Sadhu Johnston is Vancouver’s new city manager.
The City of Vancouver issued a news release Thursday morning to announce that Johnston will replace Penny Ballem in the top job at city hall.
“Sadhu has demonstrated outstanding leadership at both the local and international level and has helped drive innovation across the organization,” said Mayor Gregor Robertson in the release. “Council believes that he has the right skill set and vision to help take Vancouver to the next level as we tackle our affordability challenges and make Vancouver an even better city to live in.”
Johnston had been in an acting role as city manager since council decided not to renew the contract of Penny Ballem in September 2015. Johnston became deputy city manager in 2009, a position he accepted after leaving Chicago where he was then-mayor Richard Daley’s chief environmental officer.
Johnston has been council’s staff point person on steering the “greenest city action plan” and been front and centre on the city’s campaign to stop the Kinder Morgan pipeline project. He will now oversee a workforce of 7,500 employees and a $1.2 billion operating budget.
In January, the Courier conducted a wide-ranging interview with Johnston, who discussed Vancouver’s daily preoccupation: the cost of real estate and the affordability crunch facing citizens in an increasingly expensive city.
“It’s broadly understood that this is a threat to the very fabric of this community, and we really need to solve it,” he said. “It’s a major, major issue. We hear from businesses that it’s hard to recruit here, we hear from people that it’s hard to stay here. Our mayor and council are really attuned to that.”
His employment agreement with the city is expected to be posted on the City of Vancouver’s Freedom of Information page later Thursday. The Courier attempted to reach Johnston before this story was posted but he was on a bike tour with the mayor of Copenhagen as part of the Globe 2016 conference.
Johnston is a dual U.S.-Canadian citizen and lives in Strathcona with his family.
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