Larry O’Brien

Today I delivered my State of the City Address to Council. Please see below a copy of my speech. 

This morning I would like to provide Council with some thoughts relating to priorities for 2009.

We have just passed the halfway point of our mandate and I think it is important to put our priorities in the perspective of what we as a Council have accomplished in the last two years.

In the hectic blur of dealing with so many different issues, sometimes people forget all that we’ve accomplished together so I thought I would take a few moments to congratulate you on your many successes.

In the past two years we have improved on the following:

Tourism

You approved the funding for an amazing new Ottawa Congress Centre. The new OCC will be an incredible addition to the Capital. This was long overdue but you made it happen.

Environment

You have approved an organics waste diversion green bin program after years of failed starts. Again, this was long overdue. You made it happen.

Transportation

You have improved the mass transit plans for Ottawa. Ottawa now has a magnificent plan that will transform the City for decades to come. This was an emotional and difficult debate, but together we got it done. This new plan has significant public and almost unanimous Council support. Together we made it happen. 

Technology

You approved a multi-year technology enhancement program for the City that will see Paperless Council and many additional improvements by 2010. Again, a few years late but you got it done.

Budget

During the last two years you have improved the budget process in many other ways.

You started in 2007 by developing a fiscal framework through a facilitated planning process in our first summer. This year you introduced a budget challenge function that saved our taxpayers about $10 million from our baseline. We got there because most of you worked with staff to find savings at the start of the budget process.

I personally was not happy with the result of 2009 budget, but I was encouraged that we moved ahead with a more transparent and easier to understand process. We have now set the stage to improve even more in 2009 and 2010.

Infrastructure renewal

You approved a 2 per cent infrastructure levy in 2007 that helped us invest over $300 million in infrastructure in 2008.  This was an important and critical decision.

Education

City Council donated land to help build two new trades schools at Algonquin College and Cité Collégiale. This will ensure we train and keep the future of our workforce here in the Nation’s Capital. Good decision for the long term.

Ottawa River and environment

You also committed to investing  $100 million with the help of the federal and provincial government in to repairing the sewer systems in Ottawa so that we will reduce all accidental spills and 65 per cent of the planned spills into the Ottawa River. This was the right decision for our future.

Transformation

You have also approved the de-layering of and re-organization of City Hall that will result in reducing staff levels, the elimination of management silos, and better operational control of city operations. This is the most significant management change at City Hall since amalgamation. You have given management the okay to restructure and that took courage.

Public safety

You have worked with the Police Services Board to approve a budget in 2007 that resulted in officers back on the beat and a new squad focusing on street crimes. As a result the City feels safer and is safer. Congratulations!

And we did this along with conducting the regular business of Council and all that it entails. This Council has done an amazing amount of high-quality work. People forget all that we’ve accomplished together. Well done to all of you.

We have come a long way, but there is still much important work to be done. 

After public safety and security of our water, electricity, police, fire and paramedics, the next priority for a municipality is the prosperity of its residents. The single most important economic tool we have is our public transit system.  

Transit

Now that the strike is over, we are working hard to get all our buses back on the road and grow our ridership levels. Our next priority is achieving funding for our new public transit plan.
 
Already our staff is working with the provincial and federal governments to reach a common understanding of the technical aspects of our plan. 

Once that is complete we will invite the federal and provincial government to become fair funding partners and become part of our shared vision for the City of Ottawa transit plan.

As a Council we will also explore and debate the various alternate funding models that may accelerate the implementation of the entire plan. City Manager Kent Kirkpatrick has made it a priority of his own.

We as a Council will have important policy debates around these issues as we proceed in the best interests of the taxpayers.

Spending infrastructure stimulus money

The next priority we have will be to maximize opportunities provided by federal and provincial government stimulus funding.

Next week we will be producing a list of shovel-ready infrastructure projects and this Friday I am meeting with industry representatives to ensure we are ready to meet the challenge of spending this money effectively by the spring and in the best interests of the Citizens of Ottawa.

Lansdowne Park

Another priority is the renewal of Lansdowne Park.  

Lansdowne Park is the largest and most significant City owned property. I know all of us agree it has the potential to be the most important meeting place in our City. It should be the jewel of Ottawa.

It is time to bring Council together on this city building project and work out a process to establish the principles for this property development, reach a conclusion and move forward.  

During this debate we will also look at two competing proposals to bring new important sporting assets to Ottawa.

High quality contributors are presenting MLS Soccer and CFL Football to Ottawa and we owe it to our citizens to make a thoughtful choice of which proposal to support and what is in the best interest of the taxpayer.

Accountability and governance

We have committed to reviewing our governance process in 2009…how will Council decide to structure itself to make decisions in the future.

I believe this is an important long-term improvement that we should make in the coming year.

Our citizens have made it clear – they want our governance process to improve. 

My Task Force on Governance is set to release their report in the coming weeks.

City staff will also be circulating a series of discussion papers to help facilitate our deliberations.

These white papers are a direct result of consultations and interviews they have had with each member of Council.

Finance committee

According to staff, Council has made many valuable suggestions on how to improve our decision making process.
My belief is that we also need to include in this debate the potential of altering our committee structure to create a standing committee on finance.

I hope we can reach an agreement on creating this committee to keep an eye on spending year round and give this committee the tools and the human resources to build and recommend a budget to Council instead of leaving the heavy lifting to city staff.

The budget process is one of our most important responsibilities.

The budget is far too important not to have the checks and balances of the budget process going on all year long.

In closing I want to congratulate you again for the work you have accomplished in the past two years. 

It has been rocky at times but that is the nature of transformation.  

We are past the halfway mark in our 1,000 days of transformation and we are doing well.

Thank you and lets start the meeting.

This past week when faced with back-to-work legislation the ATU agreed to go to binding arbitration with everything including scheduling and that is a good thing.

During the binding arbitration everything we wanted to negotiate will be on the table and frankly, we are pleased with this because it is the best possible outcome in light of impasse we had reached. This afternoon the ATU 279 ratified the agreement and yesterday Council approved the agreement so the strike is now over.

As Mayor of the City of Ottawa, I want to thank Minister Baird and Minister Ambrose for their responsiveness and quick action when it was clear that the ATU and the City were not going to reach a negotiated settlement.

Once the union was clear that legislation was coming, they called and we agreed that we should accept the full binding arbitration without conditions.

This means their scheduling condition and our financial envelope conditions were set aside. Now independent arbitrators will deal with the entire proposal.

This strike was hard on all of us in Ottawa and certainly, there are never winners in a work stoppage of this magnitude. The citizens of Ottawa have been very resilient and they have come up with innovative ways to get back and forth to work with car-pooling becoming a common practice. City staff have responded well getting over $700,000 in emergency funding out to Community Resource Centres and other community organizations.

But most importantly it was you the citizens, who went the extra mile to help your friends and co-workers, who are the heroes of this strike. I thank you very much for stepping up to the plate during the past 51 days.

One question I do get is: what was this strike all about and why did it last so long?

During public service strikes you face dilemmas and the need to balance issues; this bus strike was no exception.

The hardship inflicted on our most vulnerable citizens was visible to all of us and added almost unbearable pressure on Council to cave in to every single union demand.

Students, seniors, people living in isolation, single moms and the working poor were having their lives altered by this strike and the union was counting on Council to fold and give in completely to their demands.

On the other side of the ledger was the need to run OC Transpo in an efficient and safe way. It was the battle of economic efficiency vs. social equity at its most base level. Council and I wanted to ensure that management, not the union, was in fact in control of our OC Transpo operation and that wage increases and benefits were fair during these tough economic times.

Unlike what many people think, the issue of scheduling was not the only issue preventing a deal – we were also far apart on wages and benefits.

Moreover, we wanted to make certain that drivers would not be on the road if they did not have eight hours rest between shifts.  After all, we are responsible for both the public safety of our community and the spending of your tax dollars.

That the union’s approach is one of dedicated self-interest is understandable. That is their role and they do their job with energy and enthusiasm. They also have a clear and single focus—get the best deal possible.

On the other hand, Council is required to balance public good and financial sustainability while at the same time negotiating a contract during a strike that affects our citizens. We negotiate while thousands of people have to change their lives. We hear the stories and feel the pain, since that is our job.

It was time to end the strike but not at all costs, and especially not at the cost of public safety.

Work rest rules – eight hours between shifts

We will continue to pursue regulation changes with Transport Canada to ensure our drivers are forced to have eight hours rest between shifts and never drive when fatigued.

Council is still seeking a regulations change from the federal government to impose this work rest rule of eight hours rest between shifts and we understand that review is underway that could remove parts of the excerptions that have created this situation.

Our interest was always to end this strike in a manner that was fair and reasonable to the taxpayers of Ottawa. It is also our responsibility to get the buses back on the roads. Independent arbitrators will now solve this dilemma.

The process will last a few months but during that time public transit service will be back and the inconvenience will be over.  That is our number one priority - ensure our buses are safe and then return service to residents as quickly as possible.

We will also look at different options to prevent transit strikes from occurring again in our Nation’s Capital and, at the very least, limit the amount of service disruption should it occur again.

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.

The lower south-side stands in Frank Clair Stadium at Lansdowne Park are scheduled for implosion on July 20th .

For safety purposes, the City is asking that residents not visit the site and instead view the implosion on a live web cast at www.ottawa.ca.

The demolition is being done as a result of a structural review that occurred last fall that found the south-side stands posed a safety issue.

This is good news for Ottawa in a number of ways as we work to revitalize Lansdowne Park for all residents to enjoy. Demolishing the south-side stands does not stand in the way of us hosting large sports events this summer at Frank Clair Stadium as we will have the opportunity to erect temporary bleachers.

Another interesting fact is this demolition will see a waste diversion of more than 90 per cent and some of the seats have already been moved for use in other City facilities.
 
It is important to note this implosion does not have anything to do with the proposed changes to Lansdowne Park. Council is expecting to receive a business plan from the CFL consortium in mid-July and we will proceed with the recommended course of action this fall.

This morning, City staff released the following memo regarding the implosion:

M E M O   /   N O T E   D E   S E R V I C E 

 To / Destinataire Members of Council File/N° de fichier:Lansdowne Park
From / Expéditeur  Doug Moore, Manager, Venture Properties 
Subject / Objet Implosion of the lower south-side stands in Frank Clair Stadium at Lansdowne Park Date:  11 July 2008

The lower south-side stands in Frank Clair Stadium at Lansdowne Park will be imploded on Sunday, July 20, 2008 at 8 a.m. For safety purposes a 250-metre radius will be blocked off and members of the public will not be permitted on site.  In addition, at the request of the Ottawa Police Service the following road closures will be in effect from 6 a.m. until shortly after the implosion. A return to normal traffic activity is anticipated by 8:30 a.m.

· Bank at Sunnyside (local traffic only)
· Aylmer at Bank (local traffic only)
· Colonel By at Rosedale
· Colonel By at Riverdale and Echo
· Queen Elizabeth at Broadway
· Bank at Holmwood
· Queen Elizabeth at Holmwood
· Wilton Crescent
· Oakland Avenue
· Woodlawn Avenue

Airspace above Lansdowne Park will also be off limits, as will portions of the Rideau Canal waterway (east and west of Lansdowne Park). 

Residents in the surrounding area have been notified that there may be a loud noise lasting a few seconds; the implosion may also create a cloud of dust over the demolition site that should disperse quickly.

Media and select City staff will have access to the site from the Gate 4 parking lot entrance from Queen Elizabeth Drive. A small projection screen will be set-up in the parking lot for simultaneous viewing of the implosion.

Residents will be able to view the implosion by web cast online at www.ottawa.ca

The attached Qs and As have been prepared to provide you with additional information regarding the implosion.

In the case of a severe electrical storm, the implosion will be rescheduled for the morning after at 8 a.m. on Monday July 21.

Doug Moore
Manager, Real Property Asset Management Branch
J.A.E