GARBAGE: The Final Frontier: WHOPPER WATCH
“To go from (six bags) to having a firm limit of three items, I think is progress. Maybe it’s not as much progress as some people want, and I respect that. And maybe it goes further than some people want, and I respect that too.”
Mayor Mark Sutcliffe
Well that’s a whole lot of respect.
Say what you will about the mayor, he’s very respectful. I’m serious.
But still when you’re in the business of finding whoppers, you can go a bit over on the respect-o-meter. Sutcliffe should lend some of that respect to the tackling security guard at the Canadian Open and leave a bit for your agent, as well.
Nevertheless, that sure is the mushy middle. When people during the mayoral campaign said Sutcliffe was the centrist candidate, they weren’t kidding. Sutcliffe above has discovered the exact location of the middle on this garbage issue. Perhaps he used GPS. Or arithmetic.
That said, the public doesn’t necessarily want an answer of political expediency but rather something that works and has good reason about it. Sutcliffe sounds very much like his political mentor former mayor Jim Watson on this one. “Do nothing by halves which can be done by quarters.” Thank you, F.R. Scott.
What’s City Staff Hiding On Tag-A-Bag Program?
Your city staff, after a report of many words, doesn’t know how long Trail Road Landfill will last. That’s rather a concrete fact that you need before you start throwing garbage bag-tags around. So council and the public are flying blind on this one.
Accordingly, tell your city staff to get off the pot and give you facts. As a boss once scolded me: “Mr. Gray we pay you good money to make decisions, so make one … and make sure you’re right.”
What we need is a sound plan that takes us into the future of garbage. What are the alternatives? What’s the best alternative? And we need that information now. Perhaps a tad faster than when light rail is completed.
Burn it? Landfill it? Send it to the black deep space hole where the Starship Enterprise trashes its old phasers?
Give us the alternatives so that your garden-variety councillor can make a sound decision. Do we need a six-bag pickup limit? Three bags? One bag? Plastic? Paper? Gucci?
That’s a major reason why taxpayers have these staffers around … to give them sound advice. And if city staff is a wasteland devoid of ideas and people with good intentions, maybe it’s time to get new advisers. In fact, you can take that ‘maybe’ out of the previous line.
Meanwhile, that black hole in space sounds like a good place for Ottawa’s garbage. Ask yourself … what would Captain Kirk do?
Ken Gray
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What would Captain Kirk do? That’s not a very tough question. If he had landed at Ottawa City Hall at almost any point over the last fifteen-plus years, he would rapidly have called on Scotty to beam him up, giving the reason, valid in many cases. that “there’s no intelligent life here”.
Sutcliffe’s response to the tag question is very concerning. He’s basically saying there are two options in front of us, A or C, and I’m going to go with Option B. I’m choosing that not because it’s the right answer and upheld by facts and/or experience but because some people won’t be pleased by Option A and other people won’t be happy with Option C so I will offer them a compromise of non-Option B. You don’t get what you want but you get less of what you don’t want than would be the case if your non-preferred option was chosen.
Instead of leadership, we get appeasement and the issue remains unresolved and will be back again. Given the history of the Great Garbage Debate, it will be back again and again and again with each successive Council unwilling to bite the bullet and do the unpopular. This does not bode well for the next three and a half years.
He says going from a six-bag limit to a “firm” three-bag limit is “progress”. How is that? Currently, we have a six-bag limit, enshrined in a bylaw, that has never been enforced and he’s proposing to go to a three-bag limit enshrined in a bylaw. What makes him think that the new bylaw will be enforced any more stringently that the old one has been? He may not have been at City Hall for very long but he should have picked up by now that the way things work is that you pick and choose what standards you will actually implement and ignore the rest.
He has certainly learned that you can do whatever you want down there with impunity because there have been no consequences for the actions, some bordering on criminal, of the previous administration or their employees. Six months after the implementation of whatever garbage response* is chosen by Council, the public will have largely moved on from the issue and you can turn your head towards something else that you can do your baffle-gabbing best on. There will be no accountability whatsoever. At City Hall, that’s called “Business As Usual”.
*Double entendre intended with the term “garbage response”. The response is about garbage and it is garbage.
Sutcliffe would respect a 3 bag limit if it passes and if a 3 bag limit doesn’t pass I guess Sutcliffe will respect that also.
Give Mark Sutcliffe credit. He’s turning city hall into comedy central, Ottawa style, without being as offensive as his mentor was. He must have hired new writers.
I need a good laugh as much as the next person. Since this is no joking matter though, maybe we could instead focus on how Markham, Ontario has achieved the high level of success with their solid waste management, and save the levity for other topics like getting the roads paved. Councillor Lo was going to ask this question of the management (I’d call it instead true leadership) in his old hometown. What was the answer? Maybe Bulldog could ask him?
Debra:
I’m always interested in how people want me to do more work (as you can tell The Bulldog is labour intensive) for them when they can do it themselves.
I’m not your research bureau nor am I responding to your every command. This is your second recent command.
Councillor Lo’s phone number is very public. Why don’t you call him? I have other priorities and just one of me.
Last night (morning) I worked until 2 a.m. on The Bulldog. Would you like me to work ’til 3?
cheers
kgray
Yup, Ken.
I’d like you to work until 3. You’re obviously more “engaged” on this subject that I am, and you’re the investigative reporter, not me. I did talk to Councillor Lo before the May 24 Committee meeting, asking for more information about Markham’s success. Now would be a good time for the answer.
Debra:
Your sense of entitlement is off the scale.
cheers
kgray
Hey Ken:
Once you get those answers can you stain my fence? The stain is in the garage, let yourself in.
Kosmo:
Done.
k