No Money But City Keeps Spending: THE VOTER
Perhaps Mayor Mark Sutcliffe should indulge in a bit of full disclosure.
Sutcliffe has worked up quite a story about how other levels of government, by not giving him the money he has determined is due and fair, have led the city to wrack and ruin.
How about sharing with everyone the story about the city’s spending and how it is creating the enormous hole in the city’s finances that he seeks to fill with the funds from the feds and province? It would be fair to city residents to explain to them how Ottawa City Council, knowing that they had a hole in their finances, went on committing to major spending projects such as Lansdowne 2.0 without regard to the fact that there was no money to pay for them.
In fact, it now appears that the city might not have the funds to cover basic services due to the deficits now and as far as one can see into the future which are the result of poor decisions on the part of this and past councils.
As he travelled throughout the city’s 24 wards, did he tell the residents he encountered about the multi-million dollar settlements that the city has, with council approval, negotiated with contractors who have worked on the LRT? Did he explain that parties to such agreements don’t pay out such huge sums of money when they are not, to some extent, at fault? Did he share with residents the details of these settlements, made with taxpayers dollars, are not going to be shared with them, the people who will ultimately foot the bill?
Has he told them that the interest payments for the Lansdowne 2.0 project will add one per cent or more to their annual property tax bills for the next 30 or more years? Do they know that the city has received engineering and other reports that say that, with regular maintenance, the facilities that the city is about to demolish would last for decades?
Wouldn’t it be fair to Ottawa residents for the mayor to tell them the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about ALL aspects of the city’s financial situation? Perhaps the mayor thinks such truth-telling would be unfair to him and his council colleagues since they might find themselves shown the door if their constituents knew the real fiscal picture at the city.
Fairness, Mr. Mayor? Seems “fairness”, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.
The Voter is a respected community activist and long-time Bulldog commenter who prefers to keep her identity private.
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Tewin will be a huge blow to taxpayers. City Staff advised against it, too costly and other lands were available.
It would be something to hear the mayor actually tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, but we don’t get that from Sutcliffe. Happily I can testify that I did NOT vote for him for anything and never would. It would be wonderful if he was shown the door today, not tomorrow, but today.
It is unfortunate that there wasn’t some mechanism to facilitate an on-demand plebiscite, overseen by an electoral commission, on the question cancelling all city support for Tewin and Lansdowne 2.0.
It is clear that the first past the post system for municipal councils and lousy turnouts has saddled us with a council dominated by political hacks whose only aspiration is serving developers and achieving higher office.
Good post. I remember under Watson that they had a line in the budget which included how much money Wynne promised the city in her election promise in increased gas tax revenues, and they included this as a Dues In for 3 years after the election. Political comment shouldn’t masquerade as financial planning, particularly in a budget. With this “habit”, I’m getting curious to see if any other costs are getting tacked onto the LRT costing, with the hope that other levels of govt may be more willing to fund transit costs? Take for instance the Moodie On-ramp studies done under the LRT Phase 2 umbrella which will cause Moodie to be shut down this weekend. How does this have anything to do with Phase 2? It may have to do with the extra axle weight of the e-buses, but that is supposed to be independent of the LRT costs. Perhaps if it is lumped as an LRT cost, they can transfer the expenses to a bond and amortize the costs over 30 years (at eventually 2 x the price)?