The transition involving Chatham-Kent’s chief administrative officer position has been temporarily extended while the municipality continues to grapple with a number of ongoing challenges.
Don Shropshire will remain in the role, although Thomas Kelly, Chatham-Kent’s current general manager of infrastructure and engineering, was announced as his successor in November.
“We are all fully committed right now between regular operational pressures that we have, the challenges related to COVID, and the stuff that we’re dealing with in Wheatley,” Shropshire said during a weekly media call. “We have a whole lot of work to do and we’re trying to share that as best we can.”
While looking forward to retirement, Shropshire said he’s happy to be able to help at this time.
An executive search firm was considering internal as well as external candidates for the municipality’s top administrative job.
Kelly was hired by the municipality in 2012. Shropshire has served Chatham-Kent since 2009, when he was first hired as general manager of community development. He became CAO in 2012.
In recent years, Kelly’s department has been responsible for addressing such serious issues as shoreline flooding and erosion, along with longstanding challenges related to the municipality’s vast network of roads, bridges and culverts.
His department became even busier after the gas explosion in Wheatley last August, as his staff worked to mitigate the situation with assistance from the province and outside experts.
“Thomas has been a key piece in the whole Wheatley situation,” Mayor Darrin Canniff said during the call. “We wanted to have as much horsepower as we possibly could to put towards Wheatley and towards what’s happening with COVID, etc.
“We’ll be moving on shortly, I’m sure, but we hope that some of those situations we’re dealing with now will dissipate. … In normal circumstances, it would be different.”