Enough of the "Zero means zero"
 

A significant budget shortfall is expected in Ottawa but mayor Larry O'Brien despite virtually no support from Council is still sticked up to its "zero means zero" mission impossible project. Of course, "zero means massive cuts to services" in which many are already complaining for the deterioration and already cuts would be needed to just have a 5% increase.

This article mentions that O'Brien would tabled will tabled a financial plan at a breakfast meeting (produced by Ottawa Business Journal and sponsored by Toshiba, Rogers and many others) on November 7 instead at City Hall which was the tradition. A French media called it a "secret budget".

Is it me but is O'Brien the main responsible of the divisions and conflicts at City Hall? Can he stop realizing that he is not running a private business company, he is running city (public)?

Here's this other story of the "Zero means Zero" nonsense. http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/...c7b8eb5c73&p=2

Do you even pay taxes in this city to be calling a tax freeze nonsense?

The mayor was elected primarily on his promise to freeze taxes for four years. He is obligated to deliver on that promise. What part of that don't you understand? I for one not only expect but demand him to follow through with it.

I will not lend an ear to any further tax increase until this city gets its priorities straight and gets spending under control.

O'Brien's promise was two pronged. No tax increases for 4 years AND no service cuts. I will not comment further until after his November 7th presentation.

Well with 10 straight tax freezes and the other levels of government not funding enough the municipalities even today, it's obvious that city needs to catch on various projects and other things and that's it's virtually impossible to freeze taxes because of those two facts without creating more problems - that's why I called it nonsense.

Maybe O'Brien should have look at the situation before making a bold promise, so he made the same mistake as McGuinty. At least he tried, but the Council is realistic, it's impossible in our situation unless the higher level of governments help the municipalities that a zero percent hike will be made without major impacts. Although with the recent massive tax cuts from the Conservatives, municipalities can do something for easing up the budget issues so to avoid service cuts, so that the same people who wanted no tax hikes will not complain for poorer service and infrastructures.

Our Mayor in Gatineau had a more reasonable approach which got him elected when he promised that the tax hike will not surpass the level inflation (like Alex Munter promised (and Bob Chiarelli too?)) in order to achieve major projects and he did just that. No tax hikes were above the level of inflation and we did had some significant help from the Quebec government for our transit project. The majority of the population still has a positive view of he did so far, while Larry's rate... well didn't hold on very long it seems.

Considering city staff has proposed anywhere from 7-15% tax increase to cover supposed budget shortfalls I don't see how an inflation rate increase is a much better promise than a zero increase. Both promises would be impossible in this situation.

As LRT said the mayor has identified areas where cuts can be achieved, supposedly to the tune of $90 million or so. Let's see what he has to say next week, and how council's attitude is toward the ideas.

The bottom line is that you can't achieve a zero tax increase if you don't aim for it.

Here's a blog pretty much bashing the Mayor including his zero means zero promise.

http://zeromeanszero.blogspot.com/

Also, I do like the first poll on the left - I've, of course, chosen Lowell Green

the blog is giving him a day off from the criticism due to his wedding. However, in the Citizen, we have article that pretty indicates that there is going to be more division between the Mayor and Council

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/...6-d4f116740822

What's with the blog's obsession with Remi?

http://communities.canada.com/ottawa...-blogspot.aspx

Who is writing zeromeanszero.blogspot?

By KENNETH_GRAY 03-20-2009 COMMENTS(0) THE BULLDOG

The greatest mystery circulating around Ottawa City Hall is the identity of the blogger on zeromeanszero.blogspot.

The daily rant is amazing in that it remains interesting and has an incredible following. Some days during the bus strike it logged more than 100 comments. And often it breaks stories faster than the conventional media.

The blog publishes gossip, most of it largely unsubstantiated but often true, that other media can’t get or won’t touch because it can’t be sourced. That the blog is anonymous means that the repercusions of printing such material are largely inconsequential. However, zeromeanszero.blogspot’s biggest flaw is its bias. It is way, way over the top in its criticism of Mayor Larry O’Brien. Obviously the blog’s reason for being is to cause the mayor political and, sometimes, personal discomfort. And that is beyond realm of journalism ethics.

Still, the blog is a bit of a guilty pleasure and if you are a reporter on Laurier Avenue, it’s best to read it. One of the biggest sports in the civic public service/political/media realm is trying to discover the author. And there are many suspicions, but no one has categorically nailed it down.

One person who knows where most bodies are buried in this political town, I call this person Deep Grit, hired a computer geek to try to discover who is writing it. That failed.

An Ottawa businessman, who at one point I thought was writing it but is not, says the way to discover the name is to sue the company carrying the blog until its executives’ eyes bleed. That would take unlimited money but, sooner or later, the executive figures the company would give up on privacy ethics, releasing the address. As well, this person knows of a cagey way of getting the writer to reveal his or her address.

A senior civic administrator and a councillor I talked to this week believe the blog is an inside job. Both feel it is the product of one or two councillors, their assistants and, quite likely, a writer/computer geek offsite. They think either the councillor is writing the blog or feeding info to a writer. The councillor didn’t want the identity of the blogger revealed. “It has become part of our day and is useful at city hall. I don’t want to bust that blogger.”

I can’t do that, but only for a lack of information. However, here is what I know about the identity of the blogger:

-- I’m 99-per-cent certain that it is no one in the traditional media. Journalists just don’t have time after writing for the web and the paper or filing electronic stories to do a blog in their spare time. Furthermore, there is too much inside information in it for the writer to be an outsider and I don’t recognize the voice;

-- the person writing the blog is very funny and a reasonable writer;

-- the blogger is on the left side of the political spectrum;

-- the aforementioned business about it being a councillor, assistant and/or outside writer/web geek fed by a councillor(s) applies;

-- the writer rises early in the morning. I’m up very early in the morning and the posting is always there.

I think I know who it is — so do others — but I don’t have enough proof to print the name ... yet.

I have no idea who this blogger is, but they're awesome. :haha:

I don't know... Google's pockets are pretty deep, and I doubt they'd budge that quickly.

Plus, what would they sue over? Doesn't the blog have to violate a law before they reveal the name? Which, I'm guessing is just a pseudo email address.

Hey, stop poking holes in their theories of how to find this guy out. Next you'll be hypothesizing that the email address is based in Russia or something and totally beyond the reach of the law to get any further, even if Google did cough it up. :rolleyes:

city holler blog
http://cityholler.blogspot.com/

"CityHoller! brings you opinion on current events that affect the residents of Ottawa. We're here to offer a bit more perspective than a one-sided attack on one guy....you know what we mean."

I have my suspicions that it is not a Councillor but a Councillor has quite a hand in it and that Councillor (plus a couple of others) are feeding the author of the blog with tidbits etc. If you search on zmz for some Councillor's name(s) in the tags section there is a Councillor who only shows up a couple of times and then not in a particularly disparaging tone. It could be this person who is the mole plus a couple of others who only show up a few times as a red herring.

Just my thoughts.

Municipal McCarthyism

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Mu...921/story.html
BY KEN GRAY, THE OTTAWA CITIZENAPRIL 1, 2009 9:53 AM


In the 1950s, fear ran through the United States and unsubstantiated accusations ruined people's lives.

Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy branded innocent people Communists without a shred of truth, resulting in their being blacklisted from their jobs and bringing them and their families improperly into disrepute. His Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations operated as a kangaroo court, where individuals' backgrounds were probed and trumped up Communist accusations were made. Journalists, early in McCarthy's career, just reported what the senator said -- that there were 57 Communists in the U.S. State Department, even if there weren't.

The period was known as the Red Scare. That's because McCarthy was playing on people's fears and the public was uneasy about the march of Communism. The Soviet Union had quickly developed the atomic bomb with its progress aided by espionage. That same Soviet Union had occupied Eastern Europe. China had gone Communist. McCarthy knew how to play on those fears for political gain.

We have a different kind of McCarthyism at Ottawa City Hall now. Unsubstantiated allegations, rumours, name-calling, mockery and, the worst part of it, all from someone who writes anonymously. Give Joe McCarthy his due -- he might have been a liar, but at least he had the guts to put his name out there.

Zeromeanszero.blogspot.com, or ZMZ as the popular blog has become known across the city, has as its purpose to try to force Mayor Larry O'Brien's resignation. The blog is very effective. With its wit and cruel criticism, the daily rant must be embarrassing for His Worship. In Richard Nixon's era, this blog would have been part of the late U.S. president's dirty tricks campaign. McCarthy and Nixon were unethical figures of the right. History has condemned them. But ZMZ is liberal and the reaction at city hall, a mostly liberal bastion, has been different. One councillor hoped the person behind the blog wouldn't be discovered because this anonymous work "provides a valuable service."

This is the kind of 'journalism' in which the Internet tends to specialize. Some call it citizen journalism, but an accurate description would be unethical, immature and amateurish. A newspaper or broadcast outlet is subject to the laws of libel and contempt. So are blogs, if you can catch the person writing them. And that's the rub ... no one, yet, can prove who is writing ZMZ.

What is likely is that at least one councillor, and perhaps two, is contributing to or writing this. From the voice in the blog, it sounds very much like one councillor in particular. The writer is possessed of details of the goings-on around city hall that only an insider could have. Now, it's one thing (not a great thing) for a resident to write an anonymous, politically motivated blog, but when an elected official or public servant is part of it, well that's getting very close to McCarthyism. Unsubstantiated rumours and smearing by a member of government -- that's dangerous.

Proper journalists (you know, the ones who obtained post-secondary degrees or are industry-trained) are possessed of craft ethics, have their work pored over by bloodless editors, sign their material, publish in newspapers with pride and commitment and understand how important it is to be accurate -- and they don't go for the kind of excesses that occur in some bloggery.

If all the doom-sayers are right about traditional journalism dying (I don't think so, but it's a school of thought), are blogs like ZMZ the kind of work on which democracy will rely? Name-calling, political motivation behind the writing, news with a twist -- that's what you'll get in the future. As well, there is no press council to which an offended person can appeal, no court in which the author can be sued (unless the author can be found), no way to punish contempt in a courtroom.

Welcome to the future of journalism. No training, no ethics, no law, no mores, few skills. Simply journalism by the mob. Man the barricades, civil society is in jeopardy.

All this and a subculture on the Internet full of abuse and vitriol. Some of the vicious notes I have received, almost all anonymous, have been so venomous as to leave my knees shaking. They make Rush Limbaugh look like Mr. Rogers.

If ZMZ is the future of journalism, then when you see real working journalists today from a reputable organizations, give them a hug. They are a precious resource. They might not possess the truth, but they are trying to find it.

Ken Gray is a Citizen editorial board member who produces a monthly podcast, Inner City, at ottawacitizen.com/innercity and a blog, The Bulldog, at ottawacitizen.com/bulldog .

His column runs Wednesdays.

E-mail: [email protected].

- - -

Read Ken Gray's new blog The Bulldog in which he tells what he knows about the ZMZ blogger.

ottawacitizen.com/bulldog

I wouldn't be surprise if the purpose of the City Holler blog is basically to do a war with the zeromeanszeroblogspot.com. Example look at the poll, this is basically the opposite of a previous ZMZ poll. Though it says the City Holler blog wants to have more balance, could be more like a pro-Larry blogger with his ZMZ- obsession. He too is an anonymous blogger.

I wouldn't be surprise if the purpose of the City Holler blog is basically to do a war with the zeromeanszeroblogspot. Example look at the poll, this is basically the opposite of a previous ZMZ poll. Though it says the City Holler blog wants to have more balance, could be more like a pro-Larry blogger with his ZMZ- obsession. He too is an anonymous blogger.

No offense to Ken Gray, but his assessment of "proper journalists" is way off. The value so-called citizen journalism has is that it often cuts through the crap a lot quicker than the mainstream media, and is often more persistent over a story as well. Mainstream journalists are far too apt to accept what they're fed and leave it at that and are just as susceptible to abuse and vitriol. This is far more noticeable in the states (Bill O'Reilly anyone?), but it occurs in Canada as well.

Sue Sherring slams O'Brien
http://www.ottawasun.com/News/Column...6/9127566.html

City Holler is pulling no punches today as to who they think the ZMZ blog is written by. ZMZ has been pretty nasty recently about O'Brien and dragging his family into their vitriol.

Oh cry me a river. So what if it is only negative comments about the Mayor (oh and also all councillors and that is both towards left-wing or right-wing councillors- Cullen and Doucet were also criticized at times by the blog)

And lack of balance? Oh please, I've looked at many US bloggers and are pretty one-sided for either the Democrats or the Republicans. Ditto for Canadian blogs one-sided towards the Conservatives or Liberals.

So, so what. And by the way, we get more information (yet okay some speculative, but eh this is a blog) from this blog, that doesn't make the news. This forum most notably Waterloowarrior and ZMZ is making me twice (or more) as informed on what's going in municipal politics (or stuff related to the city) then the media.

So who is the lawyer acting on behalf of? Its pretty hypocritical to demand that a blogger reveal their identity and not say how you are working for.

That said, I hope the blogger was smart enough to use a pseudonym and then use a proxy server or steal free wi-fi signals to post on their blog. Amussing they knew how to cover their ass.

Hum, someone from his staff? Lowell Green? Steve Madely? Someone from the Conservatives? We might never know.

Anyways sounds like the mayor has officially abandon his zero means zero hopes
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