Time To Process Due Process: BENN

Due process. A bureaucratic make-work effort or part of good governance?

Kitchissippi councillor and planning committee chairman Jeff Leiper has proposed a streamlined process for handling the omnibus zoning bylaw changes that would, among other things permit housing shelters to be created as a matter of right in all neighbourhoods. Streamlined to avoid the prescribed community consultations process. Streamlined, in part per Barrhaven East Councillor Wilson Lo, to reduce the workload of staff.

Due process is part of a good governance model. It involves creating a set of steps to ensure that all of the elements required to make informed decisions are followed. Informed decisions being the key. Informed decisions being part of the statutory obligations of council’s oversight of staff decisions.

Does following due process involve work? Absolutely. But reducing workloads should never be the reason for bypassing due process. If there are redundant or unnecessary steps in the due process procedures, identify them. Explain why the steps are not required. Explain the consequences, in an objective manner, of not including the steps. Do all of this in a manner that allows council make an informed decision.

What would the impact be of eliminating the public consultation steps, aside from reducing staff workloads? Bulldog editor Ken Gray has oft cited a statement from Stephen Lewis, the former politician and diplomat, to the effect of if you want to know what is best for a community, ask the residents.

Every neighbourhood has unique elements embedded in it. Elements that are not visible from a Google Earth image. Elements that staff might not observe in the event that they visit the neighbourhood for a 15- to 60-minute tour. Elements of which the councillor might not be aware. Elements that are time of day, day of week, weather dependent, or seasonal in nature. Or some combination or permutation thereof. Elements that are experienced by those who are in the neighbourhood. Elements that, if ignored, might be materially affected by decisions made by staff and approved by council. Elements that may confound the preferred outcome of the staff decision. That is why public consultations are vital. So vital that they are required by regulation.

Rather than avoid necessary, but time-consuming, steps, staff and council should embrace them. Rather than just going through the motions, which is what far too many community consultations have become, staff and councillors should attend with open ears and open minds. To ask questions of the community in an effort to better understand their concerns. To change their behaviour pattern from lecturing the residents on how they must change to listening to the residents on how to alter the plan to accomplish the desired outcome without inflicting unnecessary damage to the community.

Councillors should be embracing community consultations, not eschewing them.

Councillors should take a close look in the mirror and ask themselves what they can learn from the last two years.

What can councillors learn from the sprung structures debacle regarding the delegation of authority to staff to make major decisions behind closed doors? Of not giving staff sufficient guidance regarding the need to follow due process?

What can councillors learn from the findings of the LRT judicial report regarding the egregious malfeasance of many to withhold the information required for council to make informed decisions?

What can councillors learn from the financial failure that is Lansdowne 1.0 notwithstanding the rosy waterfall projections prepared by the proponents and blessed by staff?

What can councillors learn from their constituents? The people that they were elected to represent? Things unique to their neighbourhood and how those unique elements need to be taken into consideration rather than inflicting a one-size-fits-all-solution of the community.

The lessons have been offered. It is up to the councillors to demonstrate that they are capable of learning, not just lecturing.

Ron Benn, a finance executive, has been a member of the Centrepointe Community Association for the better part of three decades.

For You:

Transpo Undergoes ‘Historic’ Bus Route Changes

Sutcliffe Should Talk Ottawa, Not Trump: PATTON

Yesterday’s New Official Plan: STANKOVIC

Developer Task Force An ‘Outrage’: THE VOTER

No Need For Nightlife Commish: WHOPPER WATCH

Bookmark The Bulldog, click here