Paging Councillor Bubbles

From the Agenda for next week’s meeting of the City of Ottawa’s Transportation Committee:

COUNCILLORS’ ITEMS

Councillor Tierney

5. ABANDONED SHOPPING CARTS ON CITY PROPERTY - MOTION

CITY WIDE

WHEREAS shopping carts from malls create a hazard and an eyesore when taken off store property and left on City property; and

WHEREAS, there have been numerous reports to 3-1-1 and Councillor’s offices in this regard resulting in the City spending countless hours and resources returning shopping carts to their respective stores; and

WHEREAS the Municipality of Mississauga currently has an existing Shopping Cart By-Law which the City of Ottawa could reference as a template;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Transportation Committee direct staff to prepare a report for Q1 2012 to examine the costs and benefits of the City establishing a program to retrieve store carts from City property, including the option to bring them to the closest City yard for storage until such time as the respective store owner claims and picks up the carts, and establish a fee for the release of the carts to help offset the costs of the program.

Ottawa Police Identify Glebe Firebombing Suspects

Strollers on buses: ummm, little common sense, here...?

On the big issues, City Council often tweaks. And tweaks. Lansdowne Park redevelopment must not be a big issue, because the Mayor tossed that one to a few business guys he happens to like, opening neither his eyes nor a public tender process.

Strollers on buses? Woohoo! All over that one! The issue looms as large as some of the strollers.

There are plenty of views on this. Fourth Dwarf took a shot in this very blog.* Some stroller partisans seem to suspect an all-out attack on the sanctity of motherhood. Some bus passengers seem to desire no less than a clear cannonshot down the bus' centre aisle without hitting anything. Except maybe that sketchy-looking kid with the iPod, sitting dead center, back row. And city council is lovin' this one, because it's just the kind micromanagement issue from which they can suck all common sense. Nature abhors a vacuum. Ottawa City Council routinely creates 'em to operate in. Draw your own conclusion. I'm just sayin'...

One issue is that while city buses have, like most things North American, gained girth over the years, they have not kept anything resembling parity with the bigger baby buggy builders. (Say that three times, fast...) Humungostrollers are fashionable, ubiquitous, and hard to find alternatives for.

I see sound reasons for their big-ass bicycle tires. In Ottawa in winter, horsing the abysmally tiny wheels of old-style foldable strollers through ice ruts and snowdrifts can quickly bust up the stroller, the person pushing it, and/or the baby on board. (We shall not discuss those damn triangular yellow signs in SUV windows just now. I digress.) And I am totally down with the fact that lotsa moms who can afford one stroller only will buy the one that pushes most easily.

However, there can be a sense of entitlement around motherhood. (Kaffee-klatsching yummy mommies who circle their children's SUV-proxies like covered wagons around their tables at the Glebe Bridgehead, such that even a shifty li'l coffee-jonesing coyote can't slip past without fatal entanglement: I'm lookin' at you...!) There can also be a sense of entitlement among civilian bus commuters who want to get down the aisle without the clothed equivalent of pole-dancing, and who look askance at rows of front jump seats folded up for one or two lower-mobility passengers when they'd like to be sitting in 'em.

Bottom line, though, is that it's public transit. Ya share it. Bus users who buy strollers need to take that, and a tape measure, into account, and two-legged commuters need to understand that it's a bus. Sometimes it gets crowded, but it's good for your wallet and the environment, and sharing it with everybody who needs it makes it that much better for both. And how important is it to always get your own way, really?

What I'm advocating is a little common sense. And a modicum of the courtesy that used to be called "common", before it became uncommon.

And it would be really good if you didn't kick that shifty li'l coffee-jonesing coyote hiding under the seat in front of you. In exchange, he won't bite you. And may not eat your cat. See how easy courtesy can be?

* UPDATE: see Zoom's simultaneous post on the issue, here

Get Yourself on TV

Say, have you been reading this blog for a couple of weeks and wondering why OttawaStart said we were essential reading? It is because every now and then we give you something that you didn't even know you needed and wanted. Like this post.

Did you know that you can get on reality TV right here in Ottawa? You can. Dust off the camcorder, set up the tripod and start rolling your audition tape.

Knight Enterprises is advertising for articulate extroverts:

Are you a chef, designer, funny-man or just all around fantastic person? We are always on the lookout for articulate extroverts with a passion for what they do, if this is you then let us know & you could become the new face of lifestyle television!

Knight produces or has produced:

• Cook Like A Chef
• License to Grill
• This Food That Wine
• Road Grill
• The Great Canadian Food Show
• Junk Brothers

Mountain Road specializes in home design shows and they are looking for larger than life personalities:

• Real Estate Rookies - people taking the real estate licensing courses or who are recently licensed real estate agents
• All or Nothing - home owners with no budget for a makeover
• Sheltered - a native Canadian carpenter able to travel to Africa and South America
• The Building Adventures of "Your Names Here" - two people (including at least one woman) who have decided to build a house or cottage together
• Divide and Design - 2 interior designers who have been through divorce (with each other) to help others going through divorce with their new home design challenges

GAPC Entertainment isn't specifically advertising for reality talent, but they have some shows "in development" that might need your skills. What would it hurt to send them a link to your audition tape on Youtube?

• Car Crusaders - 13 x 1/2 hours unscripted drama series
• Shop Therapy - 13 x 1/2 hour lifestyle series
• Mesmerized - A 13 x 1/2 hour make over series

Insight Productions is not Ottawa based, but they did shoot season 2 of Project Runway Canada here and they are now looking for "real Canadian women" aged 19 and over who reside in Ontario to appear in:

• How to Look Good Naked Canada

The Ottawa Glebe & Mall

Welcome to the new ESI Glebe & Mail's great grey op ed page. Another time, we'll deal with Mayor Larry's diabolical hiring of Jasmine MacDonnell, thus placing the ESIs in an ethical quandary. Right now, the Lansdowne Park issue affects us, and Ottawa, in bigger ways.

This week, Lansdowne Live's local powerhouse developer triad presented its fine-tuned plan to grab and commercialize a large and prized piece of public land in the Glebe.

Subsequent council and public debate has again highlighted the projects' flaws.

Last fall, the developers sent an unsolicited bid to city councillors and staff, claimed it to be "revenue neutral", then, in a particularly ballsy move, gave them a tight deadline to respond. The most blatant pressure tactic in the book. Administration and council bit and swallowed enthusiastically, when they should have raised a collective eyebrow, then continued with open public consultation and an open design competition.

The mayor and certain councillors proclaimed that Lansdowne Stadium was crumbling, the attached park was a blight, and we needed to do something fast. But was a "Do Anything As Long as it's Quick" strategy for Lansdowne Park the "Right Thing" for all of us? Ummm, not so much.

From Casa Coyote's jaundiced vantage point, the proposal seems to be about nabbing scads of public green space and turning it essentially private. This week's plan shows, riding on the dubious coattails of a football stadium upgrade and few sops of green space, a gigantic "commercial development" that boils down to (another damn) big-box shopping mall. Oh, and a whack of condos that council stated it didn't want in there.

The space is public, and precious. It shouldn't be only self-diagnosed movers and shakers who drive what happens there, it should be all kinds of ordinary people across the region.

Let's put aside for a moment the appropriateness of rolling the dice on (another) Canadian Football League franchise after three failures. And whether we should even give the CFL a toehold in the debate, when it has no team in town anymore. And whether, even granting the above, a stadium should be rebuilt at Lansdowne, instead of somewhere else with, say, more space for parking and better street access. Forget those picayune bits.

What I'm sayin' is, I've never met developers that didn't deeply believe that they could vastly improve green and open space by filling it up with ugly buildings that make them scads of cash. It's their mindset, and they honestly don't seem to understand any other viewpoint. But we should not be enabling their no-doubt-interesting pathologies here.

I think it gets down to the fact, that, in its haste to grab a dangled lure, council slewed away from an open, fair and transparent public development process toward an ethical shoulder. Maybe the ditch.

Lansdowne is the kind of city-changing thing you want to do right, not quick. Frankly, I don't give a rat's heinie if the proposal is nominally revenue neutral - the Lansdowne space is the kind of historic public jewel a city council should never, ever try to cheap out on. Or give away.

Just so ya know, Randall Denley of the Petfinder solidly backs the current project. And just so ya know, whenever we coyotes start thinkin' that maybe he's on the right side of an issue, we reflexively pat ourselves down to check for signs of the apocalypse. He's usually that wrong.

Down to...

This morning, the ol' inbox washed up a veritable tsunami of friends, well wishers and ummm, others, pointedly informing me of the Petfinder's latest screed about the Zero Means Zero blog

I have no idea why...

Zero Means Zero is apparently written by an administration insider, and as such has been a thorn in Mayor Larry's side almost since the moment he strutted into City Hall. It's scathing, mean-spirited and entertaining. It's been a bit tiresome recently, but still packs a nifty assortment of pointed words. And it has often publicly asked the questions that some of us were thinking privately. That it has also (somehow) remained anonymous all of this time seems to piss off the Larry partisans all the more.

I realize I may attract all manner of hurled debris toward Casa Coyote's infamously glassy walls when I ask this, but... the person(s) responsible for sending the lawyers after Zero by trying to force Google to reveal (his/her/its/their) identity? You noticed that they wanna be anonymous, right?

Oh, the irony. Or, ummm, possibly the paradox. Maybe the sarcasm. Er, the satire...? The oxymoron...? Crap! I dunno! Much like Alanis Morissette, we coyotes are frequently iffy on literary nuances. But doesn't it seem kinda goofy...?

Unsurprising breaking news: Transit strike continues

Transit workers yesterday rejected the city's 'final' offer in a federally-supervised vote requested by the mayor and council.

The 75 per cent margin among those who voted appears to be a convincing rejection of the city's offer, and of Mayor-Larry-driven negotiating tactics that tried to bypass union leadership.

A recent poll suggested most Ottawa residents sided with council, calling the offer "fair" and saying transit employees should accept it and get the hell back to work.

But we coyotes can't help wondering if this had something to do with the City's carpet bombing propaganda blitz, featuring multiple full-page Petfinder ads per day. All of which pretty much called the offer "fair" and said transit employees should accept it and get the hell back to work. The union hasn't exactly been fattening local media ad coffers to win hearts and minds, so the poll results are make sense with that in mind. And frankly, most Ottawhatamies are pretty tired of adapting to no buses, as magnificent as they are at it, whether they're union-friendly or not.

Now, neither side is exactly covered in glory here. I have heard from possibly reliable sources* that senior drivers game that contentious scheduling roster system to work less and earn more. But the city negotiated that system to address serious Transpo dysfunction and morale problems a decade back, and drivers took long-term pay cuts in exchange for it. I wonder why city ads don't address this sore point, and harp instead on wage offers that on the surface indeed look "fair"? Those disingenuous full-pagers and negotiating (negatiating?) tactics make bulls in china shops look positively sprightly and graceful by comparison. Landed giant squids flopping airlessly, I can see.

Last night, in an attempt to substitute his personal reality for the one he habitually rejects, the mayor slipped 300 union members who didn't vote, into the percentage of those that actually voted to reject the offer, to style his smackdown as closer to 64 per cent. Ummm.... by that pretzel logic, the vast majority of citizens that didn't vote for him in the last municipal election deserve a different mayor, don'cha think...?

I still blame Larry. But I always do.

* Someone who knows someone. You know how it goes.

Broken News: Ottawa Transit Strike, Day 27...

Suddenly, the city brain trust had a brilliant idea: reduce rush-hour traffic snarls downtown by quickly changing temporary street parking rules (again), and towing away vehicles that had arrived to park earlier.

No word yet how those lucky commuters are going to get home. Or to the auto impound...

Update

CBC evening news says the powers-that-be, after much negative publicity, apparently saw the error of their ways late in the day. Refunds for $80 parking tickets, towing charges and impoundment fees all 'round! We're still wondering whether those lucky commuters will be reimbursed for their time, or their trek to the auto impound. But we're just picky that way...

Ottawa Transit: Straight to Plan F

I see we're trying to roll out yet another Plan B on the Transit Plan thing - again. This time, $7.2 billion buys the city a couple of rail lines that don't get where a lot of transit users want to to go, And! A! Light! Rail! Tunnel! Downtown!

Hey! The times cry for boldness! Does a real city need to dig some crappy rail tunnel? They're so 19th century, and our visionary mayor is really a 20th century kinda guy. Heh. I know we've we've suggested a few Plan Bs ourselves, but now I think Ottawa just needs to leapfrog straight over all that dithering, and skip straight to the big enchilada: Plan F!

Hear me out. I've been looking into motorized para gliders, and $7,200 buys a nice one, with bulk discounts. More than adequate. Our budget buys a million of 'em. Do it! Lend them out for a minimal fee to everyone who needs to use one, just like those communal bicycles in Paris and Amsterdam. Cutting edge thinking. No need to dig a tunnel. No more buses clogging the streets. We put all that free wasted airspace to use. Utopia! Well, except for the pigeons.

Our mayor is obviously big on the cult of the amateur. He applauds when the city fires those elitist managers. He's proved willing to pitch in micromanage things himself. And since being elected, he's more than fulfilled his ripe early promise as an ultimate amateur. So I think he'll agree when I say that although these things technically fly, we don't need no stinkin' pilot licence requirements. Anybody with a toonie or so should be able to use 'em. And to show my faith in him, I think he should be the first to test the system. Do we need Plan F right this minute, or what?

When in doubt, rearrange the deck chairs

Thank Dog! One election's done with. We can get closer to what passes for normal around here. And what should we do first? Support His Nibs, I think. Ooh, but where to start? So much density, so little gravitas.

Our esteemed mayor this week - the week that the city fired a mittful of its top managers in the name of economy in hard times - announced he wanted to hire a private company to rationalize Ottawa's street furniture. With loadsa advertising plastered on it. Because the current stuff just looks so darn ugly. He was obviously stepping from strength to strength, building on the success of last week's Ottawa Life Magazine hagiography ummm, profile. The one that said that city administration under Ottawa's former mayor, Bob Chiarelli, was 'marred by scandal'.

Now that's spin...!

Naturally, bein' a sensitive aesthete myself, I heartily approve of the impulse behind this pronouncement. (I'm pretty sure it was impulsive.) I mean, we don't have anything else to deal with, do we? The economy's in great shape, our mayor hasn't been convicted of anything, and those nice new CFL franchise owners want to take that ugly, unpopular, useless Lansdowne Park off of the city's hands and turn it into something the city can really be proud of. For a small consideration from the city. Ka-chiinnngggg!

Obviously we need, very badly, to talk about street furniture. Right now. Yup. And since the Irregulars are well acquainted with one or two pieces of anthropomorphized furniture, we herewith offer our expertise in aid of this important issue. For a small consideration from the city. Ka-chiinnngggg!

Are the MPs Wearing their Tin Foil Hats?

I worry that our MPs and Cabinet Ministers are not wearing their tin foil hats. I was reading a back issue of Hansard's on the bus yesterday when I discovered that some of our opposition members are not wearing them.

As any longtime reader of this blog knows, tin foil hats are necessary to prevent mind control through electro-magnetic rays. (Please keep in mind that while we say "tin foil", aluminum foil is most commonly used, but any electricity conducting metal will do.)

While the copper roofs on the Parliament Buildings should go a long way to preventing a need for foil hats, it is still alarming to thing that our leaders may be vulnerable to mind control.

How do we know that some are not wearing their caps? They as much as say so:

For example, on 26 Sept 2006, Liberal MP Wayne Easter asked about a campaign to undermine the Canadian Wheat Board "using fake letters, manipulating the media, stacked government task forces and circumventing the laws of Canada."

Replying for the government, Chuck Strahl, Minister for the Canadian Wheat Board, revealed that Easter was not wearing a protective cap:

Mr. Speaker, I am surprised the member could say that without wearing his tinfoil hat on a grassy knoll.

On 22 Feb 2007, Minister Strahl reports that MP Easter is once again not wearing his cap after a question about ballots:

Mr. Speaker, I think that the hon. member has his tinfoil cap well removed today.

But was the Hon. Chuck Strahl wearing his tinfoil cap? David Anderson, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Canadian Wheat Board, confirmed not only that he was, but that he had additional facial coverage:

If members take the time to read the motion, they will see that the minister the other day referred to him through his tinfoil hat.

Almost as bad as not wearing a tinfoil hat is wearing one that does not fit properly. This appeared to be the case on 26 Feb 2008 with some NDP members as pointed out by Peter MacKay after a question from NDP member Libby Davies about a secret agreement with the U.S. Armed Forces:

It sounds to me as if those tinfoil hats are getting a little tight down there.

This problem had spread to the Liberals by 11 March. After a question from Liberal Mark Holland about the possibility of Ministerial involvement in the decision by the OPP to not forward an investigation file on possible conversations between Mayor Larry and John Baird to the RCMP. The Hon. Jason Kenney, Secretary of State for Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity, alerts the Speaker of the House to the danger:

Mr. Speaker, we see the tinfoil hats getting a little tight again over there.

Have you spotted the consistent pattern? Liberals and NDP members either not wearing their foil caps or wearing them improperly. Meanwhile, the Conservative members of the New Government (Can we call them the Old Government yet?) were wearing their tinfoil caps and doing their best to draw attention of the opposition members who were leaving themselves open to mind-control.

Perhaps you are wondering if the Conservatives continue to prudently wear their tinfoil caps during the campaign season. I believe they do, or that at least one local Tory does.

Last week, Avaaz.org released ads attacking the Conservative position on the environment. While Avaaz claimed they had raised funds for these ads in Canada from their 300,000 members, and that they had cleared the ads with Elections Canada, John Baird was not fooled.

He smelled something wrong. Or more specifically, he smelled billionaire mystery man George Soros behind it all and sent out a press release titled: “SHADOWY FOREIGN ORGANIZATION ATTEMPTING TO INFLUENCE CANADIAN ELECTION” This may alarm you, but I urge you to relax because:

1. Baird has made a formal complaint so we can be sure that any nefariosity will be dealt with;
   
2. We can't expect all the billionaires to support the Tories; and
   
3. Baird and the other Tory candidates must be wearing their foil caps or they would have been led astray by the mind control rays.
   

Attention Sorosophobes/philes: We’ve hit the big time, y’all by Kady O'Malley October 6th, 2008 at 11:48 am

Avaaz.ca vs. Baird: The Shadowy Foreign Organization strikes back! by Kady O'Malley October 6th, 2008 at 5:26 pm

How To:

• Tin Foil Hats - for the discriminating

• Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie

• Instructables: Aluminum foil hat

• How to Make a Tin Foil Hat for Your Dog

Last journey to city hall

Former Ottawa Mayor Marion Dewar, 1928 - 2008

Downtown redevelopment in the wind?

As I scuttled down Elgin Street at rush hour this morning, on my way toward another date with destiny, or possibly an unfortunate waxing accident, a little whirlwind at Elgin and Lisgar spun out of the traffic and blew a piece of semi-official-looking stationery straight at me. I chanced to read it as I peeled it off my face and saw the draft missive below. My heart raced. Who could've written it? What can it all mean...?

Mayor Larry O’Brien Appoints New
Downtown Redevelopment Adviser

DRAFT: For future release
August 12, 2008

OTTAWA - Today Mayor Larry O’Brien released the name of the Chair of a Taskforce on Downtown Redevelopment.

As part of his 1 000 Days of Change, Mayor O’Brien committed to making Ottawa "one of these cities with swagger."

The Taskforce’s mandate is to examine the current downtown and waterfront of the City of Ottawa and develop recommendations based on best practices, and other municipal models.

David Boyd, a Halifax cab driver, computer technician and tow truck driver, who has also advocated man-on-android love, is appointed task force chair. Mr. Boyd envisions more casinos, strip clubs and Las Vegas-style nightlife in the city.

While Ottawa has a number of adult-entertainment parlors and nearby access to the Gatineau Casino and the Rideau-Carleton Racetrack, Mr. Boyd believes the City needs more. "It's high time Ottawa grew up and realized it's a government town," Mr. Boyd said.

Black and blue and squirrelly all over

I had a doctor's appointment over the lunch hour last week and, afterwards, decided to pop home for a moment.

I was distressed to find a rather large black squirrel lying quite dead in the middle of my winding driveway, just a few paces from the moat that surrounds the observatory.

Did I forget to pay the Italian taxes on ESI's global headquarters? I wondered. Is this how the good fathers of Tuscany remind Canadian residents their payments are overdue?

I fork over a lot of property taxes in this country, too.

Now is the chance, I thought, for the City of Ottawa to make up for its lacklustre, sporadic and altogether uninspired snow-removal efforts on my Centretown street.

After all, the squirrel, though on my driveway, was actually on city property, which extends several metres inward from the curb. And you can't be too careful, right? West Squirrel Virus may be running amok, infecting the downtown core.

I dialled 311 and after a little push-button menu-manoeuvring was duly assured a city roads crew would come pick up my ex-rodent friend. It was dark when I got home, so I didn't notice till the next day that someone, likely a neighbour, had simply moved the squirrel slightly to the right, atop a small stone ledge that borders my driveway.

Another call to the city. Yes, at this point I could have bagged the fluffy-tailed critter (sorry, Coyote) myself. But it was the principle of the thing. Again I was told the squirrel would be gone by day's end. No such luck.

Day Three: yet another call, and another promise. But as of suppertime Friday, my open-air squirrel cemetery was still thriving. Call four: I was told a supervisor would phone me shortly to advise when the road crew would arrive. An hour passed. Still nothing.

Finally, I walked outside with a plastic bag, grabbed a shovel and scooped the poor animal inside, then disposed of him as nobly as I could under the circumstances. Death is never pretty. And the whole thing made me a little sad.

I called the city for the fifth time. Don't bother coming, I said. It didn't seem right to make the squirrel, or me, wait any longer.

Photo: Squirrel, not exactly as illustrated.