City Pays For Pols To Get Pix

Published 05/30/2023 · Updated 05/30/2023

Happy Construction Season. May all that dust and dirt you eat be festive.

This commemorative day is probably missing in your phone’s calendar but our City of Ottawa will not let you forget.

Now you might have missed the formal inauguration but Mayor Mark Sutcliffe, transportation committee vice-chair Catherine Kitts, environment, climate change committee chairman Shawn Menard, and Somerset Councillor Ariel Troster plus our civic Happy Town News didn’t.

They went to the construction monument of the Albert Street dig to celebrate the season and tell the people of Ottawa how they are generously spending your tax money. A gift from on-high. God bless them all. (and God bless councillor Shawn Menard particularly because he is in charge of Ottawa’s climate who’s jurisdiction extends to Ottawa’s civic borders but the climate extends beyond. Someone should have picked that up. One wonders if there are civic climate change committee chairmen or chairwomen in cities in India with whom we share our climate and, surprisingly, are outside the jurisdiction of chairman Menard. The chairman should go to India to see).

Nightmare Inaction Plan Books First Acts. Can You Dig It?

So our politicians get their pictures taken in front of almost no one because no one cares it is the beginning of the celebration of construction and then all this material is put into the sweaty eager palms of Happy Town News which turns it into propaganda.

All rather a waste of time and money, perchance? But our politicians are doing their best to keep you informed of how they are spending your money which, from the looks of this event and not the construction itself, is not too damn much. Good advertising for politicians is showing they are actually doing something rather than posing for pictures for their four-year re-election campaign. In fact, could we deduct the cost of this PR extravaganza from their campaign funds next time out?

In the meantime, Happy Construction Season and may all your construction seasons be white (or rather a dull beige layer of dust on your patio furniture).

Yes, but we should also ask, how many of the rare pixel were killed in the production of this press release.

This is a release from the City of Ottawa:

Today, Mayor Mark Sutcliffe was joined by Transportation Committee Vice-Chair Catherine Kitts, Environment and Climate Change Committee Chair Shawn Menard, and Councillor for Somerset Ward Ariel Troster for an official kick-off to the 2023 construction season.

The event was held at the site of the reconstruction of Albert Street, Queen Street, Slater Street, and Bronson Avenue, one of many key infrastructure projects in the city. With an investment of approximately $47 million, the project will include the replacement of aging sewers and watermains, and allow for combined sewer separation, which will reduce the potential for combined sewer overflows and basement flooding. The project will also include full reconstruction of the roads, curbs and sidewalks, and add new cycle tracks, bus stops and protected intersections, which will significantly improve active transportation within this busy area of the city.

In 2023, the City will invest over $800 million in city infrastructure. Some highlights include:

$136 million for road rehabilitation including resurfacing, geotechnical, guiderails, rural road upgrades and preservation treatments??
$34.4 million for bridge structures
$61 million buildings and parks
$7.7 million to renew sidewalks and pathways
$245.9 million for integrated road-water-sewer reconstruction projects
$15.7 million for culverts (stormwater structures)

*This does not include investment for light rail transit, Police Budget, or the Ottawa Public Library and Library and Archives Joint Facility (?dis?ke).

This release goes on but you know … blah, blah, blah.

Ken Gray

Digital image on front created by AI generator Craiyon

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Tags: construction season Mayor Mark Sutcliffe Ottawa

Frank Zarboni says:
05/30/2023 at 10:32 AM
It’s funny how the entire municipality (before amalgamation) have to pay to fix aging infrastructure downtown, when it should have been done because the city of Ottawa never taxed their ratepayers properly and waited until they had absorbed all the other cities after amalgamation. We in the suburbs all had surpluses and paid for our own infrastructure. And now we have to wait years to pave streets and repair sewers in our areas..