City Fiscal Mess No Smooth Move: MULVIHILL
Mayor Mark Sutcliffe thinks gross incompetence is no cause for concern.
That’s the message residents received loud and clear. It matters not that Sutcliffe and his merry band of misfits around the city council horseshoe have done absolutely nothing to rein in over-the-top spending or take accountability for the financial mess in which this city finds itself. That would be asking too much of our elected officials. He chose to go public with his plea for financial fairness from both the federal and provincial governments. Not a smooth move, Mr. Mayor.
Sutcliffe must have realized he inherited a living financial nightmare when he took his place in the big chair. The fact that there remained one sole survivor of the past transit commission should have been the first clue that the waters were fairly choppy … the rest of the crew bailed.
The second clue soon followed with the release of the provincial judicial inquiry into the light-rail project. Findings such as “egregious violations of public trust” … “deliberate malfeasance” … “participants deliberately mislead the public” … “lies by omission” … “willful misconduct” should have been taken seriously, not dismissed lightly. Unfortunately, Sutcliffe chose to sweep the report under the mayoralty rug and soldier on in the same manner as former Jim Watson would have.
That Sutcliffe failed to act on the content of the report was disappointing but somehow expected.
Residents of the City of Ottawa elected a mayor and councillors who continually display gross incompetence many levels and yet Sutcliffe believes the upper levels of government should bail the city out of the financial mess they themselves have created yet do nothing to fix. The city may very well be owed back taxes for federal buildings but that paltry amount isn’t going to cure the multi-billion dollar mess residents will finally cover.
From the get-go, Sutcliffe would have done well to distance himself from Watson’s Laurier Avenue ghost and stand on his own two feet. Sadly, he did neither.
Donna Mulvihill is a community activist and former hospital coordinator
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I haven’t seen any signs of austerity budgeting or a hiring freeze yet. For example they just moved park garbage collection from city staff to contracted workers, but kept the city staff, effectively doubling the price of garbage collection. In a competent government, when work is contracted out, the workers doing that job would be terminated. Staffing is out of control
Sutcliffe has done virtually nothing to distinguish himself from our last NiceGuy mayor. And that means he will continue to make decisions that make our municipality less desirable, less sustainable, and more expensive to live in.
Wake up! No one is buying the plea to other levels of government when the local level is by far the most destructive.