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Feb 11th Disfunctional Council Meeting

Quote:

Council meeting spins out of control

Yelling matches, accusations mar debate on bridge, strike issues

BY PATRICK DARE, THE OTTAWA CITIZENFEBRUARY 11, 2009 11:14 PM

OTTAWA-A marathon meeting of Ottawa Council at times spun out of control Wednesday, with yelling matches between councillors, city staff openly criticized by a councillor and councillors shaking their heads at the behaviour.

At one stage Wednesfday evening Mayor Larry O’Brien adjourned the meeting so that Rideau-Rockcliffe Councillor Jacques Legendre could cool down. Mr. Legendre, who was fighting to kill a proposed inter-provincial bridge at Kettle Island, had accused city solicitor Rick O’Connor of improperly handling the issue, though it wasn’t entirely clear how.

Earlier in the meeting, Mr. Legendre had accused city management of “politicizing” the operation of the transit system through a series of recommendations for enticing riders back onto the transit system after the city’s disastrous two-month transit strike.

Mr. Legendre yelled at Innes Ward Councillor Rainer Bloess, who supports a bridge at Kettle Island and managed to get a motion through council last night that would rule out study of another possible bridge route at Lower Duck Island farther east. After Mr. Legendre criticized the city solicitor, Mr. Bloess swiftly walked over to where Mr. Legendre was being calmed down by the mayor and Mr. Legendre and Mr. Bloess exchanged words.

Earlier in the meeting, Bay Councillor Alex Cullen yelled at Gloucester-Southgate Councillor Diane Deans, and suggested she wasn’t listening to debate, as she was attempting to have the provision of bike racks on city streets carved out of a major new project to replace all of the city’s street furniture. Ms. Deans was doing this so that a local company can continue to provide the racks, which have been successful.

Earlier in the meeting, Mr. Cullen had been extremely upset when a move to put an additional $50,000 into bus tickets for poor people failed on a tie vote. He called the decision "obscene."

By hour 11 of the meeting, council members were acknowledging that the day had been a failure.

"We messed up today ó bad," said Mr. Legendre.

"It's been a bit of a circus today. We've let council get out of hand," said Mr. Bloess. "We've accomplished very little."

One of the critical topics of the meeting was the bridge question because the National Capital Commission is eagerly awaiting the city's position on the issue. Ottawa Council has for years criticized the NCC for its lack of transparency and failure to listen to feedback in decisions. But city council's position on the issue has been unclear and the NCC has organized a special meeting of its board for Friday to make a decision about which bridge route proceeds to the second stage of the study after the city's position is made clear.

Council decided late last night to rule out study of the Lower Duck route being suggested by opponents of the Kettle Island route. They also voted down protection of a possible corridor from Cumberland to Masson-Angers. However, council also voted to allow a reconsideration of the issue at its next meeting, which means the issue might still be unresolved.

I was watching a bit this evening. . . it was pretty bad. It is clear we need some kind of shake-up for politics in Ottawa.... New mayor, transit commission, term limits (?? not sure how effective they are), new blood?

I watched the meeting too. It was a complete circus. I really really fear for this city about its future. There should be term limits since these people have made a life out of politics and they cannot see the big picture, they cannot get a fresh perspective on the issues. It all end its bickering, ward wars, protectionism of ones turf and does NOTHING to better the city.

If after the next election the mayor gets turfed we might loose the new LRT plan since council will bicker more and this farce will continue over and over again. But then again we voted them in.....at least those who did vote.

I wonder if having some at-large councillors would help. theoretically they would make decisions based on what is best for the city as a whole, rather than for their ward

At-large councillors and term limits might help. I wonder if allowing a party system at the municipal level would work as well. Theoretically that would encourage some sort of city-wide platform rather than a narrow focus on their individual ward. I think you'd want to have a significant number of at-large councillors in that case as well to provide better representation for those ridings not represented by a majority.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ciemny (Post 4082857)

It all end its bickering, ward wars, protectionism of ones turf and does NOTHING to better the city.

In my worklife, I have to deal at times with various councillors and I have yet to find one who can think beyond getting re-elected. The Bloess/Legendre scrap is based on neither one of them wanting a crossing of the Ottawa River to be in their ward...correct?.....

Having dealt with Legendre in the past is not fun.....he is a very suspicious fellow who often thinks that the private sector are trying to full a fast one on him....and Bloess would be in his eyes a friend of the private sector.

What we are seeing now is a serious flaw of amalgamation. Local issues are handled by the exact same people who are handling issues of regional concern. As a result, there becomes too much local pressure on a regional issue (eg. Kettle Island bridge) and there is too much outside influence on a local issue. We have seen votes on issues affecting a certain part of the city almost entirely determined by those representing other parts of the city. There has been a general loss of control over local issues. This is when the voters get very disenchanted and it doesn't help with voter turnout.

In the name of efficiency, we have made city councillors professional positions and we have eliminated all the former ways to dabble in local politics at a grass roots level. So, there is no training ground now for a new generation of local politicians. What is the result? It is almost impossible to unseat an incumbent unless they retire or we see grandstanding as was the case with current mayor. We end up the same tired group of councillors or people who are good at selling themselves but not necessarily good politicians.

We may implement term limits as a way to force turnover, but then we end up with people who are so green that it will take a year or two or more for them to get to know what they are doing.

There have been some unintended consequences when the province decided to eliminate our local councils.

Apparently a white paper will be released on a transit commission as part of the mid-term governance review (coming soon)

I doubt what a white paper on a transit commission would have any positive impact let alone lead to a formation of such a commission. These councilors are entrenched in their power bases like tanks of the Sigfried Line. Any loss of their micromanaging abilities with OCT would be a direct hit to their base.

Honestly it angers and frustrates me watching these people making decisions that only protect their turf instead of being beneficial to the city as a whole. It is tremendously embarrassing having this happen in Canada's capital.

De amalgamation anyone?

Quote:

Originally Posted by jeremy_haak (Post 4083212)

London UK has an MMP-like system with 14 directly-elected wards, plus 11 "top-up" seats, in the context of a party system. This makes the results more proportional and also allows third parties/independents to compete (min. 5% of vote)

That large proportion of at-large councillors could be interesting for Ottawa. I guess a party system makes it easier, because the average person might have a hard time choosing between dozens of possible at-large candidates

There was talk in the Rideau-Sussex makeover thread about what concrete action SPP Ottawa forumers can do to help make this city better. Expressing opinions on individual issues is important, but I see our biggest impact being in the next election.

Jokes of running ourselves aside, I see absolutely no reason why we shouldn't get together as a group to create a series of informed and well researched questions on the big-ticket issues in our city. These should include questions that pertain to candidate's view of the city as a whole as opposed to simply their own riding. Then we can try and approach as many candidates as possible on as many of the issues as possible during the next election. Best case scenario we can send an identical set of questions to every candidate, post responses on a single website (perhaps along with some explanation about why we asked what we asked) and through a little bit of advertising hopefully get some voters to read it.

Equally important is making sure the public is aware of the state of things, which is an even more difficult task.

Surely, this is the job of the traditional media and in some way I'm sure it is doing its part in this regard, but I think the particular set of interests we have on this forum give us that extra boost to get some information out there and to pose important questions to incoming candidates...

edit: see below for the updated article

Citywide boroughs wouldn't be a bad idea. That would address the problem of producing viable new politicians to replace the old ones.

De-amalgamation would promote sprawl. Most of it happened when development was controlled by the different municipalities inside and outside the Greenbelt. Who could fault Kanata for wanting a larger tax base then? I can see the same thing happening all over again where new rural municipalities would be tempted to allow development in its areas closest to Ottawa and it would be beyond the control of the city.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi (Post 4084238)

Kanata is not a rural ward... The city of Ottawa is not functional and too big to manage properly, rural areas shouldn't be included. This doesn't mean that the city should come back like it was before.

Quote:

Originally Posted by d_jeffrey (Post 4084373)

I meant a few decades ago when Kanata was largely undeveloped. RMOC had a loose control of sprawl but otherwise each municipality did what they pleased. Gloucester and Nepean were paranoid that Ottawa would keep on annexing their developped areas so they kept on encouraging sprawl in Orleans and Barrhaven to keep up their tax base. This is the true reason behind the failure of the Greenbelt to contain sprawl.

Now imagine if Carleton county was set loose from the City of Ottawa, they would realize that their most valuable land was the area closest to Ottawa. They could easily allow huge suburban development on its borders, enticing Ottawans to relocate there with lower costs and taxes. No matter how much Ottawa tries to limit its urban boundaries, it would be a moot point because land farther down the road is already being developed. Like I said, it would be like the failure of the Greenbelt all over again.

Theoretically that should be controllable with settlement area boundaries, changes too which would require approval from a regional government, since they are typically the approval authority for lower tier municipalities.

As a resident of one of the former municipalities, I would seriously consider deamalgamation. All we have seen, is lose, lose, lose with amalgamation. We lost our library. We lost our museum. Our snow clearing is worse. Our community centre was wrecked so we can't hold our community dinners there anymore. We have seen threats to our transit service. We have seen inequitable return of transit service after the strike so that we get virtually nothing while the neighbouring community gets 100% service. Yet, we are expected to pay our full taxes, even when we don't get the service.

I would favour a return to some form of two tier government so that region wide issues would be controlled centrally but local issues are controlled locally.

I know my position will not be popular, but there has to be some understanding that there is more to this city than those living in the central neighbourhoods.

updated citizen article

Quote:

Doucet calls for deamalgamation

Situation is ‘democracy in action at its worst,’ Brooks agrees, but suggests alternative

BY JAKE RUPERT, THE OTTAWA CITIZENFEBRUARY 12, 2009 11:21 PM

OTTAWA — The amalgamated City of Ottawa has failed and a referendum needs to be held among rural residents to see if they want to leave, Capital Councillor Clive Doucet says. It is the first time an elected leader from inside the Greenbelt has publicly voiced such an opinion.

Mr. Doucet said he wanted to make the 2001 merger of 12 former municipal governments work. But, he said, it’s now clear it can’t.

He said having four people representing largely rural areas on council has impaired council’s vision and created structural roadblocks to decision-making. He said rural councillors consistently vote as a bloc against initiatives that would help areas inside the Greenbelt. He also said that rural voices are overrepresented as the country wards have far fewer residents but the same voting rights, even on services rural citizens don’t pay taxes for.

As a result, Mr. Doucet says, it’s time to cut these rural areas out of the experiment.

“We all wanted this to work, I know I did, but there comes a point when you have to say, ‘The girl doesn’t love me anymore,’ and move on.”

Mr. Doucet said the city should hold a referendum in 2010, as required by the province, among rural citizens, and submit an application for deamalgamation to the province if the terms of separation are met.

Mr. Doucet’s ideas were greeted warmly by a director of the Carleton Landowners’ Association, which has called for deamalgamation for years.

“Hallelujah,” said Shirley Dolan. “We don’t agree on a lot of things with him, but it sounds like we found some common ground. So that’s great.”

Rideau-Goulbourn Councillor Glenn Brooks, who represents a largely rural area, does not support deamalgamation, but he is looking to change the relationship between his residents and the city. He said in the upcoming review of governance, he will propose turning his ward into a borough with its own council to decide on many local issues inside parameters set by Ottawa city council.

He said when council focuses on what’s best for the city as a whole, good things get done in rural areas. What is lacking in rural areas, Mr. Brooks said, is a sense among residents that they have a say on issues affecting them, and that this would be addressed by creating a borough system.

“I have flown this idea out in my ward and people like it because they could be more involved in the decision-making process.”

The councillor said he is against deamalgamation because the benefits of being part of the city outweigh the drawbacks.

Mr. Brooks pointed out that several multimillion-dollar projects, — such as bringing sewers to Manotick, the historical Dickenson Square project, a road project on tiny Nicholls Island, and the provision of broadband Internet service in rural areas of the city — probably wouldn’t have been funded if the rural areas weren’t part of the amalgamated City of Ottawa.

At the time of amalgamation, most urban councillors supported it, and many rural and suburban councillors fought against it. None of the current rural councillors supports deamalgamation anymore.

But a series of events at City Hall has changed things, including a recent study that found homeowners inside the Greenbelt are subsidizing suburban and rural dwellers by approximately $1,000 per year on their property tax bills. Also, studies show taxes in the core are expected to continue to rise while suburban taxes fall.

A series of suburban and rural road projects have also been approved, which will contribute to increasingly expensive growth in the outlying areas, and Mr. Doucet said most rural councillors will only support projects that directly benefit their wards.

His suggestion comes after a particularly troubled council meeting Wednesday, which included personal jabs thrown across the council table, open confrontations between councillors, a series of narrow votes on post-transit-strike measures cancelled on procedural grounds, and a failure to make a final decision on where a new bridge over the Ottawa River should go. Councillors also criticized city staff repeatedly during the marathon session.

Assessing the situation, councillors called their collective actions “foolish,” “dysfunctional,” “messed up,” “circus”-like and “nonsensical.”

Barrhaven Councillor Jan Harder, a veteran municipal politician, said it was the worst display she had ever seen at a council meeting.

“Nobody should be taking any pride in the way we have been conducting ourselves,” she said.

Mr. Brooks said council has deteriorated into a morass of parochialism, not-in-my-backyard thinking and frustration.

“It’s democracy in action,” he said. “But it’s democracy in action at its worst. We’re flouting all the rules. We are all over the map.”

Mr. Brooks said with a less centralized decision-making process, such as the one he’s proposing, the city can function with its current geographical and government makeup.

Mr. Doucet disagrees. He thinks the local government is irreparably broken.

“I don’t think that with how things stand, we can create a coherent decision-making process here,” he said. “Rural people have a lot of legitimate concerns. There are a lot of good reasons for deamalgamation, and I understand many of them want to leave. So all I’m saying is, ‘Let’s give them a chance to leave.’ I think it would be better for everybody.”

Provincial criteria for restructuring

The province set out the terms for deamalgamation in a letter to the landowners’ association in 2006.

The former minister of municipal affairs, John Gerretsen, said the province is “willing to consider locally agreed upon restructuring proposals that would contemplate an alternative governance structure” if four criteria are met. They are:

• The alternative government must have a property-tax system that is fair to all residents;

• The proposed new municipality must demonstrate fiscal self-sustainability;

• The current city council must vote in favour of a referendum on the issue and be responsible for the entire cost of the vote;

• A majority of ballots cast must be in favour of deamalgamation.

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

I would support some form of rural secession as long as a greenbelt act similar to the Greater Golden Horseshoe belt was put in place around Ottawa by the provincial government. That would allow rural autonomy and minimize sprawl. Another option is to give the City of Ottawa special planning powers similar to those given to the now-defunct Metro Toronto. That municipality had a veto over all land-use planning in neighbouring municipalities.

Quote:

Originally Posted by adam-machiavelli (Post 4084949)

Am I to understand the Metro Toronto had a veto on land-use planning in Mississauga etc? That doesn't sound right to me.

Having regional governance for the existing City of Ottawa with jurisdiction over transit won't solve any existing decision-making problems we are having with transit. I think a separate transit commission might be the best solution, but I'm not really sure how to approach that fairly. Maybe a separate agency concerned with rural transit needs?