Council Doesn’t Represent OSEG, The Mayor, City Staff: THE VOTER
The Voter reminds Ottawa city councillors that they represent the people of Ottawa, not the backers of Lansdowne.
What percentage of those sitting around the council table actually have the knowledge and understanding to read the Lansdowne paperwork, of which there is a lot.
Do they truly get what they’re reading? Are they familiar enough with Lansdowne to know when to question what they’re being fed as the Gospel truth? Do they even understand Lansdowne 1.0 and where it has landed us?
Do they understand the economics of the retail and housing markets let alone that of operating sports teams? Can they read the associated legal agreements and understand what has already been committed to and what they are considering committing the city to? Do they understand things like the waterfall, air rights and the like? Do they know how to interpret the results of surveys and public consultations to know how reliable the information is and its level of integrity?
Welcome To Hum-Drum Ottawa: READER
Or are they relying on someone else to interpret all these things and tell them what they are going to know? If that’s the case, who are they getting their information from and are they considering the bias of the source whether it’s the mayor’s office, the Mayor Mark Sutcliffe himself, city staff, Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group members or their staff, the media and so on? Do they understand how easy it is to wrap up half-truths and outright falsehoods and make them look like the genuine article?
Your opinions are only as good as the information upon which they are founded. It behooves councillors to gather their information from many sources and balance differing arguments and points of view to arrive at their own informed opinions. That’s what Ottawa residents are relying on you for and are paying you to do. There are certainly those around the table who are neither representing their residents well nor earning their pay as they should.
Somebody’s going to win through these debates on Lansdowne and somebody isn’t. It’s a councillor’s job to make sure that it’s the residents of Ottawa, present and future, that win. If other parties at the table can also win, that’s fine but the priority has to be the city and its residents. It’s not council’s job to make sure the boys at OSEG make money off their Lansdowne dealings. Especially when that money is coming directly out of the pockets of current and future Ottawa residents.
Are our councillors fools? Are they, as some are saying, in the pockets of OSEG? Are they able to take the advice of staff as something that didn’t come down from the mountain carved in a tablet of stone?
Well, they have a great opportunity to demonstrate that they aren’t by stepping away from the Lansdowne 2.0 proposal as it stands and taking a sober second look at what could be a future for Lansdowne Park which would work for the whole city rather than a select few.
The Voter is a respected community activist and long-time Bulldog commenter who prefers to keep her identity private.
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Yes, there is a very very significant council workload. The paperwork is awesome and complicated. Councillors do need help with all this. Do they depend upon their personal staff for understanding, navigation and position definition? And assuming they do, and very likely have as well delegated significant responsibility to them, what are the necessary and desirable qualifications for these “political” but nevertheless civic employees? Do councillors seek out candidates that have local government, political or policy experience, or academic credentials that support research and policy competence? Do they have at least a minimum of financial analysis skills? Or is it perhaps all about who you know, rather than what you know?
Even Greenburg could not explain the as he said it: “complicated” waterfall! It is a scam to over-complicate things.
Breaking news: the city announced late Friday in the meeting that it is SELLING lansdowne parkland to the developer. (at 9:29 in the 10 hour meeting on youtube) Long term leases will qualify for a loan, but yet we are selling it for the developers interest. The city has not committed to buy it back as a future council must decide. What price? Perhaps OSEG knows?