Auditor General Represents The People Of Ottawa: POTTER
Evan Potter, an associate professor in the department of communication at the University of Ottawa, sent this note along to The Bulldog recently concerning Lansdowne 2.0 and city auditor general Nathalie Gougeon.
Hello Ken,
I just re-read your piece on Ottawa’s auditor general.
It is my view that the AG is now pretty well the only real barrier to Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group getting bailed out at Lansdowne with our taxes.
The Glebe Community Association’s appeal to the Ontario Land Tribunal will delay things for a bit but OSEG and the city had anticipated that this would happen.
Many people have been contacting city Gougeon to ask when her terms of reference for the ‘agile audit’ on Lansdowne will be made public.
There’s been silence so far.
I think that Gougeon knows very well that the Lansdowne 2.0 proposal is full of concocted data that has been manipulated to produce an ‘affordable’ cost to Ottawa taxpayers of $5 million a year.
The question is whether she is prepared to expose Lansdowne 2.0 for what it is. If so, she would be up to her neck in a drawn out battle with Mayor Mark Sutcliffe, city manager Wendy Stephanson and more than half of city council. As you know, the audit committee is chaired by Kanata North Councillor Cathy Curry and its members all voted yes on Lansdowne.
But the last time that I checked the bylaws establishing her position, the AG is supposed to be looking out for the people of Ottawa.
If her terms of reference for Lansdowne 2.0 do not explicitly address ‘value for money’ and an investigation into how the $5-million figure was arrived at (given it was based in part on bogus retail revenue projections), then the public interest will have been deeply compromised at city hall — again.
Keep up the good work.
Evan
Thank you Evan for the very informative note and the good words. Here at The Bulldog we are most eager for the AG to conduct her promised audit on the Trillium Line procurement. Between the Lansdowne audit and the non-light-rail audit, the situation in the AG’s office is very trying for many members of the public. The Bulldog countdown clock on the LRT audit at the time of writing this stands at 433 days, 11 hours, 36 minutes, 52 seconds. That’s how long Ottawans have been waiting for the procurement audit. That item slowly slipped down her workplan until it dropped off.
That’s not good.
k
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Note to Mayor Sutcliffe and his political advisors (both those known and behind the curtains): Consider cancelling the city’s AG office in its entirety. There is no need to continue to carry millions of dollars of compensation costs when the residents of the city are receiving nothing of value.
Ron:
I was actually going to post on that one time.
What’s the use of having an AG if she and her committee avoid the important questions facing the city?
We’ve had too many AGs afraid to be AGs.
If the AG doesn’t want to be an AG, perhaps she should move on or shift to the public relations department.
Lansdowne and Trillium Line procurement scream audit and we’re getting nothing.
That’s a lot of salaries for nothing.
I’d really like a city hall that works for the people of this city rather than special interest groups, public servants themselves or, of course, politicians.
Next round of layoffs? Let’s start in the AG’s department.
By the way, I’d be happy to give space to Ms. Gougeon to respond to these criticisms. AG, The Bulldog is yours.
cheers
kgray