Administrator Would Make Final City Decisions

If there’s an administrator appointed by Queen’s Park to rework the goings-on at the City of Ottawa, that person would supersede the current elected crew and would report directly to the province and to the people of Ottawa.

Looking back, as an example, at the Ottawa Transition Board that set up the structure of the new city at amalgamation, the board members were given veto powers over the 12 municipalities in certain areas to control what they could do with their resources as they were shutting down. Any unforeseen expenses had to be approved by the board as did any hiring or promotion of employees among other things. During the transition period, the existing councils continued to run day-to-day operations but within certain parameters.

If someone came in to do a clean-up operation, city-wide or for the LRT, the city would still run while the administrator was in charge (I almost said “the City and the trains” would still run but, of course, nobody can promise the trains would run until the LRT was corrected). In most cases, current levels of service would be maintained while the review was happening.

One of the roles of an administrator would be to look at the budget and revise it to get rid of the deficit. When the Transition Board was here, it developed the first year’s budget and hired senior staff that were then inherited by the newly elected council at amalgamation.

Any funds that were put into the city would come with conditions and maintaining any changes that were made to staffing or the budget would be part of the conditions.

The Voter is a respected community activist and long-time Bulldog commenter who prefers to keep her identity private.

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