City Goes ‘Confidential’ On LRT Settlement

Well, this is an interesting little missive below.

Our Ottawa City Council, whose power comes from the grace of the people of Ottawa, has told staff to carry on with a confidential negotiation with someone to resolve claims from the Stage 2 light-rail puzzle.

The negotiation must remain “confidential” because … ahh … well it’s hard to say. As a rule, the city goes confidential when it has something to cover up. You know, like the outcome of the $300-million dispute between the city and its bonding company concerning the famous and mammoth Rideau Street sinkhole.

Yes Ottawans, don’t bother your pretty little heads about this. Sure, you might pay the bills and you might own the City of Ottawa, but your betters can deal with this all much more efficiently than you and because you have such trust in your staff members and politicians, you don’t need to know about the way your money is being spent. Yes, the 21st-century Family Compact. Don’t be worried little people. We know better than you. We’ll take care of it and you won’t know about it but if you did, you would like it.

And it’s confidential because …? Proprietary private property and technology? Yes we can see corporate spies lined up for miles trying to steal the technology of the failed LRT project because competing firms would like to know what technology not to use.

As well, council has called on Mayor Mark Sutcliffe to pursue “funding from the Provincial and Federal governments as part of the process.” Which means this will cost the city money.

Unfortunately, if our friends at city hall gave their heads a shake, they would note that the feds and province have made it clear that they gave huge grants to the project but the city was responsible for building the line and overruns. So Sutcliffe will be going down the street in Ottawa and to Queen’s Park to beg.

And the reason this all is confidential is that it probably relates to screw ups made by the city. The municipality is not especially good at building light rail but it is expert at cock-ups and cover-ups.

The city tells us it will keep up we humble taxpayers on settlement news as it happens. You mean like this piece of prose that tells us nothing?

No doubt they will have lots of “off-ramps” to tell us of important updates … just like at Lansdowne.

Ken Gray

This is a release from the City of Ottawa:

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Ottawa City Council has authorized the City Manager to proceed with the next steps in a confidential settlement process designed to resolve claims related to the Stage 2 LRT projects.

Council endorsed Mayor Sutcliffe and the City Manager pursuing funding from the Provincial and Federal governments as part of the process.

Council will continue to receive progress updates on the settlement process and funding strategy from the City Manager and legal counsel.