A Take-Charge Guy Takes Charge, Doug Ford

Given the City of Ottawa’s precarious fiscal situation, why did Mayor Mark Sutcliffe and Ottawa City Council approve $419 million for new structures at Lansdowne Park?

Did the mayor and city councillors not ask for the current city balance in the municipal chequing account at the corner bank? Financial crises don’t just suddenly appear. Why didn’t city manager Wendy Stephanson warn council during the many discussion on the new Lansdowne north stands and event centre? Why was the city pouring good money after bad in the failed project that shows no signs of success as the municipality didn’t properly address the original causes of the Lansdowne failure.

And why didn’t council, city staff and Stephanson know that the estimates for Lansdowne were way short of the real cost? Or weren’t they telling? Subsequent to the plan’s approval, the auditor general said the real cost of the park’s changes would weigh in at about a half-billion dollars. Who adds $500 million to a debt believed to be $8.6 billion somewhere down the line (if the city is telling the truth on that figure)?

The mayor, the city manager, city council and city staff either knew how bad the city fiscal crisis was but didn’t say, knew about the terrible money situation but went forward anyway with Lansdowne, were incompetent, didn’t care or were withholding information from the public.

When you have massive debts and a fiscal crisis, you don’t add $500 million to that tally.

So Sutcliffe, Stephanson, council and staff either didn’t do their jobs … not the least of which is keeping the public informed of the fiscal status of the City of Ottawa.

Now Sutcliffe is begging the province and the federal government for money to cover the city’s wild spending. What exactly would this extra money by covering? Overruns at the new central library? Confidential settlements with unknown parties related to light rail that are big enough to have Sutcliffe ask for senior government help and are estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars by the CBC.

Why did the city allow itself to get into such a horrible debt situation?

One thing certain, you’ll never get a straight, honest answer to that question from city hall.

And that’s why Ontario Premier Doug Ford needs to appoint an administrator and a board to run the municipality because the City of Ottawa simply can’t do the job. Light-rail failures, massive debt and careless over-spending have put this community into a crisis.

The City of Ottawa doesn’t know how to fix this mess and doesn’t have the people in place to do the right thing. Too many vitally important job titles start with the word interim.

Come on Doug Ford. Save Ottawa from itself.

Municipalities are part of the province’s jurisdiction. Start taking that responsibility seriously.

Most everyone in this community sees that city hall doesn’t work. The only operation that thinks city hall works is city hall. And its inhabitants are much too superior to sully themselves with the hard-working public who pay the bills. Let them eat Beavertails.

You paint yourself, Doug Ford, as a take-charge kind of guy. Well take charge.

Appoint a crack administrator, a top-notch board and some fire-eating auditors to straighten the municipality out or you will take this omission into the next election.

Good luck with that.

Ken Gray

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