Our Day in Court: Monday, November 28, 2011

Our day at Ontario's highest court has arrived. The hearing takes place on Monday, November 28 starting at 10:30 a.m. in Courtroom 10 at Osgoode Hall, 130 Queen Street West in Toronto (close to City Hall). Our case is being heard by the most senior judge in Ontario, Chief Justice Winkler along with Justices Blair and Lang. If you want to follow what is happening, we hope to have someone tweeting from the courtroom (check our twitter account at http://twitter.com/#!/lansdownepark). We also know that CBC will be tweeting at http://twitter.com/#!/CBCPanicoLive (see announcement here). Note that we will not have a decision on Monday. It will be weeks or months before a decision is rendered.

Lansdowne Traffic Meeting: Thursday, December 1, 2011

After pressure from the Glebe and Old Ottawa South Community Associations to consult the public on the traffic impacts of Lansdowne redevelopment (as promised in the terms of settlement for the OMB appeal) the City of Ottawa is finally holding a public meeting on traffic and parking issues. Past conversations have focussed on how to manage traffic during special events; this meeting focusses primarily on the impacts of an estimated 5000 more vehicles a day and heavy delivery truck traffic in a residential neighbourhood for a site with less than half as much parking as it does now. This is your opportunity to learn about things like truck routes, traffic gridlock on Bank Street, pedestrian safety, bicycle connections, street parking, etc. The meeting takes place at the Glebe Community Centre (175 Third Ave at Lyon).

• 6:30-7:00 PM - Open House (with presentation boards)
• 7:00-7:15 PM - Presentation on Traffic and Parking Mitigation Strategies by McCormick Rankin - Project Consultants
• 7:15-8:30 PM - Question and Answer of City of Ottawa Staff, Project Consultants and Community Association Representatives

Reflecting on a Year of City Council

It was a year ago this week that Mayor Jim Watson and a newly-elected Council took office.

Looking back, we have observed a disturbing trend.

• February 2011--City significantly reduces scope of public consultations on the budget; it makes budget cuts to public transit before determining what the impacts will be.
• April 2011--City stops producing detailed written minutes from committee meetings; now citizens have to listen to hours of audio recordings to find out what was discussed.
• September 2011-- City repeals policy on not seeking costs from community groups in public interest litigation.
• October 2011-- City schedules public consultations on budget within one week of budget being tabled, including a meeting on Friday afternoon at 4 p.m. making it is unlikely anyone would attend.
• November 2011--
• - City allows verbal updates on major projects without any written briefing material or advance notice to public.
• - Staff takes 4 months to revise section 37 proposals of the planning act, which deals with land development , after extensive consultation with Ottawa's development industry and calls meeting with community members with only 1 week's notice.
• - City speeds up development approvals by removing need for staff to prepare in-depth report when a Councillor (on behalf of his constituents) raises concerns about the project.

And last but not least, the City just put out a discussion paper suggesting that citizens and unpaid volunteers who approach Councillors on an issue be registered as lobbyists (BUT developers who approach city staff do not have to be registered).  The paper took almost a year for staff to produce, but discussion with the public could be limited to 2 weeks. Read about the potential impacts here: http://ow.ly/7Ep8g.

Under Mayor Watson's regime, Council meetings have little discussion and are often over within an hour. Most of the decision-making appears to happen behind the scenes ahead of the meeting.

There is a systematic pattern here of limiting citizen access to city hall and a clear erosion of democratic rights. This is one of the reasons why Friends of Lansdowne has had to go so so far in its legal challenge on Lansdowne Park--we want our City Council to be transparent and accountable.

Strange Emails

Some people have received emails from a group called lansdownealive asking people to sign a petition about Lansdowne. This message is not from Friends of Lansdowne. We have no information about the source of this message, have not shared our email list and would never reveal hundreds of email addresses like they did.

As always, find out more or donate funds at www.letsgetitright.ca. We count on your support to be able to continue our fight for fairness and for the public good.

Think positive on Monday. Let's Get it Right!