By Ruby Pratka
Local Journalism Initiative
The town of Sutton has a new director general. Former assistant director general and director of legal affairs Jonathan Fortin was formally named to the position on May 8. Fortin succeeds Pascal Smith, who stepped down in April to take another job closer to where he lived.
Geneviève Bonnichon, named assistant director of legal affairs in January, succeeds Smith as clerk and director of legal affairs; the town is still seeking candidates for the position of assistant director general.
The town also named longtime public works co-ordinator Patrick Roy as public works foreman, and urban planning and land use planning advisor Harry Pressoir as interim director of urban planning during Claude Théberge’s leave of absence.
“We carried out a detailed evaluation of potential candidates for the position of director general, and the decision was unanimous,” Mayor Robert Benoit said in a statement. “Jonathan, whose administrative rigour we appreciate, is the best candidate for this strategic position. We are counting on him to ensure the continuity of good municipal management and staff stability. Geneviève will naturally take Jonathan’s place as head of the town clerk’s [office] and legal affairs department. As for Pat Roy, his new title of foreman simply recognizes the role he was already fulfilling, and Harry Pressoir is ideally suited to head up the urban and land use planning department during the prolonged absence of its current director, Claude Théberge.”
Fortin is a lawyer who began working for the municipality in 2019. He was named director of legal affairs in 2021 before being promoted to assistant director general in March 2022. He got the permanent job when Smith had an opportunity to work closer to home. “He lives in Montérégie, and he was spending two or three hours on the road every day to get to and from work,” Fortin explained. “We got along well, so that was kind of sad, but it’s understandable.” Smith’s departure reflects a major human resources challenge that Sutton and similar towns face – hiring qualified personnel who live close by. “We have the disadvantage of having the U.S. border on one side and mountains on another,” said Fortin, who lives in Cowansville. “The employees who work here ideally live in Sutton, but if not, we have to look toward Cowansville, Brome Lake, Bromont, Granby, Shefford, Waterloo…and even then you’re 30, 45 minutes away. So yes, it’s a challenge in terms of human resources.”
Fortin explained that his role and the role of his department is to put into practice the decisions made by elected councillors. “We need to move forward in support of [their] decisions. There’s an analysis process, and then we can say ‘Here’s our recommendation, and you can go to the left of it or the right of it or follow it down the middle, but whatever you decide, we’ll support you.’”
He told the BCN the biggest challenges his office is facing are to definitively solve the problem of piping water to the mountain sector, and to stabilize and manage the town’s growth. “We’ve been experiencing a residential and tourism boom over the last couple of years, and the pandemic exacerbated that. We could say Sutton is in a teenage phase – in transition from a small-town to a medium-size town – and with tourism and everything, we’re seeing how best we can manage, like any teenager, to live in our growing body with all of the emotions that come with that.”
“I would say priority number one is solving the water problem in the mountain sector, but as for priorities two, three, four and so on, we’ll leave that to the new council after the elections,” Fortin said, adding that he expects strategic planning and affordable housing to be near the top of the list.