Renowned Toronto Bureaucrat, Pennachetti, to Retire After Election

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

Canada: Oye! Times readers Get FREE $30 to spend on Amazon, Walmart…
USA: Oye! Times readers Get FREE $30 to spend on Amazon, Walmart…

One of the most long-serving bureaucrat in Toronto, Joe Pennachetti, will be eventually retiring at the end of November after spending long six years of his life for the country’s sixth-largest government. Currently, the city manager and originally a soft-spoken accountant often described as unflappable, Pennachetti, is being praised by councillors of all political stripes for bringing stability to the 35,000-employee bureaucracy during the tumultuous tenure of Mayor Rob Ford.

Pennachetti is credited for influencing the city policy as city manager under the tenure of Mr. Ford and Mr. Miller, who promoted him later in 2008. Whereas prior to that, Mr. Pennachetti worked as the chief financial officer under Mr. Miller and Mr. Lastman, who hired him in 2002 from the government of Peel. In addition to that, Mr. Pennachetti is also admired for spearheading collection of billions in transit funding from the provincial government and maintaining a strong municipal credit rating.

A Ford critic and Councillor, Gord Perks, alleged that he “held the city together during a completely collapsed and incompetent mayoralty.” Perks recalled that Mr. Pennachetti was promoted as city manager during the global financial crisis and at the time, he told his employees that their job was to make sure the social safety net might bend but wouldn’t break. Perks stated that “it’s always touched me that a guy who’s a finance guy who imagines you can run the city on a spreadsheet — you should see his spreadsheets — thought the duty of the public service was to make sure that in the middle of a financial crisis, the most vulnerable residents didn’t suffer.”