www.eastottawa.ca
Published: Friday, February 6, 2009 Will councillors debrief their constituents? Alas, the transit strike is finally over – thanks to non-partisan cooperation and leadership amongst local MPs John Baird, Mauril Belanger and Paul Dewar on the Hill, which forced the city and the union’s hand – and bus service will slowly re-emerge this weekend. Sadly, our east end councillors did not avail themselves of my offer of space to answer some of the questions you have raised during the strike. Nonetheless, I will try one more time this week based upon your continuing feedback. And if they don’t answer these questions now, judgment will be rendered when we vote in November 2010. The most fundamental question is what did the city learn from our seven weeks of misery? The time to account for its planning successes and failures is now; transparency is the order of the day and accountability to us taxpayers and transit riders is paramount. On more than one occasion I heard councillors on local radio and TV say, to paraphrase, “Well we can’t tell you everything that happened in-camera but we are implementing Stage X of our ongoing contingency plan.” Okay fair enough, we don’t need to know about the labour negotiations strategy and tactics updates, but we do need to know about the advance planning for traffic jams, community agency supports, public safety and the like. The chatter amongst the neighbours and work colleagues is that the city was improvising as it went along. And the eight weeks – count ‘em, 60 days – it could take to restore full morning and evening express service on the 20s and 30s routes that serve us only further validates this suspicion. Citizens are entitled to a full accounting from the mayor, council and senior city staff as to what parts of their planning went well, and what didn’t work. Only by being accountable can trust be restored (or reinforced depending on your point of view) in the collective wisdom of our elected officials who have to balance public interest and public service. And in fairness to them, the transit strike severely tested this balance. Where the city failed miserably is in its communications approach. Simply put, full page ads and big radio buys were an expensive mass market approach of questionable value and impact. As someone who is on no less than 10 councillors (including the mayor’s) email or ward centric snail mail lists, not once did I receive an email, flyer or call informing me of the city’s position on the labour dispute and remediation measures. The effort was passive, not assertive, as the quasi-state of crisis demanded. Talk about a lesson learned. Yes, several councillors did update their websites during this period but actually engaging their constituents in a community dialogue, ah, not so much. And doing so would not have violated the appointed spokesperson roles that were mandated to the mayor, city manager and OC Transpo director. Real leadership demands a public debrief on the strike. Last question: Will it happen? = = = = = Comments can be sent to Walter Robinson at orleansouttakes@transcontinental.ca. |