City Locks Up Important Information

This newsletter excerpt is courtesy of the city-wide community group Your Applewood Acres (And Beyond) Neighbours which wrote the item below:

Issues Residents are Raising about City Engagement

We have been hearing from residents who take our newsletter and elsewhere from residents increasingly frustrated with efforts to get information from the city.

There is especially a lack of timely access to needed details, including about city decision-making processes, to ensure residents can be a productive part of discussions before decisions are made, and are not simply dismissed for being ill-informed.

The current tense debate about sprung structures is just one example. On the temporary tent issue, the city had months to get key points out to the public that could have helped avoid the current protests (or at least dampen them).

Some key points people think the city could have shared: What sprung structures are? (a YouTube tour could have clarified if they are humane); a clear outline of building costs and their expected lifespan, and why this spending (estimates for the first chosen site on the Woodroffe Avenue are about $3.5 million) is smarter than building a more permanent structure or the use (renovations) of current empty buildings; clarity on criteria used to decide where the tents will go; how asylum seeker services are provided (off-site and on) and details on what those services are; and perhaps the most important element … information that would humanize asylum seekers, like interviews with service providers and maybe even asylum seekers, basic information about gender (are males and females housed in one tent?), age, country of origin etc.

Observers believe adding this information in advance could have helped offset the conclusions some are now making about who asylum seekers are, an issue harder to manage since the U.S. election and the horrible way immigrants are being portrayed.

Residents are saying they have a right to have clear information in a timely manner to be prepared for any genuine engagement, including before meetings (public and city) are held. Instead, we’re hearing over and over again about a lack of timely access to details needed about an issue, including city decision-making processes, leaving people with next-to-nothing before a meeting is held or decisions are made, or they get information at the last minute and have no time to digest it before a meeting. (The release of a 40-page sprung structure staff report a half-hour before two Barrhaven councillors launched a public zoom meeting last week with 400-plus attendees that had been planned for several weeks, is an example that has residents asking why the city is working this way).

And again, sprung structures aren’t the only example. Take the rewriting of some zoning bylaws. Residents (including those with solid knowledge on zoning) say they often can’t understand or follow changes being proposed or only hear about them at the last minute (or find them buried in a densely written document) or after they have already been voted on by committees or council — like the latest one delegating decisions on minor zoning changes to staff, which will include reducing the public consultation period from 28 days to 14 days.

And these frustrations include smaller files.

Take traffic issues on Blossom Drive. Local residents have spent weeks (and months) seeking information from the city on how they can get traffic calming on the street, but received little specific information on how such issues are managed. This led to residents conducting their own survey of residents (282 households canvassed and 208 signatures in favour of speed humps). But the community petition won’t be included in the city’s decision-making process. Only a city-run petition will — and residents have recently been told that a city-run survey will follow tomorrow’s meeting about Blossom Drive but, again, with no details about how the survey will be done and what streets are surveyed. And residents also now know that the city has conducted two studies about Blossom Drive: one on traffic speed and another on cut-through traffic, but efforts to get access to those documents before tomorrow’s meeting so participants can be as prepared as possible, have failed.

Again, these are just a few examples of what has some residents increasingly wondering if this is now the entrenched ‘engagement’ model at city hall: basically, the city working behind the scenes on key points on an issue and then controlling information released to citizens until staff (often but not always working with councillors) have determined what should happen with only a few openings for minor tweaks, and is something that has residents increasingly questioning the city’s repeated claim that they are focused on genuine public engagement.

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