Gee, casting a virtual vote for "Worst," or "Least Bad," of the urban park designs hardly seems like much of an opportunity to influence the process. Besides, during the online "consultation" on the Lansdowne scheme, despite the fact that the vast majority of responses were critical, that input from the public apparently mattered not one whit in Council's decision.
Although OSMUG did concede some influence to the BIA over the retailer mix (although only after the BIA had threatened to go to the OMB, and then only in exchange for dropping its case) I seem to recall that of late they have been whingeing about the need to "adjust" the proportions they had previously agreed to.
And presumably once all the retailers at Lansdowne join the BIA, it will we taken over by them, and forever render it impotent in ever again contesting any of the actions of OSMUG and the Lansdowne retail cluster.
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Originally Posted by JFFournier
Aside from the design competition for the entire front lawn (did you participate in that?) and working with the BIA to establish a breakdown of retailer types?
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My point is that expecting the City to be held to its own operating rules, as far as competitive contracting, was naive. The only way to kill the Lansdowne scheme would have been to use as professional a PR strategy as OSMUG/City did, to present the critics' concerns about the proposed scheme as effectively as the deep-pocketed developers.
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Originally Posted by JFFournier
Obviously, the message is not clear at all. A PR campaign wouldn't have made the FoL or John Martin's claims any more factually correct. But keep dwelling on it, maybe at some point it'll finally click.
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