Did the City hedge its bets?
Posted by Carl on September 29, 2007
The news about Lansdowne Park continues to provide both context and an insight into the workings of City Hall - particularly with respect to the use of City owned facilities.
“During my eight months as chief of staff to the mayor, not a month would go by without some group heading in to see staff in the mayor’s office, with artist’s renderings in hand, to promote their solution to save Lansdowne…
City council now has a rare opportunity to make a decision on the future of Lansdowne Park. The present proposal is community-driven, consistent with city development policies, transforms an abused city asset, is a win for local residents and all taxpayers and is a forward-looking step worthy of our status as the capital city of a G8 nation.
Now is not the time for lethargy, socialist rhetoric or filibustering debate. Now is the time for leadership, sound reasoning and forward-focused decisions.”
Walter Robinson, Mayor Larry O’Brien’s former Chief of Staff
Ottawa Citizen, September 29, 2007
Couple of things. Given Mr. Robinson’s claim that there was a revolving door of business proposals for Lansdowne, it seems reasonable to conclude that there was likely more than the two we know about for Lynx Stadium. We’ve known for some time that the Can Am League and the Lynx thought they had a done deal - a deal which included a resolution of the lawsuit, only to have the rug yanked out from under them at the last minute. They’ve never been offered a reasonable explanation, which leads to speculation as to what went wrong. As the title of the post suggests, one wonders if the City was happy to deal with Mr. Wolffe and entertain his plan - until a better one came along. Was the Ottawa Stadium Group proposal that “better one”? And what happened to the formal proposal that they were “days away” from submitting last Friday? We haven’t heard.
And what about the process itself? It appears that it’s within the ambit of the mayor’s office. Which is not to say that everyone is, or should be happy about it.
“For their part, the Glebe Community Association and the Federation of Citizens’ Associations, an umbrella group that represents the interests of more than 80 community associations across the city, is concerned that Mr. O’Brien has been holding unilateral talks with developers.
They say Mr. O’Brien has been privately discussing the developers’ proposal with the business owners. Particularly troubling, they say, is the developers’ claim that Mr. O’Brien told them they couldn’t develop a part of the area — “that it was all or nothing.”
“The idea that the mayor decided it’s all or nothing is astounding,” said Bob Brocklebank, president of the Glebe association. “I don’t think he has a right to do that, and other people, both public and on council, will have different opinions on that. It’s not a decision he should be making alone.” (emphasis added)
(Ottawa Citizen, September 29, 2007)
Our hope now is to find out as much as we can about what derailed the Can Am bid, and what we can do to fix it. The clock’s running.
September 29, 2007 at 11:59 pm
Every day it becomes clearer to me that ‘Crazy Larry’ (CL) has no business being our mayor. Everything he does seems to be misguided. This latest ‘backroom deal’ on Lansdowne Park is just another failed attempt by CL to control what the city does (i.e. ignoring the wishes of city council - doesn’t he remember he has only 1 vote on these matters???).
While I expect most people see through the developers land grab proposal, it does distract city council from the most pressing issue with the local sports venues - what to do with Lynx stadium next year.