THE AG’S Report is coming this week!
THE AG’S REPORT is coming on Wednesday this week!
The AG’s report is an important management tool for the City Ottawa. It has not always been this way. In less then 19 months the AG’s report has transformed from a pain in management’s butt into a useful management tool.
Today the management team and the AG’s office are working together to make municipal Government better. Yes it’s happening. City Hall is slowly but surely changing right in front of our eyes.
Yesterday was a good example. At 1:15 PM, I congratulated the Auditor General Alain Lalonde for a job well done. Later at 4:20 PM I congratulated the City Manager Kent Kirkpatrick for an equally well-done job. This week these apparent foes will be on the front stage again talking about the problems and the mistakes we have made in the last few years, but this year it will be better.
Topics will range from fleet management, permit problems through to Food handling issues here in Ottawa. We will be appalled by reports on our 311 service but encouraged by progress in surface operations (last year’s bad boy).
But this year there is a difference. Over the past six months they have worked together to identify ways of making our City government better. Yes two different roles, but both with identical goals. The City Manager and the Auditor General are both contributing to a change in attitude at City Hall and for that we should all be happy.
I, for one am looking forward to this years AG report. Yes there are problems, but there is also progress and solutions. In business we used rejoice in finding problems we could solve. It is a culture change for sure at City Hall but a good culture change.
This year Kent has fixed problems in Fleet management and in building permits even before the issue is made public in the AG’s report. That is called co-operation and that is called management. Well done Alain and Kent …….well done.
June 19th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Mayor O’Brien
I have a beautiful wildflower garden at the front of my house, which the City’s Bylaw department doesn’t like. For the past three years, I have been harassed by an officer Gosselin telling me my flowers are weeds and that if I keep growing them he will have a contractor come and clean it up and send me the bill. Today, I got a registered letter from him regarding an infraction of by-law 2005-208 on that same matter. I am supposed to keep my property ’so as to be consistent with the surrounding environment
‘. Well unfortunately, I do not choose to have a front lawn and property which appears like a golf course treated with all sorts of chemical products which cause great harm to the environment, animals and people; I choose a flower garden, and many other people do, but not in my immediate vicinity. I have taken photographs of my property, so as to show, when required, to a court of law, print and television media what is is like today the day of my being served by a registed letter, and not covered in’ heavy undergrowth, long grass or weeds’., as your notice of violation so eloquently puts it.
Mayor O’Brien, there is a lack of inspections in this city which has caused just lately severe injuries, we are short of funds to take life-saving actions, and the By-Law Department wastes money and human resources sending me a registed letter because someone doesn’t like my flower garden. I don’t get it….do you?