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Mayor Jim Watson has made a tradition of presenting the city’s budget for the next year with a speech and in the one he gave on Thursday, he struggled mightily to fill out his minutes.
The word “continuing” came up a lot. Watson is pleased that the city is “continuing Stage 1 of the O-Train Confederation Line light rail transit project.” Well, no kidding. It’s a multi-year megaproject with a hole dug most of the way under downtown — had anybody thought about stopping? We’re continuing to build a new Arts Court, continuing to fund an “exit strategy” to help young people leave gangs when they want to, finishing a nearly finished footbridge across the Rideau River, continuing to run a water system and continuing to have paramedics.
Watson similarly rhymed off numerous smaller construction projects previously scheduled for 2016 that will in fact happen in 2016 because the city will pay for them. Adding a bike lane to O’Connor Street downtown. Ten new splash pads. Some fixes to the Walter Baker Centre in Barrhaven. Opening new fire stations in new suburban neighbourhoods. Replacing some rural culverts.
This is all routine city business and it will continue as planned.
So will other routine business that is not as delightful. In his speech, Watson said one of the most frequent complaints he and city councillors get is about dangerous driving — most specifically, speeding on side streets. What this city will do about this is … the same almost-nothing it has been doing.
The city will install five more red-light cameras, which was a Watson campaign pledge (when you have promises to keep, it’s good to be the guy who gives the budget orders). Beyond that, each ward will continue to get an allocation of $40,000 for traffic calming, an amount that would buy 20 speed humps or redesign, well, zero intersections to make them safer. It’s perhaps the city’s most ineffectual program, measured against the public exasperation with the problem it’s meant to address, and will remain unchanged.
The police are hiring 25 additional officers, none of whom Chief Charles Bordeleau would promise to assign to traffic duties. They’re needed all over the force, he said, and once they’re recruited they’ll be assigned appropriately. Police-board chair Eli El-Chantiry allowed that the police have cannibalized other units to beef up their anti-gang squad, so hiring new officers will probably mean at least some more attention to traffic safety.
When Coun. Riley Brockington tried to push the issue, Watson cut him off: it’s the chief’s job to make operations decisions, the police board’s job to oversee him, and Brockington is neither the chief nor a member of the board. It’s only his job to vote the money needed for Bordeleau’s plan, so kindly shut it. Watson invited him to go and address the police board as a citizen if he wishes.
If that’s the treatment people get when they worry about constituents getting killed in the streets, imagine pettier concerns. Exasperated by the closing of city beaches and wading pools in the heat of August? Wish libraries were open more family-friendly hours? Not enough crossing guards? Well, none of that’s changing, either.
On the other hand, the mayor and city manager Kent Kirkpatrick both said repeatedly that where cuts are planned they’re in “back-office” functions. Travel and conferences, for instance. Contracting out ironworking (which, frankly, most of us probably assumed was contracted out already). Buying new vehicles only when the old ones are truly worn out, rather than on a regular schedule.
They expect to cut 50 jobs, and although they don’t know what most of them are yet, they expect nobody outside City Hall will notice when they’re gone.
In sum, whatever has bugged you about Ottawa this year will likely continue to bug you in 2016. It’s a steady-as-she-goes document built on the assumption that everything of consequence that needs doing in the city was set in train in the last five years and now we just have to keep going.
Councillors might disagree, but right after they took office in 2014 they agreed never to add anything to a proposed budget without cutting something equivalent. In practice, that’s made all but the most minor tweaks impossible, and barring an open revolt against Watson, so it will be again.
dreevely@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/davidreevely
查看原文...
The word “continuing” came up a lot. Watson is pleased that the city is “continuing Stage 1 of the O-Train Confederation Line light rail transit project.” Well, no kidding. It’s a multi-year megaproject with a hole dug most of the way under downtown — had anybody thought about stopping? We’re continuing to build a new Arts Court, continuing to fund an “exit strategy” to help young people leave gangs when they want to, finishing a nearly finished footbridge across the Rideau River, continuing to run a water system and continuing to have paramedics.
Watson similarly rhymed off numerous smaller construction projects previously scheduled for 2016 that will in fact happen in 2016 because the city will pay for them. Adding a bike lane to O’Connor Street downtown. Ten new splash pads. Some fixes to the Walter Baker Centre in Barrhaven. Opening new fire stations in new suburban neighbourhoods. Replacing some rural culverts.
This is all routine city business and it will continue as planned.
So will other routine business that is not as delightful. In his speech, Watson said one of the most frequent complaints he and city councillors get is about dangerous driving — most specifically, speeding on side streets. What this city will do about this is … the same almost-nothing it has been doing.
The city will install five more red-light cameras, which was a Watson campaign pledge (when you have promises to keep, it’s good to be the guy who gives the budget orders). Beyond that, each ward will continue to get an allocation of $40,000 for traffic calming, an amount that would buy 20 speed humps or redesign, well, zero intersections to make them safer. It’s perhaps the city’s most ineffectual program, measured against the public exasperation with the problem it’s meant to address, and will remain unchanged.
The police are hiring 25 additional officers, none of whom Chief Charles Bordeleau would promise to assign to traffic duties. They’re needed all over the force, he said, and once they’re recruited they’ll be assigned appropriately. Police-board chair Eli El-Chantiry allowed that the police have cannibalized other units to beef up their anti-gang squad, so hiring new officers will probably mean at least some more attention to traffic safety.
When Coun. Riley Brockington tried to push the issue, Watson cut him off: it’s the chief’s job to make operations decisions, the police board’s job to oversee him, and Brockington is neither the chief nor a member of the board. It’s only his job to vote the money needed for Bordeleau’s plan, so kindly shut it. Watson invited him to go and address the police board as a citizen if he wishes.
If that’s the treatment people get when they worry about constituents getting killed in the streets, imagine pettier concerns. Exasperated by the closing of city beaches and wading pools in the heat of August? Wish libraries were open more family-friendly hours? Not enough crossing guards? Well, none of that’s changing, either.
On the other hand, the mayor and city manager Kent Kirkpatrick both said repeatedly that where cuts are planned they’re in “back-office” functions. Travel and conferences, for instance. Contracting out ironworking (which, frankly, most of us probably assumed was contracted out already). Buying new vehicles only when the old ones are truly worn out, rather than on a regular schedule.
They expect to cut 50 jobs, and although they don’t know what most of them are yet, they expect nobody outside City Hall will notice when they’re gone.
In sum, whatever has bugged you about Ottawa this year will likely continue to bug you in 2016. It’s a steady-as-she-goes document built on the assumption that everything of consequence that needs doing in the city was set in train in the last five years and now we just have to keep going.
Councillors might disagree, but right after they took office in 2014 they agreed never to add anything to a proposed budget without cutting something equivalent. In practice, that’s made all but the most minor tweaks impossible, and barring an open revolt against Watson, so it will be again.
dreevely@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/davidreevely
查看原文...
