But how does Denley really FEEL about Doucet?
The right decision, the wrong way
Plan opponents did no one proud with time-wasting
By Randall Denley, The Ottawa Citizen June 29, 2010
I suppose it was predictable, perhaps inevitable. Even though the outcome of the final vote on redeveloping Lansdowne Park was clear from the outset of Monday's meeting, councillors opposed to the plan couldn't deal with the matter without treating the public to a day-long display of hair-splitting, shouting and obstructionism.
The revitalization of Lansdowne Park will be an historic achievement that will transform a civic embarrassment into a significant asset. It will be this council's greatest accomplishment. You'd never know it from the way the issue was handled.
After months of reports and questions, there was little if anything new that could have been asked, but that didn't deter councillors. Once one gets over the idea that a question has to make some kind of sense or elicit new information, the rest is a snap. Councillors who oppose the Lansdowne plan chewed up the better part of the day asking questions that had been asked and answered numerous times. Nevertheless, the hunt for a fatal flaw in the plan continued.
The best shot for the nine councillors opposed to the Lansdowne deal was to defer a decision until after October's election. Councillor Alex Cullen led the charge there. One has to admit a certain attraction to delaying major matters until Cullen is not on council, but this was a last desperate act of a councillor who hasn't been able to persuade the public that there are good reasons to reject the deal. Perhaps the mayoral candidate fantasized about a Cullen-led council killing the deal.
Cullen argued that the community is divided on the issue. Does he think that an election would create consensus?
This deferral motion was so special that Councillor Clive Doucet chose to address it standing up. He didn't make any more sense than he had sitting down, but it did enable more enthusiastic arm-waving. Doucet has convinced himself that the land is being given away for a shopping mall. His point was that the project was so bad that he couldn't even vote to defer it. Apparently he didn't convince himself, because he voted the other way.
Despite stiff competition, Councillor Marianne Wilkinson came up with the looniest plan of the day.
Wilkinson actually moved a motion that the city put up some temporary stands and try football for a year or two. One can be for or against the actual proposal, but Wilkinson's approach was just silly.
Once it became clear that no substantive amendment to the Lansdowne plan would pass, councillors switched to a combination of motions specifying provisions that were already in the deal and micromanagement of the details, right down to saying exactly how many bike parking spaces there should be.
The only real "accomplishment" from all this talk was an agreement to exclude the neighbourhood Sylvia Holden Park from the overall plan. That will leave Glebe residents with less than they would have had, but it will save the rest of us $7.6 million.
Councillors also struggled with the plan for a new trade and consumer show building. Skepticism is useful, but not when it overwhelms common sense. Right now, the city provides the buildings for trade and consumer shows at Lansdowne Park. It accepts all the risk, all the cost and does a second-rate job. As part of the Lansdowne deal, the city puts up less than one-quarter of the cost of a new, better building at the airport and doesn't have to operate it. That's a good deal all around.
As they passed the hours niggling over details, councillors lost sight of the fact that they had already approved the deal in principle, last year, subject to a series of conditions. Monday's debate should have been about how well those conditions had been met.
Voting intelligently on the Lansdowne project required some hard work to understand the deal, followed by the ability to exercise one's judgment. That ought to be well within the capabilities of a competent city councillor. There was no need to refer it all to the public in the next election. It's not even clear how the public would have expressed its views, short of a referendum.
Councillors have had months to ask questions and make up their minds. On the last day, it was unlikely that anyone would be swayed. Proposing more than 40 amendments, as councillors did, was overkill. Most of it was redundant fiddling designed to create the illusion that something had been accomplished.
The Lansdowne plan isn't perfect, but it is highly supportable. We should be thankful that the majority on this council are prepared to take some risks and spend some money to make our city better. It's too bad that a minority of councillors can't see the big picture.
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