2018 Ottawa Municipal Election

[Jayday23]

Originally Posted by acottawa

I voted in the advance poll yesterday. I was the only one there so it was fine, but the process required a 90 year old to find my name in a large binder, so I would assume more than 3 people would overwhelm the bandwidth.

If only there were some way to connect computers to a central database.

[kwoldtimer]

There was an advance poll in the Queen Juliana building up at the north end of Bronson that was open only to residents of the building. What the heck is up with that?

[CityTech]

Watson announced that in his next term the tax target would increased to be 3%. Core services would continue to be held to 2% and the revenue from the extra % will go to "unexpected pressures" stemming from possible provincial budget cuts and to infrastructure maintenance/renewal.

[J.OT13]

So Clive Doucet is on the radio this morning rambling on about his commuter rail (CR) plan. His story changed. Québec is no longer in the plan (though PoW will still be restored). If they want in, they deal with it. His map is just showing where the lines exist(ed). On the Ontario side, only Smiths Falls would be served outside Ottawa (what happened to Limoge?)

He then compares the cost of LRT vs BRT vs CR. He says LRT is 170m/km (true for Stage 1), BRT is 10m/km (Baseline which will be canceled to fund his CR) and CR he says 3m/km and then changes to 1m/ml, so for 50 miles (80km), that's 50 million apparently. Same as the O-Train (17 years ago! But he doesn't seem to realize costs would have gone up in 17 years).

Later, he goes on to talk about his plan to bring back weekly garbage pick-up. Again, he doesn't seem to think that will hurt the greenbin program. People won't be using it any less than they are now.

The guy has no concept of price and/or consequence.

Watson's a jack-ass, but at least he knows what he's doing.

https://www.facebook.com/CBCOttawa/v...72536219442325

[m0nkyman]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Watson's a jack-ass, but at least he knows what he's doing.

It's really sad that Watson is the only candidate with any business running for the position.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by m0nkyman

It's really sad that Watson is the only candidate with any business running for the position.

Dewar would have been a solid choice if he hadn't fallen ill. Very unfortunate, not just for Ottawa of course, but for himself and his family.

[Norman Bates]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Dewar would have been a solid choice if he hadn't fallen ill. Very unfortunate, not just for Ottawa of course, but for himself and his family.

Well said.

[danishh]

yeah, I looked at Doucet for a minute as a potential left-of-Watson protest vote, but it's really hard to justify voting for him with this disjointed and half-baked platform.

[CityTech]

Here's something completely ridiculous about the city's failure to redraw ward boundaries in over a decade. In this new area of Barrhaven, the ward border between the urban and rural ward literally cuts across the neighbourhood resulting in some parts of the same cal-de-sac being in two different wards, one of which is centred on Richmond and North Gower (!)

https://documents.ottawa.ca/sites/de...nity_Ward3.pdf

[J.OT13]

Hopefully they do a better job at projecting into the future when they redraw the boundaries. Seems like a pretty easy thing to do.

I wouldn't mind sticking with the same amount of wards/councillors considering Ottawa's unique geographical size and mix or urban/suburban/rural areas, but the wards should be divided to encompass roughly the same population and not give rural wards more control over the rest of us.

[11a2b3]

Jim Watson re-elected...

https://twitter.com/ctvottawa/status...29857131106304

[CityTech]

It's a good thing for Watson that he got elected on a platform of raising his tax target to 3%. The new council is less Watson-friendly and more left-leaning overall (Taylor replaced with Kavanagh, Qadri with Glover, Chernushenko with Menard) and there'll probably be a lot more pushes from councillors for money for various things this time around.

[danishh]

incumbents out: qaqish, chernushenko, qadri

chernushenko's replacement menard shouldnt be much better for development.

[ars]

Originally Posted by danishh

incumbents out: qaqish, chernushenko, qadri

chernushenko's replacement menard shouldnt be much better for development.

Sounds even worse actually, his remarks last night suggest that he's going to oppose Jim Watson in every way imaginable.

[zzptichka]

Originally Posted by ars

Sounds even worse actually, his remarks last night suggest that he's going to oppose Jim Watson in every way imaginable.

Should be fun. Some other candidates Jim supported have lost too: Kennery, Gourlay, Dransfield.

[daud]

Was disappointed to see Michael Qaqish go. Despite what a few people complained about, he was very active and very responsive to the community. While I don't know to what degree he influenced certain decisions, on his watch, we saw LRT approval extended into the community with the help of developers and he pushed up the bank and leitrim intersection construction to next year. He seemed to work a few files that involved getting developers to pitch in to speed up transportation projects.

He was a regular at all the community events and served Ward 22 well.

Carole Anne Meehan will be interesting to watch. She's lived in the community for a long time, has a very good background in civic issues being a broadcaster and news personality for so long. She also is talking transportation which is the major issue in ward 22. My only concern with her is that she may not be fully cognizant of just how many hours these councillors put in. So we'll see what happens but we were lucky in our ward as we had 3 really good candidates to choose from (Qaqish, Meehan, Singh)

[phil235]

Originally Posted by ars

Sounds even worse actually, his remarks last night suggest that he's going to oppose Jim Watson in every way imaginable.

Yep, he definitely ran with the strongest anti-development rhetoric of the bunch. His most prominent recent accomplishment was leading the ultra- NIMBY protest of the new playing field at Immaculata High School, and getting more restrictions on the use of that field than any other field in the the city (which will almost certainly get overturned in court after we all pay a bunch of legal fees to defend them).

He was pretty much the worst option for Capital ward in terms of smart growth and intensification. I expect four years of him opposing every major development application, refusing to compromise, and then blaming suburban councillors when they get approved.

That said, there is hope that he will at least be a strong voice on transit. His free transit idea is a non-starter, but if he can get better funding/service improvements on the urban routes that drive all-day ridership, that will be something.

[FutureWickedCity]

I think Chernushenko's defeat is unfortunate. He was a very thoughtful and reasonable politician. But it's also hard to argue with a Dewar endorsement...

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by CityTech

It's a good thing for Watson that he got elected on a platform of raising his tax target to 3%. The new council is less Watson-friendly and more left-leaning overall (Taylor replaced with Kavanagh, Qadri with Glover, Chernushenko with Menard) and there'll probably be a lot more pushes from councillors for money for various things this time around.

Was it even a blip in the campaign? Ottawans are inured to high taxes. Although I could see complaints if the additional money goes into things other than basic infrastructure.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by FutureWickedCity

I think Chernushenko's defeat is unfortunate. He was a very thoughtful and reasonable politician. But it's also hard to argue with a Dewar endorsement...

I was surprised by Menard's win. I thought he was too far left to have broad appeal. Those silver spoon socialists in the Glebe can still surprise ...