City Loses Its Moral Compass: BENN
Should integrity be discretionary when it gets in the way of what you want to do?
Integrity should be an integral part of every organization’s culture. Setting out carefully considered policies. Meeting and exceeding the rules and regulations. Ensuring that everyone is held to the same standard. Honouring the intent of the rules, regulations and policies. Not looking for ways to circumvent the rules and policies.
The question of integrity came up again when a community group challenged the city’s decision to erect a ‘temporary’ housing unit for refugees and asylum seekers adjacent to the Nepean Sportsplex. It seems that the city, in its haste to qualify for time-sensitive federal funding, chose to focus on city-owned or city-leased properties, to the exclusion of any property owned by a government body. That was even though consideration for all government-owned properties was high on their list of decision criteria.
It turns out that changing the use of a city-owned or leased property does not require the usual round of public consultations and other regulatory and policy requirements. Following these long-established policies extends the timeline for a project. It ensures that the public is aware of situations thus allowing the public to respond with their concerns. It requires that city staff and elected officials at least pretend to pay attention.
If this was a one off, the public might be inclined to shrug its shoulders and say something to the effect of these things happen in times of urgency. Except this isn’t a one off. It is part of a trend, a well-established culture that allows choosing expediency over due process.
Consider the concept of the competitive bid, a key element of many organizations’ policy manuals to get the best value for the money. It ensures that conflicts of interest are avoided. Then there is the City of Ottawa. It follows its competitive bid policy for generic things such as copier paper and coffee-creamers. But it is a policy that the city regularly circumvents.
The quarter of a billion dollar redevelopment of Lansdowne, more than a decade ago, was sole-sourced. That the city hasn’t seen much, if any, of the waterfall of profits should have been a warning signal to a city public service and elected officials to proceed with caution. Not to worry, the half-billion dollar re-redevelopment of Lansdowne is being sole-sourced – to the same set of developers. Why? Ask your councillor.
The city decided to award the contract to expand the north-south LRT to a consortium that failed the technical requirement of the request for proposal twice. Why? The official reason given was because the firm was offering the lowest price.
The city has just announced that it will sole source elements of the construction of the Newcomers Welcoming Centre-Sprung Structure.
It seems that sole-source contracts are in the best interests of the city, until they aren’t.
Lest you think that the lack of integrity is limited to sole-sourcing contracts, read on.
The hallmark trifecta of open, transparent and accountable government is, in its very essence, a statement of integrity. Yet council decided to settle what has been reported as hundreds of millions of dollars of legal claims regarding cost overruns on the LRT in a confidential manner. It buries the amounts in the financial reports.
Consider the mismatch of due process regarding pedestrian and cyclist safety. A pedestrian crosswalk requires a study to determine whether there are sufficient points to qualify for the allocation of limited resources. In contrast, a bike lane can be installed with no underlying study, on the whim of staff, supported by a blanket resolution of a previous council.
Take a close look at the idling bylaw. Ordinary residents are held to a much higher standard than city staff. OC Transpo buses can belch diesel fumes as they idle while the driver is taking a well-deserved 15-minute break. But let one parent leave their four-cylinder vehicle idling while waiting for an elementary school to dismiss the students and the virtue-signalling defenders of all that is righteous will descend on her like the plague.
Back to Lansdowne. The city wants to get building permits issued prior to the upcoming changes to the building code. Staff are willing to circumvent the higher standard to achieve their goal. Rather than comply with the higher standards, staff are willing to circumvent the process.
Let’s be very clear here. Staff are either deciding to circumvent the rules and policies and expecting council to approve the action after the fact, or staff ts acting on instructions from council. Neither is a good look for the body tasked with overseeing staff decisions.
When your moral compass reacts differently based on your preferences, it isn’t much of a moral compass, is it? And that says everything that needs to be said about the culture at city hall.
Ron Benn, a finance executive, has been a member of the Centrepointe Community Association for the better part of three decades.
For You:
City It’s Cold Outside: PATTON
Kanata Plagued By Doors Busted By Youths
How To Catch The Wily Idler: THE VOTER
Moffatt Leaves Mayor’s Office, Joins City Staff
Did Idle Hands Produce Idling Bylaw? CRERAR
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– The Bulldog – News Feed Enter 
Integrity left the building about fifteen years ago to be replaced by convenience and connivance when Jim Watson arrived back on the scene.
When you have your mind made up as to the way you want something to happen, it’s very inconvenient to have to stop and follow the rules or, heaven forbid, listen to residents hold forth on how your plans don’t work for them. It also saves a lot of time to just go ahead with those backroom deals with your friends and associates rather than having to explain the nitty-gritty of the financial details. It’s easier to barrel on and leave the explanations for later – and the later that “later” arrives, the happier you are.
Open, transparent and accountable are for people whose plans and ideas can stand up to scrutiny. If that’s not you, then the less daylight that shines on you and your works, the better. When things start to fall apart, as they inevitably will, you pack your bags and head out. But as you’re leaving, you ensure that those friends and associates of yours help someone else to take over and get him to proclaim that he’s not going to look in the rear view mirror. That ensures that you and your buddies are protected since he won’t allow anyone to question or re-evaluate the decisions made on your watch.
He then blames the fiscal mess he’s facing, and that you laid the foundations for, on third parties and manages to get the council of the day to pick up that refrain. A new budget that should never have seen the light of day is put forward which, in addition to failing to meet legal standards, is full of manipulative games that target seniors and other populations to distract from the problems within.
The ethical issues and the moral shortcomings at city hall aren’t to be laid solely on the shoulders of one man. He had men and women as well as followers who all enabled him. Many people decided to go along to get along rather than create waves.
But he was the leader and a prime beneficiary.
I don’t lump all these together.
Emergency housing is an emergency.
Yes, I live near the east end newcomer housing. Yes, I welcome refugees.
Every now and then the integrity commissioner is called upon to investigate a questionable activity and usually the investigation results in no followup action. What’s the point of having an integrity commissioner when the worst outcome for the offending party is a slap on the wrist.
Well written description Both Benn and the Voter identify many aspect of the corrupting of city processes. We witnessed many retirements as things heat up. Planning department and legal staff among them.
A reminder that the new building code is described by the province: “Ontario has released a new Building Code to reduce regulatory burdens for the construction industry, increase the safety and quality of buildings, and make it easier to build housing.” and “to ensure that Ontario’s buildings continue to be among the safest in North America.”
So to rush the Lansdowne design to include out of date design and building standards, including accessibility, and avoid saving money and avoid safety improvements speaks volumes. This is about pushing the project as quick as possible to the “we cannot cancel it now, look how much work has been done, and to delay would mean meeting a different (2024) building code” situation.
Us taxpayers are being set up. It is an attack against safety and accessibility to become “too big to fail (cancel)”. We need to stop the rush to the old building code deadline of March 31 and embrace safety, efficiency and accessibility standards of the current (2024) building code.
Miranda, a house on fire is an emergency. A river flooding its banks is an emergency. A person bleeding profusely is an emergency. When electricity has been cut off to hospitals and fire stations, it is an emergency. When people’s lives are at risk, it is an emergency. What these all have in common is that immediate action must be taken to prevent an immediate negative result. Immediate being the key criteria.
In contrast, a problem that has been around for years, that poses no immediate risk to life or community, is not an emergency. That the asylum seekers and refugees are being housed in facilities not designed for the purpose (community centres) and that the local community is inconvenienced is just a problem with a consequent inconvenience. It is not an emergency.
When everything is an emergency, nothing is an emergency. When everything is an emergency how do we prioritize resource allocation? To the loudest voices? To those who frame up the opposition as being bigots? To the self-interest group that is capable of manipulating the city’s consultation processes?
If declaring something an emergency allows an organization to circumvent the rules, regulations and policies then we MUST ensure that what is deemed by staff and council as an emergency is actually an emergency, not just a problem that is causing an inconvenience. Where this becomes a challenge is that council, who is tasked with overseeing the decisions of staff, is incapable of differentiating between a problem and an emergency.
The key driver for the city to proceed in haste with the temporary housing for asylum seekers and refugees, to justify circumventing the rules, regulations and policies is that the availability of federal money is time limited. Was any consideration given to preparing a well organized response (from the committee of Mayors of self described Major Cities?) to the federal government stating that setting artificial deadlines creates more problems than it solves?