Are You Going To Miss Me? - MJ Independent Reporter Asks Retiring City Manager
By Robert Thomas
With Jim Puffalt city manager announcing his retirement from the City of Moose Jaw at yesterday afternoon’s Council meeting MJ Independent asked the lead off question at the post Council press scrum.
“Are you going to miss me?” we asked matching a question we had previously asked to then retiring city clerk/solicitor Myron Gulka-Teichko.
Initially breaking out in laughter Puffalt answered the ice breaking question.
“Are you kidding? Of course not,” the City Manager replied laughing.
“I enjoyed the press scrums and our opportunity to chat back and forth and built (a relationship). We appreciate you had some hard hitting questions we always tried to answer. Yeah we appreciate that and the relationship we built. We are not best buds of course but hey it is what it is,” he replied.
“We are not best buds of course but hey it is what it is,””
MJ Independent then asked Puffalt what was his most memorable thing, so far, while working for the City of Moose Jaw?
The first week and the High Street West cast iron water main replacement issue he had to deal with in the first week of starting working for the City he had to deal with. It was right into work and no settling in period for Puffalt.
“I would think the first week I was here. As you might recall High Street (West) was a big issue (when I was first here) by Friday we had to make some kind of decision what we were going to do with that. So I came on May 7th I picked garbage and looked at High Street and started getting at work right away. As you recall that was quite the issue and certainly set the first week I was here. ‘Wow, look at the things going on we need to look at,” he replied.
The High Street West controversy was a major issue in 2018 as phase two of the cast iron water main replacement program went from a planned two weeks a block to months and an over winter of the project.
In the end the City took the project back from the contractor and area merchants - who had lost hundreds of thousands dollars due to the lengthy road closure - asked the City for compensation. Compensation which was denied.
EDITOR’S NOTE - MJ Independent would like to thank Mr Puffalt for his services to the City and thank you for answering all of the tough questions we asked. It is not personal just the media’s role to always ask questions.