Lansdowne: Opponents Get Organized Again

Another Lansdowne petition is in the works.

This time it is being publicized by uOttawa professor Evan Potter and Neil Saravanamuttoo, a community organizer, CitySHAPES director and former G20 infrastructure chief economist:

#ottcity Budget 2025: Calling for Councilors @PlanteSteph613 @DevineSean @ShawnMenard1 @laine_johnson1 @RiverWardRiley @JLeiper @somerset_ward @rawlsonking @Jessica_Ottawa @tm_kavanagh to ensure public $ is spent on #ottawa residents’ priorities. Choice: #Lansdowne or Transit? https://t.co/2f8Gj9BOQi

— Evan H. Potter ?? ?? (@EvanHPotter) October 21, 2024

Saravanamuttoo is the kind of person the city should be cultivating to build a better community. He is a smart and motivated Ottawan.

Unfortunately, city planners and politicians know better than Saravanamuttoo so he is the kind of person who the municipality tends to ignore because he gets in the way of their grandiose plans.

As you can tell from such failures as light rail and Lansdowne, city officials do so at their peril.

Remember what brilliant politician and diplomat (and man of many other hats) Stephen Lewis said at a National Capital Commission urban forum and we paraphrase: If you want to know what’s best for a neighbourhood, ask the people in the neighbourhood.

But city officials know better so they don’t. However, those officials do go through the motions. They have the power and the hammer and a lack of an understanding of their responsibility to the community. And the community, for the most part, is apathetic. So officials get it wrong, repeatedly.

You see power corrupts and promotes incompetence due to its lack of responsibility. People with power, even with the best of intentions at the outset, believe it is all about them. Arrogance leads to carelessness which leads to mistakes. That’s how you get Lansdowne and light rail.

As much as this petition is worthwhile, the forces behind Lansdowne will mobilize sports fans who don’t understand the nuances of the issue but sure would like a new stadium for their enjoyment. It will probably not work. Another manifestation of our credit-card society. Then those same forces will organize a poll that will give them the answer they want.

That’s when the petition fails and smart people such as Saravanamuttoo get ignored despite their interest, ability and caring.

Ken Gray

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