The Sleazy Morass Of Ottawa City Hall

Talked to an Ottawa City Hall veteran recently and this person confirmed what we’ve long suspected.

There are good people at city hall, and they’re leaving.

Many can’t stomach what they are being told to do. Most, if not all, don’t want to rock the boat for fear of developing a bad reputation (for the few who don’t exercise their retirement rights) and not being able to be hired elsewhere (though you would think that leaving the city under a cloud would be a plus elsewhere … that said, public servants aren’t prone to taking big chances).

You can’t pick up a memo from city hall without seeing interim-this and interim-that in titles of people receiving or sending these missives … really press releases.

It’s like this. People don’t want to work for the City of Ottawa. The municipal communications grapevine is alive with nightmare stories while the provincial light-rail inquiry was just the public tip of a nasty iceberg.

It will get worse. The coroner’s inquiry into the Westboro bus crash will discover horrible heart-wrenching stories, incompetence, arrogance, carelessness, sloth and cover-up.  We hope the Ontario Provincial Police and the Crown will keep an eye on the testimony.

If you think the results of the LRT probe were shocking, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Do your best, coroner. The victims of this tragedy deserve justice. The wrong-doers need to receive a healthy dollop of punishment.

The citizens of this community need to know the truth.

Ken Gray

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