Maitland City Council general manager Jeff Smith reflects on four months in role

The recently appointed Maitland City Council general manager took over the ropes from David Evans in July, who had spent 25 years in the role.

Mr Smith is an accountant by trade, and has previously worked at NIB for eight years, at Port Stephens Council for about seven years and for the last nine years worked at Randwick and Northern Beaches councils.

His commute to Maitland from his home in Fletcher is a bit quicker than the drive to Sydney.

Mr Smith said he's thoroughly enjoyed his time at council so far.

"It's been really good, it's an amazing organisation and the staff have been very welcoming," he said.

"There's a lot of potential, both for the community and the organisation so it's been exciting."

He said since beginning in July, his work has focused on the city's growth.

"It's really about liveability, trying to make Maitland as liveable as possible, trying to accommodate the additional population that's set to come into the area but trying to retain that liveability of Maitland," Mr Smith said.

"And ensuring that new people coming into the area have access to the recreation opportunities and the services, and the employment opportunities.

"We're keeping an eye on ensuring that we can accommodate our growth appropriately."

He said coming from the outside and having worked at other councils, he believes something Maitland does especially well is having a human-centered service design team.

"From my experience in local government there aren't a whole lot of councils that are actively taking a human-centered design approach to how they build their services," he said.

This means council tries to make its processes easy for customers to interact with, such as the View, Book and Pay system for community facility bookings on the website which takes away the need for separate paper forms and payment avenues.

Related

Mr Smith has always lived in the Lower Hunter, and he is joined by his wife Amanda and three children who are 25, 21 and 19-years-old. He became a proud grandfather earlier this year with the addition of a baby girl.

He said one of his favourite things about Maitland is the diversity the city offers.

"You come into Central Maitland and even other parts of the LGA and you've got such a heritage focus with beautiful old buildings and I think there's an opportunity for us to leverage that," Mr Smith said.

"You've also got other areas that are younger and provide a different focus.

"You've got a significant shopping precinct in Green Hills... but also the diversity of recreational opportunities."

Mr Smith said if someone was new to Maitland, he has a few personal recommendations for things they should see and do.

"I would certainly tell them to go and check out The Levee and the river walk down in Central Maitland," he said.

"I would tell them to go and check out Morpeth, but also Morpeth Common. Morpeth Common's a beautiful part of the city that I think is, not unappreciated, but a whole lot of people don't understand the space in there.

"It's just beautiful lines of trees, it's such a lovely spot."

Mr Smith also recommends Walka Water Works.

"At the moment, with the historical contamination we need to work through that for a little while, but when we get to the other side of dealing with that contamination I think there's a real opportunity for us to enhance that space and enhance the community's ability to be able to access that and really enjoy a lovely piece of Maitland again," he said.

In other news: