‘We’re moving into a very bright future,’ says retiring CAO

The following is the full text of remarks made Monday by Malcolm White, during his final meeting of Sault Ste. Marie city council.

White, who's served the city for 35 years, most recently as chief administrative officer, will retire at the end of the month.

Mr. Mayor, members of council, just a couple of brief remarks on the occasion of my final meeting of city council, in this chair and any chair for that matter.

It's been quite a career here.

I started October 11 1988. And just over a month later, Matt Shoemaker was born. If that isn't a sign that maybe it's time to move on, I don't think anything else would be.

It's neat in that I was hired by the City of Sault Ste. Marie as a recreation supervisor for sports and special events.

And the first event I ever worked with was Bon Soo, back in the day. It's kind of neat that we're wearing Bon Soo buttons today to mark the upcoming opening of this year's Winter Carnival.

Over the years, I've worked with many wonderful staff, elected officials and volunteers who've all contributed in various ways to the community.

I've learned a lot from them. And I especially want to note the role of volunteers in our community.

It's really the volunteers that make our community go, that bring the quality of life in so many areas and address the challenges that we have.

It's always important that we support all our volunteer components with whatever they do, whether it's sports, whether it's social services, or what have you.

Also, I would be here for hours if I wanted to recognize individuals, so I won't, except for one I did want to recognize: my first supervisor with the city who was Debbie Bourne, manager of recreation and culture.

It was really through her guidance and support in my development that I was able to go from being a frontline supervisor in recreation to be blessed with the position I have today. I'll always be thankful for her presence and life.

Sault Ste. Marie is a very special community as all of you know.

I was born in Toronto. Lived  there for five years, then six years in a tiny town up in northwestern Ontario.

And then we moved to Sault Ste. Marie where we found a fit as our family and we now consider it our hometown.

After working through a career that was marked by mostly economic downturn and hard times, we struggled to keep our levels of service going, we're now moving into a very bright future – a period of growth.

And I'm really excited about that. I'm really excited that instead of what happened in my generation, where most people had to move away to find a job, now we've got people moving into the community.

I'm really looking forward to being a citizen as part of the community and seeing what happens over the next five to seven years.

I'd like to recognize Tom [Vair] as the incoming CAO, and he'll be up in this seat for the next meeting.

I'd like to recognize all the staff who are here tonight, you've all been very helpful to me during my tenure as CAO and I thank you for all your support and know that you'll give Tom your support.

And finally, as is usual for retirees, I will miss the people I work with.

But if I'm being totally honest, I may not miss the meetings.