Council gets it done... MAYBE

After a marathon meeting of City Council, the group of geniuses finally approved a slam dunk deal that stared them in the face for months.  Lansdowne Live has taken a step forward.

Let's make sure that we understand the reason I call it a slam dunk deal.  Lansdowne is the multi-acre site at Bank Street and the Canal.  The site is important in the history of Ottawa.  The troops marched there before they went off to the horrors of WWI. It was the site of one of Canada's first major agricultural fairs.  It has hosted everything from car races to Little League baseball (including a game where a terrific catcher hit a home run - ME).  It was the home of the Ottawa Rough Riders for some many years and is still the home of the Ottawa 67s.

But aside from the activities that continue in the Park, the buildings and especially Frank Clair Stadium are crumbling to rubble.  It is costing the city over $3 million per year to maintain the rate of crumble.  Along comes a group of developers and sports people who offer, unsolicited, to revitalize the whole park and bring the CFL back to Ottawa,  if the city will repair the stadium.

The deal is good for the taxpayers and the city. So should we be concerned?  Yes we should!

Council, in agreeing to negotiate with the Lansdowne Live folks have put so many caveats on the deal that there are hundreds of way that this council, and history has proved this, can overturn its own decision.

Members of Council - you have started down the right path.  Don't blow it now!

City Out of Control

Ottawa is one of those very few cities in the world where there are so many levels of government (even after amalgamation) that nothing can get done and politicians who cannot see their noses despite their faces thus ensuring that nothing will get done.

Case in point, this Pimple on the Rideau has been planning and arguing and screwing up Light Rail Transit for years.  We are $100 million in the hole with lawsuits, without even digging a bloody hole.  And there is no light at the end of the tunnel (so to speak)!

Case two, Lansdowne Park is a messy waste of space.  Half of the south side stands were torn down and now it turns out that every seat back of the first 30 rows in the north side needs to be replaced.  I remember back in the 1960s when the ceiling tiles in the Civic Centre (part of the north side stands) were falling onto the ice surface during hockey games.  The whole complex should be torn down.

But what to do with the Ottawa 67s and the Ottawa (your name inserted here) football team.  First, the hockey team.  The 67s deserve a new home (call it Kilrea Place) co-located with Carleton University.  That location would mean good access, parking and expanded utilization.  It is also on the LRT line (if they ever get around to building the LRT).

The football team?  I like football.  I go to CFL games.  But to build a complex for 8-9 home games per year has got to be a joke.  Co-locate the CFL football stadium with the stadium at Ottawa University.

Now, the $100,000 question.  What do we do with the acreage known as Lansdowne?  Forget the idea of an international design competition.  Canadians know what would fit the space best.  We know how the space is affected by weather; we know the history and know how to design spaces.  Hold a competition for architectural students from local universities and colleges and let them make the suggestions.  Once we decide on the right design (if we ever do) then let the students form new companies to build the design. (Now that is a real P3.)

What ever you do, just do something and quit putzing around the edges of decision-making.

Sometimes I wish that Clive Doucet would take a walk in a snowstorm.

Clive Doucet, city councillor for the rich and the poor in centretown, champion of ultra-left and self-promoter extraordinaire, has been in municipal government since Col By founded this place and if were up to him nothing would have progressed since that time.  We would still have mud roads, horse and buggy and a Kresge store on every corner.  He takes a hold of every issue put before city council, washes through the morass of his own hundred years of experience and then announces that he has a better idea.

He is against roads in the suburbs.  He is against developing Landsdowne Park using plans put forward by local developers.   I am sure that he is also against people who have the audacity to not listen to him.  And that latter group, especially on council, is growing.

Come on Clive, get off your soap box and let's get this city moving.  Sometimes other people, including those stupid city staff, get things right.  Rather than just opposing everything... give an inch once in a while.

And finally, Clive, please announce that you will not run in the next election... for the sake of the citizens of all of Ottawa.