Sutcliffe Broke A Campaign Promise: READER
Community activist and long-time Bulldog reader John Langstone wonders what happened to consultation in this community:
I was at a campaign meeting where Mark Sutcliffe stated he planned to consult with Federation of Citizens Associations as mayor.
Sutcliffe seconded the motion this week to effectively change the Official Plan without consultation.
This is not a minor variance, this is the city’s Official Plan. FCA objections to this process were ignored. Is this not a broken promise by the mayor?
By passing the motion at council this week, are we now to understand that consultation is formally dead during this council’s term?
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Thanks for the update! The city has used the pandemic procedures to stifle public input: Lansdowne was approved WITHOUT ONE real public meeting by the city. The meetings were on Zoom only. If you asked a question, the microphone was then shut off, then staff made every effort to “not” answer the question. There was no way to identify to staff they did not answer the question asked as the mike was shut off and they move on to the next person. This is the biggest scam the city has pulled on the “obligation” for consultation with taxpayers. My neighbor cannot connect to Zoom, they are 82 years old and there is no live meetings. We have to stop this zoom process only and move to hybrid meetings.
I would like to know why the live meetings are not on Rogers cable 22 where all of us can watch and no commercials, no cutting off microphones, allow us to watch and hear exactly what is going on and happening. I am also 83 and Zoom does not always work for me. When I say “live” I actually mean all meetings. We should be entitled to know what is going on.
As McKenzie King might have said, “consultation if necessary, but not necessarily consultation.”
As a professional (IT) project manager I always insisted that my teams communicate with the final stakeholders of any project and listen to their feedback. Just because some programmer thought their ideas were “really cool” didn’t mean it provided any value or interest to the end user. The city of Ottawa should operate in the same manner by communicating effectively with the public (listening mostly) concerning all projects it is expected to fund and to which it is the intended beneficiary.