West Perth will begin a search for a new CAO as current their long-serving CAO of the last 8 years, Jeff Brick, has announced he will retire this summer.
Brick has been around for and helped steer the municipality through many challenges, and he says he’s proud of helping tackle a backlog of infrastructure projects that needed to be addressed in West Perth over his tenure.
“As much as we’ve built structures, we’ve really built up the community over the last 8 years. West Perth is a great place, the community is really changing, but I think it’s changing for the better and we’ve really focused on recreation services and things that make us attractive to people at all stages of their life,” Brick said.
Brick says in particular getting a new municipal office built was among a number of key projects.
“We had to deal with accessibility. It was a building originally built to be a high school and was re-purposed to be a municipal office. It served its purpose for many years, but to serve as an accessible municipal office and a place for the community to come together, it no longer met the current standards,” stated Brick.
Additionally, getting a new municipal office and firehall built was critical. Brick says the firehall simply needed to be done for safety reasons, as firefighters were having a hard time moving around and cleaning today’s bigger trucks in the older, smaller firehall.
“It wasn’t ideal for response and it wasn’t good for safety. It was another situation that we had to respond to and the choice that you have as a municipality, and the choice that council embraced, was the choice between building something that will kind of get us through, or building something that will serve the community in the long run, and I’m proud to say that’s what we did,” enthused Brick.
As he prepares to retire, Brick says he will greatly miss working with council and staff.
“The West Perth Council has been really good to work with. We have a great mayor, Mayor (Walter) McKenzie has a lot of experience and is very well connected in terms of understanding his community, and he’s a really good mayor to work with. I’ll miss interacting with all the staff and have enjoyed working with everyone on council over the last 8 years,” Brick concluded.
Brick’s final day with West Perth is scheduled for August 4. He served the last 8 years as West Perth CAO after over 26 years in technical and management roles.
“On behalf of Council and staff, I wish to congratulate Mr. Brick on his retirement, and thank him for his dedication to the role of CAO,” said Mayor Walter McKenzie. “Jeff has provided leadership as the West Perth community and the Municipality have gone through a particularly challenging period. Mr. Brick’s forward-thinking nature, his wit, and his management style have made a lasting impression on our community and staff. Jeff’s leadership skills and mentorship abilities have been greatly appreciated and have been instrumental in building a great team ready for what the future holds. I wish Jeff all the best as he takes the leap into this next chapter.”
