Larry O’Brien

My Priorities for Fall 2008: Transit, Taxes, Changing the way we make decisions and Trash

I’ve recently updated the priorities section of my website to reflect the busy legislative agenda set for this Fall.

I am looking forward to working with Council to deliver positive results for the citizens of Ottawa. This section outlines objectives we will have in each of these areas for the 2008 Fall legislative session.

Public Transit

This term of Council we have already had the opportunity to hit the reset button on the proposed Light Rail Transit (LRT) project and as a result Council has approved a new comprehensive transit plan that will solve the congestion problem from the downtown core out.

With a solid vote of 19-4, Council approved this new plan that will provide riders from the east, west and south affordable and reliable public transit that will benefit residents and visitors for decades to come.

We have taken that important first step by approving the network configuration and now in the weeks and months ahead we will begin work on deciding which parts of the system should be built first and I cannot stress enough how important it is for you as taxpayers, riders and citizens to provide your feedback.

Ultimately we need a faster more reliable transit network built from the core out. I’ve always said that any world class transit system starts with a ride down an escalator. That’s why I support the construction of a downtown tunnel to eliminate the bottleneck downtown. We have a second and last chance to get this major investment right and we need your participation to make this vision a reality.

It is never too late to do the right thing!

Keeping taxes under control is still job one!

This year we will actually see a new budget format that the average individual will be able to understand!

Gone are the days of an arcane budgeting system that only a few could claim they understood and in my experience if it is that complicated it is simply wrong minded and needs a fix. With the new format we will actually be able to see where the money is going and where spending is increasing so we can ask why? This is a start to making some real sense out of the budget process.

Council will also give rise to a Budget Challenge Group formed by a few Councilors and supported by financial professionals to evaluate every line item, identify every opportunity to save money and challenge city staff’s estimated budget numbers. While we are doing all of this for the 2009 budget I believe that the budget process should be a year round affair. That’s why I will support the formation of a Finance and Audit Committee during the governance review this Fall to keep our city’s finances in check throughout the year rather than our current rushed budgeting process.

Rising oil prices and changing economic times in Ontario are all working against us this year as we start out on the budget process in the Fall. But we will also have some good opportunities for savings.

For example the City Manager is working on his own plan for $100 M in savings and Council has given direction to develop a plan to trim the size of our organization to cut an additional 500 jobs from this years baseline employment levels and report back to Council. Council has also directed City Staff to identify up to 57M$ in additional revenue options to lower this year’s tax rate.

At the same time the recently completed report by the Mayor’s taskforce on E-Government will also provide significant opportunities for investment in technology to reduce staff and increase efficiency.

Keeping our spending under control, challenging staff’s estimates, working with staff on identifying cuts and making well thought through investments will be the theme of this years budget process.

Transformation - Changing the way we make decisions

At the beginning of this term of Council we agreed to review our decision making process at the mid-term mark that is coming up in the Fall. That means everything from committee process, Council meetings, delegated authority to Councillors, arms-length Commissions and so forth.
To put it in easier terms: How do we avoid 3 hour debates on small planning matters at a city-wide Council meeting so that the focus stays on major issues such as the budget and transit.

The Deputy City Clerk and the City Solicitor are preparing a report to help us in that debate. As well I have commissioned a Task Force on Governance to report back in mid-September. The staff report along with the taskforce report will provide a framework for the debate.

I believe this will be one of the most important debates we have during this term of Council. The objective is to set the stage for a better and faster decision making process. With the help of a first class independent taskforce coupled with pragmatic staff recommendations will give Council all the tools it needs to improve our municipal Government. The choice of course will be up to this Council if it wants to take advantage of the opportunities that will be before us.

Trash—a new age is coming!

The era of this city throwing our trash in to a hole and hoping the problem will go away is changing. Between capturing emissions from our existing dumps, diverting organics back to soil and brand new technology that will convert waste to energy, Ottawa is on track to becoming a world leader on managing our trash.

We have already made some good progress on waste management over the last 18 months. Last Fall Council approved the Source Separated Organics program that has the potential to exceed Council’s target of 60% diversion from landfills.

The City is also monitoring the pilot project of Plasco Energy Group.

Over the last few months the plasma gasification facility at the City’s Trail Road Landfill has been accepting some municipal household waste. If this process proves successful the Plasco facility will produce enough electricity per ton of waste to power the average household for weeks at a time.

We are also pleased to see our other landfill partners looking at introducing new technologies to capture gases like methane to produce electricity from existing landfills which will also reduce the environmental impact on the residents living close to the operating landfills.

This new technology will require us to be patient as the test bed at Trail road continues to evolve from concept to operational reality.

Looking forward to working with Council.

These are exciting times with an ambitious agenda that will include issues we can’t predict and several new and exciting projects that individual Councillors are working on.

I encourage all members of Council to bring forward ideas particularly in these four areas and I look forward to working with all of them and focus in setting the stage over the summer for a productive Fall.

Today my Task Force on eGovernment released their report “Changing the Conversation- Transforming the Governance and Use of Technology in the Post-Amalgamation City”.

Please view the entire report and join the conversation at ottawa.taskforcereport.ca 

The 82-page report contains eight recommendations dealing with governance, investment and citizen centricity We will be tabling it at the Corporate Services Committee later this afternoon and begin work on reviewing how the city can adopt their recomendations.

Task Force Chair Rob Collins outlined details of the report during the Mayor’s Breakfast series this morning and was joined by fellow members Ben Robataille, Michael Turner, Professor Gerald Grant, Robert Thompson, Andy Moffat, Ed Shepherdson and Kelly Kubrick.

I would like to thank each of them for their hard work. They have done an outstanding service for the citizens of Ottawa and I commend them for delivering a clear, concise report outlining how we can improve our communications with residents. Their recommendations, in particular those dealing with governance, can fundamentally transform our City government for the better.

The Task Force concluded that the benefits of exploiting proven, successful information technology tools and applications, should deliver improvements that will help the City of Ottawa break the lock-step relationship between City growth and growth in staffing and budgets. 

Over the long-term, the Task Force believes cutting the costs associated with growth could deliver significant savings when measured against the City’s $2.1 billion budget.  Conservative estimates show Ottawa’s population growing to one million peoplein the near future. This represents a 23 per cent increase in population from the 2006 census figure of 812,129. To accommodate this growing population, the City’s operating costs are likely to grow by at least 20 per cent based on current trends.

However, the Task Force suggests that efficiencies gained from investing wisely in information technology and managing it intelligently could offset virtually all of that 20 per cent growth in operating costs. 

Join the conversation and lear more by visiting the community created website at ottawa.taskforcereport.ca or leave your comments below.