letter urging the owner of the mall to make repairs to the leaky roof in 2005 – seven years before the roof collapsed.
The Globe reported that Speck was CAO in 2005 when he wrote a letter to the mall owner about “severe leaks from the roof” that had been going on for years.
The public library in Elliott Lake was located in the mall at the time.
But nearly a year later, CBC reported that the state of the mall had been discussed in secret monthly council meetings, several years before the roof collapsed – and that Speck testified at an inquiry that those meetings were held without notifying the public.
The CBC reported that Speck said the meetings were requested by the former mayor – but that Speck insisted they weren’t secret.
“There seemed to be some general knowledge that they happened,” Speck was quoted as saying, in the CBC report.
But he was also quoted in the same CBC report saying that the public wasn’t invited to the meetings – and that it’s accurate to say councillors took advantage to talk about things they’d rather the public not know.