Leiper Sort of Says Something: WHOPPER WATCH
“Relatively feverish pace”
Mayoral candidate Jeff Leiper on the speed at which the city is designating heritage buildings.
Welcome to municipalese, the language understood and used by city officials but incomprehensible to mere mortals like taxpayers.
Is it possible to parse the actions of heritage staff any more not precisely?
What are synonyms for “relatively feverish pace”?
Let’s see:
- “Kind of on fire”;
- “Not quite smouldering”;
- “Exceedingly average”;
- “Drolly hilarious”;
- “Passionately lukewarm”,
- “Exceptionally average’;
- “Tepidly hot”;
- “Frantically calm”;
- “Strangely normal’;
- “Somewhat rapid”;
These are all terms you can use when you don’t want to say anything but are forced to use words as in light rail is “astonishingly challenged”. These could be handy for public servants. Save them for your next report. Be strikingly uncommitted, though if you listen to municipalese long enough. you’ll be relatively committed to a home.
But then such terms are appropriate for the Kitchissippi councillor.
Leiper is running for mayor but then he might not. He’s running like a candidate but is not a candidate.
Accordingly, Leiper is a candidate to be a candidate for mayor of Ottawa. Runs like a mayor but is not a mayor nor a candidate for mayor.
Got that?
Ken Gray
For You:
Bus Shortage, Traffic Hurt Transpo: GOWER
City Hall’s Track Record Is Abysmal: BENN
Transpo’s Woes Start At The Top: BENN
City Has No Figures On Speed Camera Injury Reduction
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– The Bulldog – News Feed Enter 
Kitchissippi Councillor Jeff Leiper’s word smithing aside, the bigger question is why the city is insisting on designating the two churches as heritage properties.
Among the reasons given by the city is that they need to ensure that these two churches will be properly maintained, in a manner consistent with the original design and construction. When it comes to criticizing asset management, the city is not on solid ground. On what basis do I make this observation? The recent report about city infrastructure being almost $11 billion underfunded. Alex Cullen’s lament about the closing of the Belltown Dome arena due to a failure by the city to maintain it. The pre-Lansdowne 1.0 state of affairs at what the current administration is calling a gem. The list goes on and on and on.
The implication of this designation is that the city doesn’t trust the archdiocese to maintain its assets. Trust is another area that the city is not on solid ground. Has the city lived up to its commitment to find the root cause of, and permanently fix, the LRT derailment failures? Has the city lived up to its statutory obligation to pass a balanced operating budget? Again, the list goes on and on and on.
Why does the city find itself in the position of having to refine its heritage property designations? Is it because, as the province (the sole shareholder of the Corporation of the City of Ottawa) determined that the city committee tasked with tagging heritage properties was out of control (rhetorical question)?
To link these thoughts together, perhaps the city should focus its attention on balancing its budget by getting rid of committees desperately in search of something to justify their existence.
So, who do I trust to ensure that assets that are currently in use will be maintained properly – the city or the archdiocese? The archdiocese wins on the first ballot, with an overwhelming majority – and for the record, I am not a Catholic.
As noted a couple of times previously on this forum, the quote above is reminiscent of the passage in book 1 of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy in which the machine analysis of a three-hour speech by an off-planet dignitary showed that, in all, what he said amounted to nothing. Much like the daily quibblings of the head alien south of the border.