Oversight? Council Spends Time On Its Salaries

07/24/2025

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“Talks have been ongoing with members of council for many months, with a number of options being considered. The motion has not yet been finalized and a few discussions are still needed.”

River Councillor Riley Brockington on as much as double-digit pay increases for councillors

Wayda take a stand there, councillor. Waffle on, my friend.

Stand up to tell the city and, particularly, your constituents your studied position for double-digit pay increases for councillors.

Uh, I don’t know … that seems about it. We’re talking … for a very long time.

Interesting, the part of the quote that is particularly telling is that talks about this have been going on for many months. Months? Really.

Did councillors spend many months deciding on the parametres of their responsibility on oversight of our troubled light-rail project? The operating procedure appears to have been: “Hey staff, you do it.”

And when a couple of diligent councillors discovered that the winning bidder had failed the technical tests for the LRT project twice, council was told it was not allowed to discuss it because that authority was delegated. Question. What small oversight did council give itself. Not much, apparently. And that’s either lazy or easy or both.

And oh yes, technical bid woes. The result? Any technical problems on the light rail project? The Confederation Line works because they’re throwing axles at it like a Blue Jays pitcher flings baseballs.

And what kind of oversight did it take for the city to close Woodroffe north between the Ottawa River parkway and Richmond Road? Let’s see. The LRT is two years late which is late in conjunction with rebuilding Richmond Road into an inefficient complete street and creates traffic detours that are unsafe for cars, pedestrians and, yes, especially cyclists. And it’s killing businesses.

Construction on that part of the LRT around Cleary Avenue to Lincoln Fields is so slow as to be glacial. The result is excruciating traffic jams due to the glacial progress on that section of Richmond Road. The LRT and road-building is proceeding at a glacial pace … glacial … so slow a real glacier looks like it is doing the Indy 500. The result? Let’s call it Glacial National Parking Lot. Where’s the oversight in that?

And did our councillors provide months of discussion in closing the north Woodroffe connection to the parkway? Apparently not. You see the closing of the road, according to the local councillor, was to start on June 20. It occurred on July 21. It will be closed until the end of October. You can understand, kinda, missing the completion date, but the starting date? Come on.

And what happens if the completion date is missed? Will Woodroffe North closed for the winter, too? The mind wobbles.

If the rebuilding of Richmond Road and the completion of the glacial LRT Stage 2 west are both completed on time in 2027, count the community surprised. Or shocked. After all, the National Capital Commission’s Ottawa River parkway was to be completed by spring 2025 and half the road is not really completed now and the other two lanes are just receiving a spot of gravel, not exactly everywhere. Glacial.

So thank goodness our councillors are spending months of discussion and oversight on their salaries.

Just a thought from the down-trodden taxpayer. Spend that kind of time on things that really matter. Like not your salaries. Do the difficult work of being a councillor instead of tossing responsibility at staff.

We’ve seen what the lack oversight has done for light rail. What else don’t we know about?

Ken Gray