No Conflict Of Interest On Tewin: Planning Head
This is Vivi Chi, interim planning general manager, responding to a question from College Councillor Laine Johnson at Wednesday’s Ottawa City Council on the Tewin project:
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There are the two FTEs that’s needed for the IMP (Infrastructure Master Plan) work, which is separate from Tewin. And then we have three FTEs that report to city managers, city directors, who are really city employees for a period of time, five years, I believe, and they’re funded, their salaries, we recover from Tewin.
So, there’s no conflict of interest that we see here because they are acting on behalf of the City in their roles, reviewing documents, comparing them to city policies, all those things. And so there isn’t a conflict of interest because we’re working together as a team. It’s just like staff resources and we’re just recovering our costs through Tewin as part of what Council approved in the Annex and the OP.
– The Bulldog – News Feed Enter 
Vivi can not see the forest for the conflict of interest, ethical and moral conflict. Oh and the forest which WAS on Tewin property is GONE
No potential conflict of interest when Tewin/Taggart are paying them? When they attend meetings with civil society groups and use the word “we” meaning the Tewin team? Come on, get real!
If the city staff present, past and present-past did not see any real or potential conflict in these arrangements then that is worse – by far – than if they did and covered it up. Why? Because that speaks of a culture of ethical blindness – and that means there are many more bugs under the rug.
Not acceptable. Let’s see how the mayor and city manager handle this breach of public trust. And clear incompetence.
Seems also the Algonquin values stressed on the Tewin website are not much of an influence in the design of the new community!
Thank heaven she still has “interim” before her title! Although I am not naive enough to think she doesn’t have the inside track to the permanent position given that, as part of the City’s succession planning program, she was transferred into a created-for-her training position to prepare her to take over the department, I do hope that statements such as this demonstrate strongly enough that she is just not suitable for the position.
Let’s hope that the Mayor and other councillors will summon some integrity and let it be known that she is not acceptable as the General Manager of Planning. In fact, it would be better for all concerned if she were no longer in the City’s employ. We do not need ethically-challenged people who don’t understand the concept of conflict of interest in the ranks of city staff never mind heading a department.
Maybe a nice offer of a golden handshake is in order. It would be money well invested.
Nothing will stick to the current head of the Planning Department as she is ‘acting/temporary’ etc in the role and is only there until the City find a permanent director (if anyone would want to take that on).
This conflict of interest exceeds the situation where a City Planner (using a name they don’t often use) filed a variance application on a property that they owned that had made some construction mistakes on or the situation post amalgamation where the City had planners at the City who were on the payroll of the biggest consulting firm in planning in the City as staff planners to clear the backlog (despite promises that they didn’t have access to other files etc)