OC Transpo

[Hybrid247]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

As I said fairgame but disagree. She lacks the qualification of having led or been a deputy even at a transit agency and thus didn't need to be lobbying at that level. Which some are saying is now needed. I think that would probably have failed but we will never know but agree it's not about leadership but about funding. But others say the leadership is incompetent but we aparently can't challenge the hiring process. I challenge Manconi's hiring too as an internal corrupt old boys decision.

Originally Posted by acottawa

How is she "qualified period"?

If I understand correctly, her background is primarily technical, with an engineering background and experience running bus operations in Montreal.

General Manager of OCTranspo is a significantly political job, requiring navigating Council politics, communicating effectively with the public, dealing with the media, etc. The other part of the job is making hard decisions about what to cut in an environment of diminished resources and a significant decline in ridership.

I don't know about the inside baseball in city hall. Maybe she is playing this political role quite well and making the best decisions possible about where to put resources. But certainly just based on media reports that isn't as obvious as her supporters here are making it sound.

She worked at the STM for nearly 20 years, 5+ years of which was as the director of bus maintenance and another 6+ as executive director of bus operations. She did this in a city with one of the largest bus fleets and highest ridership levels on the continent. Managing STM bus services alone, which has more than twice the amount of buses than Ottawa, is a substantially larger undertaking than managing all of OC Transpo - and she excelled at it. This is exactly the type of leader you want for the GM of a transit agency.

Considering that she inherited the position in the midst of an unprecedented paradigm shift in Ottawa's workforce from in-office to remote work, which accounted for the bulk of ridership, and then having to reorganize from a downtown and commuter focused service to a more decentralized one in a largely sprawly, car-oriented city - all on a shrinking, shoestring budget - is a losing endeavor that was never going to solve OC's ridership and revenue issues. Once again, if we want better service under these new, unprecedented conditions, give her the necessary resources to do it.

Have a read at the below contradictory quotes from Brockington, and tell me OC and its GM are the issue here and not Council.

"If Madame Amilcar says bus reliability is a priority and there aren't sufficient resources in the budget that covers off this priority, how is the city manager holding her accountable?" Brockington asked. "So that is a significant concern for us."

He explained that when he served on the public school board, there was a formal process for trustees to weigh in on detailed appraisals of senior leadership positions. In his view, informal "coffee chats" with the city manager don't have the same impact.

Asked whether Amilcar should be disciplined or fired if there's no progress on bus reliability, Brockington said he simply wants to see improvements.

"I'm not going to sit here for another year with our data month to month showing static, that we're not making improvements, because it's impacting our residents and our passengers," he said.

"Renée Amilcar has my support,' he added. "She is probably the most experienced person in Canada for a bus network."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/oc...687%20plus%20%247%2C973%20in%20benefits.