1,000 days of spin!!! Whose spin are we taking about?
Some mornings I am sent articles from the Ottawa Citizen, particularly when they are insightful or biased. Today’s City editorial was titled “1000 days of spin” and this unfortunately fell into the latter category.
It seems they are suggesting everything that is wrong in this City is a result of my efforts to move away from the old way of doing things. It appears the Citizen prefers the “same old same old” approach to the structure of our City government.
In fact it was this “same old” governance that brought us close to the edge of disaster with a flawed LRT plan and the same approach that brought us the Ottawa River sewage spill in 2006 and “out of control” panhandling and downtown crime rates. It was this “same old” approach of secrecy and backroom deals that residents were tired of and elected me to fix.
The Ottawa Citizen also suggests the Taskforce on Governance is a public relations exercise – I fully disagree. The end goal is to deliver a more reliable, efficient and accountable City government to our residents working to enhance the effectiveness of the decision-making process at City Hall to allow the Mayor and Council to take a more strategic approach to governing.
This Taskforce (for more information view press release here) has some of the brightest minds in Canada volunteering to review the status of our governance system and I look forward to hearing the results of their review in August. The previous Taskforces have been very independent and this one will be no different. City staff will be conducting their own review and making recommendations to Council this fall and then we will have an open and transparent debate on the issues. I am in awe of how much talent is available to work on important City projects.
I am confident this new approach will work because the best ideas will float to the surface and be embraced by all. It happened with mass transit when a timely change in direction that narrowly avoided a disaster for Ottawa Transit users. When given the better alternative Council jumped on board. Look at the 19-4 vote to approve transit –who would have thought?
It is clear to many Citizens that things are already changing and for the better. But with this change will come resistance and we saw signs of that today with this morning’s editorial.
June 16th, 2008 at 8:33 pm
Interesting. I read that same Citizen editorial and I didn’t come away with the same impression that you did at all. What specifically made you think they were suggesting that everything that is wrong with Ottawa is a result of your efforts to move away from the old ways of doing things? The media, from what I’ve seen, does not cling stubbornly to “same old, same old”; change is their bread and butter.
Personally, I thought the Citizen was suggesting that rather than trying to seize control of City Hall, you try a little harder to respect the skills, experience and expertise of your colleagues both on Council and on staff.
The other point of course was that the Task Force seems a bit unnecessary if you’ve already announced the changes in governance that you want to see. It’s kind of like hiring a consultant to tell you what you want to hear. In such a case, the consultant’s purpose is merely to lend the illusion of credibility and legitimacy to the process.
June 29th, 2008 at 7:05 am
As for
“respect the skills, experience and expertise of your colleagues both on Council and on staff”,
this is really hard, considering that they are part of the problem. I wish, the mayor could fire the whole council and the city staff.
In a city the size of Ottawa we do not need 13000+ staff.
August 9th, 2008 at 9:24 am
Zoltan - you are 100% correct! The entire City Council and our City Manager should be fired, and huge staff reductions are needed ! I’m fine with service cuts because this City does not currently have any money and to keep hitting the residents with higher taxes year after year is not the solution. Our money is all ties up in way too costly UNIONIZED City staff salaries !!!!! Get rid of them - the sooner, the better !
Kevin Shea