Civic Alert: Time for reflection

Charette responded to the call for a professional to run as the Council’s financial expert. He says little at public meetings, but colleagues enthuse over his brilliance, amazing knowledge and drafting skills which he brings to this position. His comments:

· I have heavy responsibilities in a national legal practice and regret not being able to spend more time at City Hall. However, there is tremendous staff support from Claude (Lachance, the City Treasurer) and Bruce (St. Louis, Director-General).

· At the same time, Quebec City has imposed too many regulations on councils and their ability to act. For instance it is ridiculous that we have to call a special council meeting to approve a $10,000 purchase. Going to tender so often is an expensive burden. Such things cost time and money.

· As things are, a case can be made that a nearly-full-time salary is deserved by councillors considering the heavy workload. It is more than full-time for Karin, with her downtown duties. She works all the hours God sends.

· The artificial turf was a highly controversial topic. It took a huge amount of time and resources. Overall though, people say: ‘Things are going well! Get on with it.’

e-City

On demand: The City of Langley, BC, (pop: 25,000) last week unveiled an on-demand e-mail service to notify citizens of its activities. There was already an RSS facility to alert subscribers to council announcements. These are some of the tools I have referred to previously when discussing WMA president Henry Olders’ requests for better access to council decision-making.

Bylaws ready: Although Westmount is behind some cities and boroughs on that, the city’s web site has developed quickly this year. For instance, all by-laws are now retrievable online.

Finally sound: A big innovation, the promised introduction of sound retrieval was launched unannounced at the end of last month. The actual audio recording of the May consultation meeting on artificial turf can now be heard in grouped sequences. Listening, I was struck by the large number of audience participants who said that they had lived in Westmount all (or nearly all) their lives, the professional microphone technique of most, and the relative youth of many interveners, which in itself is good news.

Transit need

Missed bus: Part of any sustainable city is acceptable public transit. But how comfortable should it be and how convenient to use? Reliable, of course — which the 63 Girouard was not last Saturday. Normally very dependable, one of the two buses that operate on the line came off duty around lunch time and was not replaced.

Timely: San Diego Regional transit authority has just approved a new loop line to serve La Jolla and the university with small, frequent buses and notification of next-arrival times and of any service delays at EACH stop. Similar information should be available here, with radio communication, now so cheap, and solar powered displays, which are already practical for parking meters downtown.

Request service: Sooner or later, Westmount should have its own bus loop serving the shopping and medical areas. Unfortunately, the Tuesday-only experiments with similar services in CDN-NDG were disappointing.



On the Agglom Front

Ministers write: Although many politicians are taking vacations, like everyone else, there is some unusual activity. Raymond Bachand and Nathalie Normandeau, respectively Jean Charest’s ministers for Montreal and Municipal Affairs, had long articles written in their name and published in both La Presse and Le Devoir. It includes lists of things the Liberals will do for Montreal — like build two mega-hospitals and spend $1.2 billion on a new Turcot interchange.

Tremblay’s beefs: The ministers also defended the government’s proposal for Agglom reforms, which caused Big Montreal Mayor Gerald Tremblay so much emotional outpouring. The worst part was a proposed screening committee, on which the suburbs would have three seats and Montreal only two! It had never been proposed by the suburban mayors, but was introduced by Quebec City to try to correct the democratic imbalance.

Changed concept: Before being made public, this was replaced by the concept of a Secretariat which would act as an information gathering agent — “like the parliamentary research organization” according to the ministers. But it is the former idea that had CDN Cllr. Marvin Rotrand talking about the “tail wagging the dog”. He could have saved the fuss — Charest doesn’t want another level of government either!

Deliberate failure?: One interesting observation on the Liberal proposals is that they expect them to fail —because neither the PQ nor ADQ will support them. Even so, they could claim that they had tried to meet the needs of the suburbs, which are harmed by the Agglom and Montreal’s abuse.

Explaining to Quebec

Missing tenders: It was always difficult to explain to MNAs with no background in municipal affairs some of the abusive behaviour of the centre-city. However, Bachand understood when some suburban mayors told him of their problems over the proposed 10-year recycling contract that Montreal wanted to issue without tenders, and that they had been denied access to the civil servants who had prepared the plan.

Good mayor: Meantime, Gérald Tremblay was attacked at the weekend by some of those he has befriended — Normand Legault, who runs the Formula One Grand Prix, and Just for Laugh’s Gilbert Rozon. The latter told La Presse that Tremblay was a “good man, but it was time he became a good mayor”.

Capital progress: Normandeau managed to obtain some cooperation over agglom reform in Quebec City with Saint-Augustin withdrawing its legal challenge over its big city budget. However, its mayor still boycotts council meetings.

Big deal: Montreal executive committee last week adopted a cost saving plan to spend $100 million or more on central buying of natural gas between now and 2012. The proposal assumes the linked cities will pay part of the bill.

Now sixteenth: In a new economic survey, the CMM says Greater Montreal has risen to 16th place in the ranks of North-American metropolitan regions. Its growth rate is 18th among the 32 regions analyzed.

Homework Time

Reform response: This is theoretically a quiet time for most municipalities. In Westmount, Mayor Karin Marks is not planning to be in the office. She will use the time to work with mayoral colleagues to prepare their response to the government’s reform proposals and the presentation to the parliamentary commission expected in the fall.

Fewer meetings: Although no council meeting has been scheduled for an unprecedented 10 weeks this summer — the law calls for monthly meetings — yesterday’s “special” meeting had nine agenda items at press time. They included a major legal move regarding the closing of the 2005 accounts as part of the mega-city. There is no 10-week break in the life of an active municipality!

Next election: In two years, we will probably know some the candidates for the 2010 council elections. In 2006, three people who considered running had not prepared themselves by spells with the WMA or other groups. They dropped out after asking Karin Marks some questions. Two of them have dropped from sight. A third remains very active in the community.

Turf activists: The turf issue awakened several new activists, three of whom have subsequently thought of offering themselves for council positions. Will they still be interested in two years’ time? Will they learn the basics or go in “raw”?

Neighbourly news

Supporting McGraw: Former MP Warren Allmand, now an NDG councillor, is supporting Desirée McGraw if she decides to run for the local seat being vacated by Lucienne Robillard. The riding now includes the eastern part of his former constituency, besides Westmount and some of downtown. McGraw is young, but experienced and well-qualified, he says.

Mayor’s Foundation: Because Big Montreal is no longer funding food banks, CDN-NDG mayor Michael Applebaum is launching a foundation to replace it for those needing help in his borough.

Kitchen climber: Marilou Dussault, a tree-trimmer with Mercier borough, will represent Quebec at an international tree climbing contest in Hawaii on July 28. Trained at the Centre horticole in Laval three years ago, she was encouraged to take up her unusual vocation by her mother. As an infant, she climbed the kitchen cupboards before she could walk!

Decentralizing power: In England, Hazel Blears, the municipal affairs minister in Gordon Brown’s new government, is a champion of empowering neighborhoods and is now promising some reforms of her own. Councils need not, and should not, be the only repository of local governance,” she said. “Democracy is not just about voting every four years.”

Bloomin’ success: Note to George Bowser: Blears’ activism while a councillor in her native city of Salford before entering parliament, led to her neighborhood winning the Britain in Bloom competition.

Thanks to all concerned

Green Glen: Is it my imagination or is the city greener than usual this year? I particularly appreciate the view of the Glen from St. Catherine Street, with the mature trees set off by the graceful greystone arch of the CP railroad bridge — Westmount’s oldest civic structure (and still without the promised historical marker).

Best seats: I’ve enjoyed sitting on the new benches that are being set up in Westmount’s parks and streets, particularly at bus stops. They are so smooth, I thought they were made of recycled plastic. Not so. City Horticulturist Claudette Savaria told me that the city is building them in the public works yard using a new kind of dense brown wood similar to teak. It is very hard to break and will age to a grey. Previous benches were damaged by skateboarders using them as ramps!

Good jobs: Kensington residents have written to Public Works director Jacques Lahaie to thank him for the now-finished work restoring Kensington Ave, and the consideration shown to residents during the construction. “It’s very rewarding that citizens expressed themselves like that,” said Mayor Marks. Some Rosemount Ave. residents also wrote recently thanking Council for the work done on their street last year.



Community activist Don Wedge can be reached at calert@web.net. His columns are archived at www.westmountexaminer.com, go to Opinion.