Feature: City manager reflects on a 40 year career

Seeking a change from shift work, Toye opted to go back to school and completed his public administration degree at the University of Regina. Around 1985, he would land his job as an assistant administrator in Unity, where he would spend two years before moving to Leader and later Kindersley.

“I really liked the small communities. They were just so homey and we were part of church and everything like that”, Toye said, noting personal memories of birthday parties and curling bon spiels

While in Kindersley, Toye helped champion a new arena and a new curling rink.

Around this time though Toye’s family, which includes three daughters, began to take shape and he was offered an opportunity to move to North Battleford where he oversaw the planning for a new performing arts centre (Dekker Centre), as well as a new curling rink and multi-plex.

Fast forward to 2013 when Toye was offered a job in Prince Albert. One of the biggest projects he has been a part of is of course a new development on the city’s southeast side that will include a new pool and two smaller arenas. The projected cost is expected to be around $120 million when everything is in place.

“In a perfect world you want see it built and open the doors but it’s got to a point where it’s now up to the builders and we have a really solid team,” Toye said.

Toye added there’s a lot of positive energy around the city at the moment, noting recent announcements related to the forestry sector and the spin off impact they could have on both the business and residential sectors.

A picture taken of Jim Toye with Mayor Greg Dionne during this week’s retirement announcement. (File photo/paNOW Staff)

A challenging career

Running a city comes with its perks and its challenges. And one of Toye’s first real big tests was the Husky Oil Spill in 2016. The pipeline leak spilled 250,000 litres into the North Saskatchewan River, affecting the drinking water for 69,000 people in the Prince Albert and North Battleford areas. Toye recalled the city had all types of people working around the clock and how the emergency centre was running for months.

“We couldnt acquire water any more from the North Saskatchewan River. Our intakes to the river were shut off,” he said.

In order to maintain water, the city came up with a three-pronged approach. Toye recalled getting permission from the Rural Municipality of Prince Albert and Muskoday First Nation, and running water lines into the city to be treated.

A second initiative was building a dam at Little Red park and with the help of a company, rolling pipe across the rail road tracks to the water treatment plant. The third approach involved taking water from the slough near the soccer centre, all the way to a manhole down by the river.

“We had three different ways to get water and we needed all of them because they all gave some water but they could not fulfill everything we needed on their own. When we put all them together we are able to maintain high quality water,” Toye.

The work done by the city would eventually result in a provincial award.

In March 2020, the COVID pandemic hit and with it came a number of pressures and demands for the people who run the cities. Toye said Prince Albert had a good jump on it and in addition to some crystal ball gazing worked closely with other municipalities to see what they were doing, sharing positive stories.

“Some of it was thinking over and above what the government was doing and is there anything more your municipality was doing,” he explained.

With respect to the city’s own 400 employees, Toye noted the most amount of staff away at any given time was 15, and there’s been little to no push back from vaccine policies from those who opted not to get vaccinated. Toye explained the secret has been open communication and respect.

A picture taken of Toye during a city council meeting. (File photo/paNOW Staff)

Provincial and national appointments

In addition to being a board member and president of the Urban Administrators Association of Saskatchewan, Toye has also been president of the Canadian Association of Municipal Administrators which afforded him the opportunity to travel around the world and attend conferences in New Zealand and Scotland.

“That was a pretty honourable thing for me to do; to represent 500 city managers from across Canada,” he said.

Noting it was a good experience personally and professionally, Toye said he values all the friendships he made. And despite being approached by a number of head hunters to come to other cites, Toye explained his heart remained in Prince Albert as a place to finish his career.

What’s next?

Anticipating retirement was coming, Toye and his wife have been busy over the last couple years building a home at Blackstrap, south of Saskatoon. The location provides Toye the opportunity to be closer to his three daughters and ten grandchildren.

“It’ll be different not getting up and going to work,” he noted about his impending retirement, but added he’s also excited to start the next chapter of his life.

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nigel.maxwell@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @nigelmaxwell

by Nigel Maxwell

Feature: City manager reflects on a 40 year career

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