Noversight Rules At Ottawa City Hall: BENN
Mayor Mark Sutcliffe made it very clear at the start of his term as mayor, that the city would not revisit past decisions. It would only focus on the way forward.
And what a success that has been.
Political favours being what they are, do not expect this to change. Especially so since a significant number of current councillors (including Kitchissippi Councillor Jeff Leiper) chose to ignore the bright red flags being waved by Councillor Diane Deans and Councillor Rick Chiarelli at the time that the contract was presented for approval to council.
The session where their on target questions were responded to with a haughty: “We can’t discuss that because of confidentiality clauses.” To the council, which is tasked with overseeing city staff. Another bright red flag for all to dutifully ignore.
Factor in as well the remarks from College Councillor Laine Johnson from almost 11 months ago, when she said words to the effect of “I know we are not supposed to talk about light rail but …” , during the video-only public consultation for the Centrepointe Traffic Calming/Management study.
The city auditor general gets her marching orders from the audit committee, which is populated with councillors who do not want their laundry aired in public.
All of which is to say that councillors with a vested interest in not getting publicly embarrassed should recuse themselves from the audit committee in the interests of moving in the direction of an open, transparent and most of all, accountable governance model.
Ron Benn, a finance executive, has been a member of the Centrepointe Community Association for the better part of three decades.
For You:
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Did Sutcliffe Make A Shrewd Move? SARAVANAMUTOO
That One Missing Trillium Line Audit From AG
Sprung Structure Was ‘Politically Expedient’: BENN
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Oh Ron, I couldn’t agree with you more and I despair for our city. Another egregious oversight is allowing councillors who received masses of $$ from developer-related donors for their election campaigns to vote on projects submitted by those donors Let’s gear up for the next election to get rid of those councillors and get some rules in place to track such donations, publish them before the election, and demand recusals of recipient councillors when voting on “their” developer proposals.
Auditor Generals must to be independent in developing their annual audit plans and in communicating their findings.
This does not mean that the AGO cannot explore management’s preoccupations in developing the plan. But they have the final decision.
Also Auditors must be free from interference in publishing their findings but recommendations can be negotiated.
When final reports go public with management’s commitments to fix problems within a reasonable timeframe, the reports are not deemed newsworthy by the media so Council should take a deep breath and do what is right.