My First Blog Rant......

I live in Ottawa; Canada's national capital. A nations capital is by any definition, a showcase city. It is that first city that the fabric of a nation can be based and it should be a world destination.

Ottawa is not that place; at lease not right now. Our city is plagued by municipal councilors and a mayor that is, quite frankly, inept in their ability to make coherent decisions. In our last elections, Larry O'Brien ran with a platform to get rid of the north south rail line that had been planned (and contracts signed). He didn't like the price tag, design, route, and just about anything else.

He made good on that election promise and once elected, promptly pushed council into scraping the contract. That decision cost the city in $38 Million Dollars in an out of court settlement. What does he come up with, an east west line that is four stops long and burred under the downtown core. In essence a four (that's 4) stop subway. This grand plan does not meet up with the existing 'O' Train line and will cost billions to build. Once built, thousand's of commuters will have to disembark their express busses just outside the downtown core, wait for a train and somehow pack themselves in to travel two or three (maybe even four) stops. In essence this will add 15 to 30 minutes onto their travels to and from work. Does this make any sense? I think not. There was a previous proposal for an east west line running downtown but that was scraped.

Now, pushing his agenda through, he's come up with (along with some city staffers and councilors) building the very same north south route that he wanted terminated (and paid $38 Million Dollars in tax payers money in a settlement).

Toping that, we have a just our of downtown core sports facility that could have been redeveloped into an area of pride for the city (Landsdown Park area). We could have opened up the design phase to a national or even global competition.

No, instead Mr. O'Brien however began secrete negotiations with one group of business people that wanted to bring back north American football to the park (the tired time - fast on the heals of two previous failed attempts). We're now, for some strange reason only known to him, enrolled into a sole-source bid with this same business group.

What's very odd is that he knew about and negotiated with this group even before anyone else knew that we had to do something about the area. While the stands and park needed some work, no one knew how much and what it would take to redevelop the lands.

This was a sole-source bid from the very start. He even went on the news from the beginning and made it very clear he was not interested in any design competition and did not want to solicit any other bids for the re-development. This will cost the city's tax payers billions in the end.

This smells so bad, its making this once great city the laughing stock of the country and the world. Its time for a change.