How You Get Lansdowne 2.0: THE VOTER
One of the problems with the orientation sessions that are provided to incoming councillors shortly after their election is that many of the sessions are delivered by staff.
You don’t have to be very clever to draw the line from that to the spectacle of councillors, new and old, approving staff proposals with few, if any, questions and minimal discussion.
Another problem is that nowhere in any of these indoctrination sessions do they teach councillors how to say: “We were wrong.” and back down from a position they took earlier. The concept of reversing any of their decisions is almost completely foreign to them whether when new information comes into their possession or even when they think a bit more thoroughly about the information they have in front of them.
They rarely, if ever, acknowledge that they made a decision prematurely or without being fully informed on all the salient points. This means that, having made a wrong decision, they just pile more wrong decisions on top of it. And so you get Lansdowne 2.0.
One wonders what numbers they will be looking at in October. Will it be $419 million or will the auditor general update her figures to take into account inflation plus the effects of the Trump tariffs? Or will they, together with Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group, come up with Lansdowne 2.2, a new proposal with just enough changes in it that you can’t compare it to the 2022, 2023, or 2024 numbers?
I’m still waiting for the city to propose to OSEG that, if the waterfall deal is such a good one, the city will take the first cut (the one flowing to OSEG now) and OSEG can have the remainder (meaning they would get the nothing that the city got from Lansdowne 1.0). I’ve accepted that I will probably have to wait for a cold day in hell before that comes to pass.
OSEG knows when it has found a bunch of suckers and they are on the sunny side of the deal.
The Voter is a respected community activist and long-time Bulldog commenter who prefers to keep her identity private.
For You:
Some Vital Questions On Light Rail
Why Is Lansdowne Going Forward?
Developers, Cyclists Shape City Policy: BENN
Bookmark The Bulldog, click here
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
– The Bulldog – News Feed Enter 
Sad … if only councillors, both new and not so new, did their own homework they might learn something. Instead, they are followers afraid to rock the boat or do the job they were elected to do. They are the gatekeepers of the public purse .. operative word being ‘public’
Lansdowne 2.0, or whatever moniker it becomes known by, will cost taxpayers a bundle. When a poor decision is made at 110 Laurier West the standard comeback/excuse used by city staff and councilors alike always seems to be “Well, I pay taxes too”, which those involved seem to think is valid reasoning.
What impact will the current economic turbulence (tariffs, tariff induced inflation …) have on the Lansdowne 2.x capital budget? Something that a prudent councillor or 25 should ask. Not just of staff, but also of the city’s auditor general.
Ron,
Call me a cynic but I have my suspicions nobody going to line up to call on the AG to look at the next round of numbers that come out in preparation for Council’s consideration of the Lansdowne file in October. There was more than one councillor perturbed at her for her last Lansdowne review which clearly challenged the much-lower figures they were using.
They don’t seem to comprehend that her job is to provide truthful and accurate analysis and numbers to support Council in arriving at wise and informed decisions. As part of that process, she would take into account any tariff-related turbulence in the economy, particularly in the areas of construction and of interest rates.
Sadly, sometimes councillors don’t want to know what they don’t know.