OC Transpo

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by vtecyo

If the city hired a white guy with the exact same experience as her - with the exact same job performance - what would you complain about then? Huh?

I seem to remember frequent complaints on here about the previous head of OCTranspo.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by acottawa

I seem to remember frequent complaints on here about the previous head of OCTranspo.

Yeah. They complained about their job performance. Not the colour of their skin and their gender.

[rocketphish]

Please tone it down, folks. The personal accusations of racism are unwanted here. The argument being presented against Amilcar is about her qualifications, as I read it. The DEI process can be exclusionary, by design, and can prevent candidates better-suited to a role from being hired. Did that occur in this case? We'll never know.

[Richard Eade]

Can we really complain that strongly about her performance, though?

She inherited a mess. There were previous years of ‘cutting smaller suits’ that led to negative resources being available when the large price increases hit. She had few choices for what she could do.

I believe that she is playing a smart passive-aggressive course. That she is announcing, publicly, that the system is in shambles and requires a big increase in its budget. I know that there are several on this site who keep saying that she needs to be a strong advocate for more resources. I think that they might simply be looking for a less subtle style of doing what she is already doing.

The previous head of OC Transpo was somewhat of a ‘Yes-Man’. As his budget was slowly eroded, he simply manipulated what he had left to provide what service he could. He, and the others at OC Transpo, were remarkably successful. Unfortunately, there was degradation of the service. Councilors liked a manager that they could give less money to, and get few complaints in return.

Enter the new GM. She does not go into the Councilor’s offices to slam her fist on the table and demand more money. She simply uses what is available to her and prepares a budget of what it would take to provide the service that Council thinks that it wants.

“OMG!” yell the Councilors “I’m getting complaints about transit every day! And, you are over-spent by $39M! And, there is a $120M hole in your budget for next year! The GM is obviously not doing her job!”

Asked to fix the deficit, the GM calmly states that that is what it takes to run the system. Politicians start the spin-machine, trying to portray a super tough choice between huge cuts in service, or huge increases in taxation. The complaints to Councilors have increased from a trickle to a flood. This has finally gotten their attention, and the public finally sees what the years of cutting has done to OC Transpo.

Covering up the problems was the way things were done in the past. Exposing (and amplifying) the problems is the other option. When things look most dire is when people try to turn things around. People react to a ‘Crisis’, and the GM knows that and uses it to her advantage.

Is she the best manager OC Transpo has had? I would say No. But I do think that she is what OC Transpo needs at the moment. When a wound is infected, you can continue to hide it under new bandages; or rip off the bandage and expose the infection so that it can be cleaned out before sepsis sets in.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Yeah. They complained about their job performance. Not the colour of their skin and their gender.

It's about the hiring process. Manconi was probably a part of the old boys club hiring that excluded new arrivals and minorities in our cities from being firefighters cops etc as the jobs when to kids of city workers with no merit. His first job was inspecting pipes and maybe he was brilliant at that and every promotion after that was based on merit where they considered asy the newly arrived Somali engineer equally but I really doubt it.

We should absolutely end that kind of hiring but equity policies are just another form of racism and taint everyone who goes through the process. Many federal departments now have policies that take people who failed competitions and put them based on their equity status in those positions anyway. It's not as obvious elsewhere but the result is similar.

As I said the only legit criticisms I think you can make is not speaking truth to power and using the bully pulpit to demand more transit funding. This is something a previous transit head would have had a leg up. All that said I think Sutclliffe wouldn't have listened as he ran on an explicit platform to keep taxes low and not surge transit and bike lane funding.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by rocketphish

Please tone it down, folks. The personal accusations of racism are unwanted here. The argument being presented against Amilcar is about her qualifications, as I read it. The DEI process can be exclusionary, by design, and can prevent candidates better-suited to a role from being hired. Did that occur in this case? We'll never know.

Cool. If we don't know then can we stop throwing it out in every single discussion? How about you do your job and moderate that ? The person I called out has a history of this. And thinks every performance problem is because of DEI. If they see boogeymen under their bed every night, I don't think that's a problem that everybody else has to hear them whine about.

Looking forward to your petty ban.

[Hybrid247]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Cool. If we don't know then can we stop throwing it out in every single discussion? How about you do your job and moderate that ? The person I called out has a history of this. And thinks every performance problem is because of DEI. If they see boogeymen under their bed every night, I don't think that's a problem that everybody else has to hear them whine about.

I second this. If Amilcar didn't have the experience and qualifications for the job, then bringing up DEI may be valid, but she's clearly qualified. In this context, questioning the motive of the user in bringing up DEI is fair game in my opinion.

Moreover, as has been stated multiple times, OC Transpo's issues are clearly tied to underinvestment, which council is accountable for, not OC's GM. No one, no matter how qualified, can fix the issues OC is facing without the funds to do it. Period. There's no magic wand that planners can wave to overcome it, as some users on here seem to think is the solution.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Cool. If we don't know then can we stop throwing it out in every single discussion? How about you do your job and moderate that ? The person I called out has a history of this. And thinks every performance problem is because of DEI. If they see boogeymen under their bed every night, I don't think that's a problem that everybody else has to hear them whine about.

Looking forward to your petty ban.

It's one of three of four of the biggest issues facing government yes. I don't know what its status is at DND? Maybe you are happy to benefit? I bring it up where relevant and you usually reply that it's racist which the Mod said was over the line. I actually accept the use of the word is prevalent for the assumption that anyone who was hired with lower qualifications because of their equity status might have lower qualifications but it's pretty obviously on average true. There is a myth it's just a tie breaker or something but being on the inside of hiring it's shockingly inaccurate. Naturally for a one person hiring the counterfactual doesn't exist and I don't mean to suggest it defines the debate on performance at this point for OCTranspo.

Originally Posted by Hybrid247

I second this. If Amilcar didn't have the experience and qualifications for the job, then bringing up DEI may be valid, but she's clearly qualified. In this context, questioning the motive of the user in bringing up DEI is fair game in my opinion.

Moreover, as has been stated multiple times, OC Transpo's issues are clearly tied to underinvestment, which council is accountable for, not OC's GM. No one, no matter how qualified, can fix the issues OC is facing without the funds to do it. Period. There's no magic wand that planners can wave to overcome it, as some users on here seem to think is the solution.

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.

Do you think DEI is fine unless we bring someone who say failed out of high school into Medical school? When we take MCATs a standard deviation below is that not problematic as they were above the cut off (along with 1000s of rejected applicants). Is Freeland qualified to be Finance minister? Many said she got the job because she was a woman and didn't have a financial background which is the reason for our deficits. I always thought that was suspect and what additional qualifcation does LeBlanc have? Certainly though setting a quota of 50% women in cabinet means you are picking from a smaller pool. But yes they are all qualified at a minimum level but leaving people out like General Leslie because of gender and many other competent men may now have caught up to them.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

Maybe you are happy to benefit?

Let's see if rocketphish will cover for you on personal attacks too. You guys drinking buddies or something? What's the cheese of choice at the DEI whinefest?

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Hybrid247

I second this. If Amilcar didn't have the experience and qualifications for the job, then bringing up DEI may be valid, but she's clearly qualified. In this context, questioning the motive of the user in bringing up DEI is fair game in my opinion.

Moreover, as has been stated multiple times, OC Transpo's issues are clearly tied to underinvestment, which council is accountable for, not OC's GM. No one, no matter how qualified, can fix the issues OC is facing without the funds to do it. Period. There's no magic wand that planners can wave to overcome it, as some users on here seem to think is the solution.

Exactly. She was qualified. Got handed a 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 situation. And I don't exactly see what she could have done better. She probably should have actually quit. But you don't advance your career at that level by publicly complaining about the politicians who hired you.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Exactly. She was qualified. Got handed a 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 situation. And I don't exactly see what she could have done better. She probably should have actually quit. But you don't advance your career at that level by publicly complaining about the politicians who hired you.

Most of the situation was known. I guess it was pre-election. So demand better funding or quit? That would have been as you said the end of this career even if it might just have worked.

Even with all of this she can easily walk into a major US city Transit job. If rumors are true she was headhunted for Boston a year into her mandate. But let's pretend we don't know why.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Let's see if rocketphish will cover for you on personal attacks too. You guys drinking buddies or something? What's the cheese of choice at the DEI whinefest?

It's not a fair question? You either benefit and are happy as it's cosmic vengeance or you think it doesn't exist and is just a small tie breaker. I think you are smart enough to no how prevalent so think you are happy to benefit. If you have another explanation this example aside put it on the table.

Cheese of choice is the 25 point Conservative lead.

[Admiral Nelson]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

It's not a fair question? You either benefit and are happy as it's cosmic vengeance or you think it doesn't exist and is just a small tie breaker. I think you are smart enough to no how prevalent so think you are happy to benefit. If you have another explanation this example aside put it on the table.

Cheese of choice is the 25 point Conservative lead.

Mods, I beg, do your job and rid us of YOWetal's trollish moaning about DEI and right wing politics that is not germane to fixing OC Transpo. Amilcar is qualified to run OC Transpo, period. Irrespective of whether DEI policies exist, reducing Amilcar to a diversity hire is thinly veiled racism deeply insulting.

[DTcrawler]

A ban seems extreme, but that's obviously up for the mods to decide. Personally, I feel that silencing right wing opinions creates bigger problems and it's not like left wing political discourse gets checked on this forum anyways.

That being said, the DEI whining is beyond annoying and feels like another instance of every complex issue getting pigeonholed and blamed on any one of the issues on Trump-era conservatives' list of favourite gripes.

Get over it, DEI policies exist and are nearly universal these days in both the public and private sector, so it's ridiculous to attribute the struggles of a particular, long-troubled agency like OC Transpo, to DEI.

Unrelated to the above, I noticed there is a positing up for an Associate Transit Services GM position with the City.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Admiral Nelson

Mods, I beg, do your job and rid us of YOWetal's trollish moaning about DEI and right wing politics that is not germane to fixing OC Transpo. Amilcar is qualified to run OC Transpo, period. Irrespective of whether DEI policies exist, reducing Amilcar to a diversity hire is thinly veiled racism deeply insulting.

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.

[Norman Bates]

Originally Posted by Admiral Nelson

Mods, I beg, do your job and rid us of YOWetal's trollish moaning about DEI and right wing politics that is not germane to fixing OC Transpo. Amilcar is qualified to run OC Transpo, period. Irrespective of whether DEI policies exist, reducing Amilcar to a diversity hire is thinly veiled racism deeply insulting.

Yes, please.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by DTcrawler

A ban seems extreme, but that's obviously up for the mods to decide. Personally, I feel that silencing right wing opinions creates bigger problems and it's not like left wing political discourse gets checked on this forum anyways.

That being said, the DEI whining is beyond annoying and feels like another instance of every complex issue getting pigeonholed and blamed on any one of the issues on Trump-era conservatives' list of favourite gripes.

Get over it, DEI policies exist and are nearly universal these days in both the public and private sector, so it's ridiculous to attribute the struggles of a particular, long-troubled agency like OC Transpo, to DEI.

Unrelated to the above, I noticed there is a positing up for an Associate Transit Services GM position with the City.

Pretty much saying the quiet part out loud at this point. Right wing opinions should be banned.

Speaking of which. For what seems like the majority of us (us being Ottawa voters) who prefer not to throw any more tax dollars at OCTranspo and recognizing the Feds and Province aren't coming to the rescue even in the medium term barring surprise election results what is the non-new-revenue suggestion for rescuing OCTranspo?

Every suggestion I see here has opposition which is natural but we have to decide as a rescue fairy isn't coming. Straightening and combining routes seems like a no brainer as it improves service for many while saving costs. Beyond that cutting bus frequency on the empty routes and keeping frequency on rail especially once phase 2 opens seems like a good path. Let Uber come right into the bus areas and encourage that for the last mile for many.

On the revenue side I'm in favor of a congestion charge but increasing parking rates and getting rid of more free parking seems to make sense too.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

It's not a fair question? You either benefit and are happy as it's cosmic vengeance or you think it doesn't exist and is just a small tie breaker. I think you are smart enough to no how prevalent so think you are happy to benefit. If you have another explanation this example aside put it on the table.

Great application of the new rocketphish corollary, "If you don't know somebody, their success must be DEI."

In my experience, those who whine the most about DEI are a lot like those who used to whine the most about racism in the past. Often losers unhappy with their own accomplishments.

Originally Posted by YOWetal

Cheese of choice is the 25 point Conservative lead.

Not sure what this has to do with OC Transpo, but okay.

Originally Posted by YOWetal

Pretty much saying the quiet part out loud at this point. Right wing opinions should be banned.

No. We're just tired of the Facebook uncle level trolling of derailing each and every f***ing thread. There's no restriction on you starting a thread to whine about DEI. This is the exact same behaviour that got others permabanned when they turned every thread on rail into a discussion on intercity rail through Sudbury. That didn't have anything to do with politics. Go start your DEI thread. I promise you I won't be there.

[Truenorth00]

I wonder if rocketphish is a DEI mod. After all, the inability to keep threads in this forum on topic... Must be DEI.

Some of you might say this is trolling. But as per logic here, we're just stopping right wing talking points. So don't you take away my freeze peach!

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Great application of the new rocketphish corollary, "If you don't know somebody, their success must be DEI."

In my experience, those who whine the most about DEI are a lot like those who used to whine the most about racism in the past. Often losers unhappy with their own accomplishments.

Not sure what this has to do with OC Transpo, but okay.

No. We're just tired of the Facebook uncle level trolling of derailing each and every f***ing thread. There's no restriction on you starting a thread to whine about DEI. This is the exact same behaviour that got others permabanned when they turned every thread on rail into a discussion on intercity rail through Sudbury. That didn't have anything to do with politics. Go start your DEI thread. I promise you I won't be there.

I agree it's become off topic for this thread but it's certainly a major issue and if you don't agree I go back to my questions which weren't questioning your success but asking why you think why it doesn't matter.

Don't disagree that those who whine the most might be the ones who have been unsuccessful but those complaining about transit service are those too unsuccessful to either buy housing in a central area so they can walk to work or pay for a car and parking. The same gatekeeper mentality exists. I got mine so who cares what comes afterwards.