Seriously now,
Posted by Carl on September 20, 2007
This isn’t sporting anymore. I could make this stuff up, but it wouldn’t be nearly as crazy.
City slapped with another light-rail lawsuit
Third firm in consortium seeks $103.9M in damages
Hmmm. City breaks an agreement, we get our collective a$$ sued. Seen that movie before.
Doucet says O’Brien can’t be trusted
Claims mayor reversed his position, then said he’d deny conversation ever took place
Now this sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
OPP probe nears end
Investigation of mayor now in hands of Crown
“The Ontario Elections Act states if a candidate is convicted of a corrupt practice or of an offence under the Criminal Code in connection with an act that relates to an election, “any office to which he or she was elected is forfeited and becomes vacant.”
And this is just one day in the life of the City.
Now look, I never intended to blog about municipal politics, and chances are you didn’t come here to read about them either so I’m going to try to give it a rest. At least for a little while. And quite honestly, I sincerely hope we don’t lose the Siemens case (although I think we probably will), I don’t want gridlock at City Hall, and I don’t want to see the office of the Mayor of Ottawa tarnished with a criminal conviction. I’m not cheering for any of these things.
I’m just sayin’.
In the next few posts, look for a little bit of a primer for the upcoming Arizona Fall League, a “Who are the Grays” post, and whatever else I can whip up.
September 20, 2007 at 6:03 pm
City slapped with another light-rail lawsuit
Third firm in consortium seeks $103.9M in damages
Jake Rupert, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Thursday, September 20, 2007
The City of Ottawa has been served with a second $100-million-plus lawsuit arising from council’s decision to cancel the north-south light-rail project.
Dufferin Construction is suing for $103.9 million. The city was served with the suit Monday.
Dufferin was part of a consortium that included Siemens Canada and PCL Construction, chosen to design, build, provide cars for, and maintain the line for 15 years.
Last year, led by former mayor Bob Chiarelli, the city approved the line and signed a $1-billion contract with the companies to build it and several related projects.
But the project was put on hold in October, at the height of the municipal election, when then-Treasury Board president, Ottawa West-Nepean Conservative MP John Baird, made $200 million in federal funding contingent on the new council re-approving the project.
The dual-track, electric line would have run 29 kilometres from the University of Ottawa to the middle of Barrhaven. Preliminary work on the project had started, but it was cancelled by the new council.
“At the direction of Mayor Larry O’Brien, contrary to the advice of its staff and legal advisers, and knowing it was unlawful and would injure Dufferin, the newly elected city council refused to confirm its obligations,” the suit says.
Earlier this year, Siemens and PCL filed a lawsuit against the city seeking $177 million in damages. The city has yet to file a statement of defence to that lawsuit.
Yesterday, city lawyers were examining the Dufferin lawsuit and wouldn’t comment on the contents of the statement of claim, but said the city will defend the action.
Bay Councillor Alex Cullen, who voted against the light-rail plan, said the lawsuits are “unnecessary,” and that the companies might want to rethink what they are doing.
“The only people who are going to get anything out of this are the lawyers,” he said.
“We are ultimately going to build a rapid transit system in Ottawa. My question is: Don’t these people want to do business with the City of Ottawa?”
Mayor Larry O’Brien’s spokes-man, Pat Uguccioni, said his boss had no comment on the lawsuit.
In the past, Mr. O’Brien, a businessman, has said he’s been through other similar legal situations, and that he wasn’t worried the earlier lawsuit would greatly affect the city’s finances.
However, for Capital Councillor Clive Doucet, a supporter of the rail line, the new suit is additional proof the city made a terrible mistake when it cancelled the project.
“We would be building it now, but instead we are getting sued,” he said.
Mr. Doucet said the city should negotiate with the companies to settle the suits by building the cancelled project, instead of fighting this out in court and getting nothing.
“It’s paying and getting something, as opposed to paying and getting nothing.”
The Dufferin suit is laid by its parent company, St. Lawrence Cement Inc.
The lawsuit says the city’s argument that it couldn’t get the federal funding together in time to honour its agreement with the companies doesn’t hold water. Instead, it says the city had fulfilled all its agreements with the federal government and should have simply gone ahead with the project, but “its newly elected council simply chose not to proceed.”
The suit says any attempt by the city to say it couldn’t go ahead because it didn’t have the federal funding in hand is “made in bad faith and for the improper purpose to try to justify or excuse its unlawful conduct.”
The suit claims because the city was pushing a tight construction schedule, the company was forced to do work, enter into other agreements and provide services to the city, for none of which it has been compensated. It also says the company had to turn down other big-ticket projects in order to do the work the city wanted.
“Dufferin had to commit substantial resources and enter into significant financial commitments to ensure that it could deliver the necessary services for a fixed price on a fixed date,” the suit says.
In an interview, Murray Braithwaite, a lawyer with the firm handling the suit for Dufferin, said the latest suit and the earlier one would probably end up being dealt with by the same court, but that it should be seen as a separate action.
He said the legal situation the companies and the city find themselves in is a little “bizarre,” due to how the project was proceeding and how it was cancelled, and that the latest suit is design to ensure the interests of Dufferin are covered, regardless of the direction the suits take in court.
September 20, 2007 at 6:04 pm
Doucet says O’Brien can’t be trusted
Claims mayor reversed his position, then said he’d deny conversation ever took place
Jake Rupert, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Thursday, September 20, 2007
Capital Councillor Clive Doucet says he can’t “trust” Mayor Larry O’Brien anymore and won’t be listening to anything the mayor says in the future.
Mr. Doucet says he’s come to this conclusion following a series of moves by the municipality’s top elected official, including one in which the mayor allegedly said he was prepared to deny a conversation with the councillor ever took place.
Mr. Doucet said he also thinks the mayor is manipulating things at City Hall in order to create a perceived crisis, which would make it easier for Mr. O’Brien to get his agenda through.
He said that this, coupled with the mayor’s actions on several issues, has led him to lose confidence in the mayor.
At the heart of Mr. Doucet’s claims are examples he says show the mayor is not to be trusted.
He said that in a meeting earlier this year, Mr. O’Brien agreed that restarting the Bayview to River Road section of the failed light-rail plan was in the city’s best interests. Mr. Doucet said the mayor said he would support Mr. Doucet if he introduced the idea to council.
“Forty-five minutes later, he called me and said he’d changed his mind, and that if I mentioned that he had agreed to support me to anyone, he would deny the conversation took place,” Mr. Doucet said.
“I don’t trust him, and I won’t listen to what he has to say on anything else because I don’t trust him. The only reason I’m mentioning this now is that I think these are important issues, and I don’t care anymore what he thinks.”
Mr. O’Brien’s spokesman, Pat Uguccioni, said the mayor is not going to share his version of events.
“He said, ‘If that’s the way Clive interprets our private conversation, so be it, but I’m not going to repeat what I said to Clive in a private conversation,’” Mr. Uguccioni said.
Mr. Doucet’s allegations yesterday bring to a boil bad relations between the men, which have been simmering for months.
Just last week, Mr. Doucet demanded the mayor retract misleading public statements made about him.
Earlier this year, council decided to hear from members of the public on its priorities for the next few years. The priorities were developed during the mayor’s “visioning” process held during the spring and summer.
During the process, Mr. Doucet came to believe the exercise was a waste of time because the priorities settled on were already part of the city’s plans and there was no effective mechanism to achieve them.
Mr. Doucet didn’t support hearing from the public on the priorities for these reasons, and at the city council meeting where the public was to address council, Mr. Doucet walked out.
Minutes later, Mr. O’Brien told the media he thought Mr. Doucet was acting badly, especially because he was one of the councillors who wanted public consultations on the priorities.
At the last city council meeting, Mr. Doucet challenged Mr. O’Brien to produce any evidence that he wanted to hear from the public on the priorities or retract the statement. Mr. O’Brien said he’d check his records and get back to council on the matter.
Mr. Doucet said the mayor hasn’t got back to him on the issue yet, and that he’s not going to let the matter go.
September 20, 2007 at 6:05 pm
Thu, September 20, 2007
OPP probe nears endInvestigation of mayor now in hands of Crown
By DEREK PUDDICOMBE, CITY HALL BUREAU
The Toronto Crown Attorney’s office has retained independent legal counsel to review the results of the OPP investigation into bribery allegations against Mayor Larry O’Brien.
The attorney general’s office told the Sun yesterday the OPP has completed its investigation and has handed its results over to the Toronto Crown and that the Crown has hired lawyer Scott Hutchison, with litigation firm Stockwoods Barristers to provide any assistance police might require.
ENSURE OBJECTIVITY
“The ministry sometimes retains outside counsel in cases involving public officials or members of the criminal justice system,” said ministry spokesman Brendan Crawley. “The need for outside counsel is assessed on a case-by-case basis.”
He said the ministry seeks outside counsel to ensure objectivity.
“As always, the decision to lay charges or not lay charge rests entirely with the police,” he said.
Crawley said he could not comment on when a decision whether to lay charges against O’Brien will be made by police.
Stockwoods is one of a few independent counsel firms in Toronto specializing in several areas of litigation including libel, slander and criminal cases. Hutchison’s area of expertise is criminal litigation and white-collar crime.
The OPP is investigating whether O’Brien enticed Terry Kilrea to drop out of last year’s mayoral election.
The investigation stems from Kilrea’s affidavit suggesting O’Brien offered to reimburse him up to about $30,000 for out-of-pocket expenses incurred during the runup to Kilrea’s mayoral bid if he left the race and threw his support behind O’Brien.
Kilrea also said O’Brien offered him a job with the National Parole Board. O’Brien has denied all the allegations.
There has been speculation around City Hall in recent months about what would happen if the mayor is charged with a crime.
Some councillors say even though he’s not obliged to step down if charged, he should.
STRICT GUIDELINES
“I feel badly for the mayor, but this is probably the best thing the OPP could have done for the city,” said one councillor who didn’t want to be identified and wants the mayor to step aside.
The Ontario Elections Act states if a candidate is convicted of a corrupt practice or of an offence under the Criminal Code in connection with an act that relates to an election, “any office to which he or she was elected is forfeited and becomes vacant.”