CHRIS LOWREY
MUNICIPALITY OF PONTIAC
Dec. 19, 2018
The Municipality of Pontiac has hired a new Director General – Charlotte Laforest.
She will take the reins from outgoing Director General Benedikt Kuhn, who will take over the DG position with Transcollines.
Laforest served as the director of education with the Conseil scolaire catholique de district des Grandes Rivières – a French language school board in Timmins, Ont.
She has a Masters degree in education administration and human resources.
On top of all of that, Laforest also served as a councilor in the Municipality of Chelsea.
Needless to say, she brings with her plenty of experience.
Her first official day on the job is Jan. 1 but she has been in the town hall this week getting a handle on the work to come.
She replaces Kuhn, who served as the municipality’s Director General since 2014. Kuhn spent an additional two years with the municipality serving as assistant DG before taking over the position.
Municipality of Pontiac Mayor Joanne Labadie said the municipality is fortunate to have hired someone so soon after a vacancy came up. Council passed a motion agreeing to terminate Kuhn’s employment at the Dec. 4 council meeting.
“We were really fortunate to be able to find a replacement,” Labadie said.
She went on to say that there are currently five other municipalities in the MRC des Collines looking for a new DG. She said many municipalities need a new DG 10 to 14 months after an election.
Labadie said that the expertise Kuhn brought to the job will be missed.
“I had a really good working relationship with Ben,” she said. “It’s a loss for sure.”
But, Labadie said that Kuhn is well-equipped to take on the job with Transcollines.
“I think that Transcollines and the Pontiac as a whole are going to be very well-served by having him work on such an important file,” Labadie said. “He knows the Pontiac well, he lives here, he certainly knows the MRC Pontiac well having served with the CLD.”
Labadie stressed the amount of time and effort Kuhn put into the job, pointing specifically to the hours he put in during the flooding of 2016 and, more recently, in the aftermath of the tornado.
“He gave so much of himself,” Labadie said.
