While the city does have a corporate communications department, Greater Sudbury Mayor Brian Bigger said Friday his office has limited access to their services.
Bigger was responding to a story on Sudbury.com about Todd Robson, whom the mayor's office is paying $1,953 a month for consultation services.
Robson, son-in-law of former provincial cabinet minister Rick Bartolucci, worked on Bigger's election campaign and Robson has written speeches for Bigger since then.
“It is kind of month-to-month as required,” the mayor said of Robson's status. “An example of the type of support he's provided was the inaugural speech and the first 100 days update to the citizens, those types of no support ... Strategic advice and strategic communications I would call it.
“I think it's normal for people to have advisers and people who support them ... It's unreasonable to expect people to volunteer their services when they're providing them for business purposes.”
His office has the authority to contract out these sorts of services, Bigger said. He heard from residents during the October election that they wanted better communication, and Robson is helping him do that.
“Essentially, the mayor's office gets limited communication support from the corporate communications department,” he said. “We do co-ordinate, but we're really kind of on our own in fulfilling the requests for communications from the mayor's office. So that's always been the case and it continues.
"Up to now we've been working internally and one of my focuses is to improve the communication that is provided to the public. Obviously Todd is familiar with the campaign and the promises."
Robson is not involved with the business liaison position Bartolucci is handling, the mayor said, but is focused on “providing support and providing, as I said, significant communication to the public.
“As we have more significant communication efforts, I can see that we may need him in the future,” Bigger said.
“It's hard to predict at this point in time. I'm working very hard to change and improve the communications within the corporate communications department and working with the CAO and staff (to do that).”
Bigger said Bartolucci had no formal role in his reelection campaign, describing him as “a supporter, an adviser. I would say, really, just a vocal supporter.”
Robson's involvement in the election campaign means he has a good idea of what Bigger wants to deliver, the mayor said, and is acting as an adviser as they change their approach to communications.
“It's part of an overall, I guess, development of a communication strategy that responds to what we heard in the election, that people felt they wanted to see improved communications from both the city and, I'm sure, from the mayor's office."
