Wednesday, March 20, 2013

In-Camera Decisions - A Council Hallmark


Concluding Hotel Deal 'In-Camera'
Would Be Consistent With This Council's Methods

Mayor Ruttan seems incredulous that city taxpayers think his administration would try and finalize a hotel deal without any public scrutiny. He must think we don't remember the $16,000,000 on a shiny new office that he concluded without public scrutiny.

Or the decision to destroy the Colliery Park Lakes Dams without any public discussion or input. For the most part these major decisions are handled as you would expect them to be in an oligarchy. Which arguably is exactly what city hall has become.

What would separate the hotel deal from the annex deal? They both deal with one of the 3 'Ls' (land, labour. litigation) which are used to hide decisions from public view, even if they are misusing the rule.

It is quite conceivable that on the advice of Mr. Kenning, this council would proceed in-camera to accept the hotel deal, where all meaningful discussion and deliberation would take place out of the public view. They would then come into open council and go through the motions of debating the issue, before coming to the conclusion already reached in-camera.

The lack of meaningful deliberation or debate by this council is highlighted in the current lack of ANY discussion regards the $851,000,000.00 financial plan they adopted. The only debate was the decision to not ask staff to suggest where areas of tax savings of up to 5% might be achieved. That, and Councilor Greves lamenting that the city wasn't collecting enough money now.

Oh yeah, and I nearly forgot the recent decision to spend $160,000 to solve a $20,000 problem.

And they wonder why city taxpayers don't trust what goes on at city hall.

allvoices

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