Larry O’Brien

The City of Ottawa is proud to be a supporting city of Earth Hour and will be asking all residents to participate in the campaign scheduled to take place on Saturday, March 27th from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m.

Earth Hour is a global campaign, initiated by the World Wildlife Fund in Sydney, Australia in 2007. The campaign encourages individuals and businesses to take the symbolic action of turning off all non-essential electricity for one hour.

This is the third year that Ottawa has participated in this global initiative that has increased awareness of the need to conserve electricity. Almost 20% of Ontario’s electricity comes from coal fired generators, so every kilowatt saved has a great positive impact on the environment.

During Earth Hour, the lights will go off at City Hall, and at most other municipal buildings. In some cases emergency and outdoor lights will remain on for security reasons.

Click Here to share your plans on how you intend to participate. The City of Ottawa is please to have the continuing support of Hydro Ottawa and our media partners the Ottawa Sun / 24 Hours and CTV.

To learn more about City of Ottawa environment programs and initiatives, visit our Enviro website.

Today I would like your thoughts on key issues that will affect our lives in Ottawa: Garbage pick-up and the new Green Bin Program (also known as Source Separated Organics).

There is no doubt that the management of our garbage including garbage pick up is a core service.

The City of Ottawa is moving forward with a new Green Bin Program starting in October 2009. This means that the City will encourage residents to separate organics (smelly garbage), fruits, vegetables, and meats into a separate green bin.  This will help our City meet its diversion targets, take pressure off our landfills and improve our environmental footprint. There is more to this concept than just changing the way we deal with garbage: Treating waste as a resource. The stuff collected from green bins will be transformed into compost and will be good for landscaping use.

Weekly or bi-weekly garbage pick-up - Why the debate? :

On Monday the issue of weekly or bi-weekly garbage pick-up was reviewed at Planning Committee. The vote was a 5-5 tie and nothing was decided.  This means we will debate this issue next week at Council.  So why skip a week of garbage pick up? Well the notion is that once we introduce this new program, residents will have less garbage to hand out so the City won’t have to pick it up as often.

The question becomes then when we introduce the Green Bin Program, should we maintain weekly garbage pick up on a temporary basis until 2012 to let residents adapt. Do we move to bi-weekly garbage collection six months after we put the program in place (April 2010) to encourage people to participate? Or do we turn to a potential third option and maintain weekly garbage pick up but lower the amount of bags allowed per household. (The current limit is 3).

Note: City staff informed us that if we choose to go bi-weekly, we could either start in April 2010 or in 2012. There are no options between those dates because of contractual issues (i.e. availability of trucks) with the private company who will be responsible for pick up of the green bins.

Garbage pick up is a core service and I want to make sure we make the right decision for our residents.

Let’s get the discussion going. Tell me what you think.

On November 1, 2006 the price for a barrel of oil was $65.0 U.S and on Thursday July 4, 2008 it was $146 per barrel.

Everywhere we turn today, we are hearing about the economic and environmental pressures that fossil fuels are placing upon our planet. The cost of gas is going up. The planet is warming up and quite frankly cities are the biggest part of both the problem and the solution.

Reducing our City’s dependence on oil would save money and also address an environmental threat to our sustainability by reducing our carbon footprint. The first question is what will replace oil as we reduce our dependence on oil. Here are some ideas that were suggested in the June 21, 2008 edition of “The Economist” that seems quite practical and reasonable.

The power and the glory

The end of the petrolhead

But what does this mean for Ottawa?

We have been working hard to find a better waste solution for Ottawa through our conditional contract with Plasco and identifying ways to divert both residential and IC&I waste from our City’s landfills. Now I feel we need to focus some of our efforts on energy and address the major issues associated. (more…)

As many of you know, I am marrying my angel Colleen this weekend.

During the busy and exciting time ahead I won’t have much time to blog but I did want to take this opportunity to reflect on the last few months – we have been busy and we have made some real progress for the City of Ottawa!

This past week was very satisfying for those at City Hall who are committed to improving our local government. The secrecy and back room deals of the past, which hid the performance of the previous administration, are now a thing of the past. But we still have some significant and perhaps even healthy conflict at City Hall. Never before has the contrast between the tax and spend Councillors versus the more prudent and ‘willing to cut’ Councillors been so evident. But this difference of opinions can be illuminating and important as we move forward and from time to time I have to say vive la difference.

Wednesday was a great example of where we managed to get a lot of work done despite the political differences between us. Yesterday we approved a number of very important recommendations and motions during our Council meeting. This is a good indication that Council is getting good work done. And we are doing this despite the constant obstreperous action by ideologically opposed Councillors. We have done much but there is still a lot of work to be done to give the citizens in Ottawa a government they deserve. My enthusiasm for change is stronger than ever now that we have moved forward on transit and finally have some opportunities to make real changes in finance and governance.

Budget Directions and Finance

On a vote of 15-6 Councillors supported my motion directing City staff to cap the total number of employees and deliver options to reduce the organization staff by 500. Council also directed staff to come back with options ranging from $19 million to $57 million to reduce the 2009 tax rate.

Yesterday Councillors realized we must consider staff cuts and service cuts to bring our financial house in order. Cutting staff is both prudent and necessary to deliver the most cost-effective services to the taxpayers of Ottawa. The six Councillors who voted against this wise motion were Councillors Holmes, Hume, Doucet, Feltmate, Cullen, Legendre.

The same motion cleared the way for Council to finally get away from a budget process that hides mistakes in a blizzard of data. At last citizens will finally have some way of easily understanding the status of the City’s finances. This is finally good news for those of you in the City of Ottawa who have given up trying to figure out our finances in a business-like fashion. That debate of business vs. government is always a good one.

I have learned that municipal government is not a business. The city government is rather an important extension of our family room and gives us the life style we desire. But there should be some similarities. What city government should have in common with our homes and our business is a hate of waste and inefficiency. Those of us on Council that hate waste want to make changes that will enable us to offer better value to our citizens and recover from the first wasted years of amalgamation. And now it’s time to tackle the big issues.

Governance

My business experience has taught me that you can judge the potential for the long-term success of any organization based on the quality of their decision-making. This is where the difference between our Councilors will start to become even more apparent. There are some that hate change and are quite happy not making decisions in a clear and effective manner. They like big government and they have no interest in making it smaller and better. I think these Councillors are quite wrong and it will be my job to convince them this will be good for the citizens of Ottawa.

About two weeks ago I announced my third Mayor’s Task Force focusing on City management and governance (click here for more information on this Task Force). They are an outstanding group of people who will provide Council and I with an independent set of recommendations to improve Ottawa.

Over the past two weeks the Task Force on Governance has been busy meeting with Councillors. The members will continue to meet weekly as a group to examine the current governance model at the City of Ottawa and develop recommendations to fuel the debate this fall.

This is my third Task Force ( Mayor’s Task Force on Transportation Report and Mayor’s Task Force on eGovernment Report) and I can tell you that Ottawa is fortunate to have some of the brightest minds in the country volunteering their services to improve our City. Transit, IT and now governance will be better as a result of the hard work and insight these task force members deliver.

Transit

Another important debate taking place this fall will be the implementation of the City’s new transit network.

Council’s vote of 19-4 in favour of this new plan will see our City literally transformed by improving congestion from the core-out with the use of a downtown tunnel. My Council colleagues and I worked hard with City staff to develop a vision that encompasses all of Ottawa. The vision is now clear and we now need to aim our energies at the execution of our vision.

One of the most important recommendations from the Mayor’s Task Force on Transportation was the formation of an independent authority to provide professional and skilled leadership to our hard working transit organization.

Transit Commission

It’s now time to get transit governance right. Fortunately we are going to have the chance this fall to debate the pros and cons of a commission because by a vote of 18-0 with 2 dissents Council directed staff to review transit commission or authority options for the City. This is very good news for transit riders in Ottawa. The management and leadership of transit over the past ten years has been very troubling with both client satisfaction and financial performance declining.

The mission of an independent transit commission would be to create the most cost effective and user friendly transit system in North America. Now that we have a great technical framework for transit, it is time to bring in  good leadership to move this forward quickly and effectively. I believe a commission is important for the City of Ottawa.

Plasco Conditional Contract

I have always said “Cities have too much waste and not enough energy.” This observation could very well change for every city in the world if the Plasco technology meets my expectations.

Yesterday Council unanimously supported a letter of intent to enter into an agreement with Plasco Energy Group to take 400 tones of waste a day and transform it to energy. This project has real potential and will move forward if the technology is proven and approved by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment.

If Plasco works it will change the world of waste management forever. Over the past 19 months Council has changed the debate on waste and I am pleased we are taking the necessary steps to divert garbage from our landfills and preserve our environment for the future. Not only that I believe the clean energy and environmental industries will be the next high-tech boom in Ottawa and Plasco could be our next Mitel.

I am proud of being able to help Councillors like Shad Qadri, Marianne Wilkinson, Eli El-Chantiry and Peggy Feltmate as they lead the battle against the landfill sites in Ottawa.

Needle Clean –Up

Yesterday Council also approved a new clean needle program. We will be providing $100,000 in funding for picking up discarded needles and we also approved $50,000 to identify a safer model of needle handouts.

I am pleased to see my colleagues recognize the value of the report by our newly appointed Medical Officer of Health Dr. Isra Levy. This report is a result of teamwork and a common vision of improving safety for the citizens of Ottawa.

I am delighted Dr. Levy has taken on the role of MOH. I have had many fascinating conversations with him and find him easy to work with. Congratulations Dr. Levy and I look forward to working with you in this new capacity.

Major Projects Approved by Council

Over the past few months their have been some milestone projects that have been delayed for political and other inappropriate reasons. The highest profile project is the Congress Centre:
Council has shown strong support for the redevelopment of the Ottawa Congress Centre with a $40 Million contribution to the project. With the renewed Centre we will be able to welcome the world to Ottawa, increase tourism and promote economic development.
Another exciting element to this project is the Centre’s recent announcement of their efforts to develop an environmentally friendly and green meeting facility.
The new Congress Centre will set a high standard for new convention facilities in Canada and across the world!

Algonquin College:

This week Premier Dalton McGuinty announced the Province’s contribution of $35 million to support the building of a new trades centre at Algonquin College.

Ottawa’s contribution to this project was the donation of a parcel of land near OC Transpo’s Baseline station and $5 million in funding for a pedestrian footbridge across Woodroffe Avenue. We will be linking the Baseline Station in with our new transit network and the City is proud to play a key role in moving this exciting project forward.

Lansdowne Park:

Over the past several months we have had an unprecedented amount of public consultation over the future of Lansdowne Park and have heard many different opinions.

I would like to see football here but also want to take a long-term view of the use of these 40 acres of park. Is there a better place for the stadium? Our issue now is to find a solution that meets the needs of the residents living close by and residents citywide for a world-class area we can all be proud of and enjoy.

As you can see, City Hall has been busy working for you and I would like to congratulate my colleagues for making such great progress despite the clear differences of philosophy between many Council members. This healthy tension is good and we are now dealing with opposing views in a much more transparent manner and staying away from those back room deals and secrecy. To all of you who have helped make this past three months so productive a warm and heart felt thank you.

And now I can relax and get ready for a wonderful day when I marry my angel.