[homeles_ot-l] My budget's made up - don't confuse me (or the public) with facts

Sat Apr 28 14:07:38 EDT 2012

Hi folks,

Below is an email that, while addressed to Tim Tierney, has gone out to all members of Council. Tim has the dubious honour of being my city councillor (as well as having been mentionned in the Citizen blog) so please extend your sympathies next time you see him. The specific example is about the buses but the behaviour will extend to housing information as well. 

While I can't speak for the media, it certainly 'stimulated' my blood pressure to hear that city staff was explicitly instructed to suppress information at budget time last year. We all know that an informed public is a dangerous thing - unless you are a believer in democracy, of course! Although every level of government seems to be trying to persuade me otherwise, I still believe in the importance of citizen participation in democracy and the free flow of the information that makes that possible.

I'm sure that your city councillor and senior staff would like to hear your thoughts on the mushroom approach to public engagement. Mushrooms are cultivated by keeping them in the dark and feeding them what I will politely refer to as 'manure' - you may know other terms for that substance. 

Although I don't have the faith I should be able to have in the media as an avenue to keep people informed in an unbiased way, I still believe that the media serves as an important component of our democratic system. We need some checks and balances to keep all the players honest and on-track. While I sometimes suffer from a surfeit of information from or about the City and its goings-on, I don't think that the average resident is in that situation. Many of them rely on the media to tell them what's going on and that can't happen if the City is deliberately and, I would suggest, with malice aforethought suppressing information or manipulating its release. 

This is just wrong on so many levels, the most offensive of which is how it stops the community from properly participating in government. We need to work on getting power - and information - to the people!

Linda. 

--- On Sat, 4/28/12, Linda Lalonde <linda_lalonde_ottawa at yahoo.com> wrote:

Subject: My budget's made up - don't confuse me (or the public) with facts
To: "Tim Tierney" <tim.tierney at ottawa.ca>
Cc: Council, "Marian Simulik" <marian.simulik at ottawa.ca>, "John Manconi" <john.manconi at ottawa.ca>, dreevely at ottawacitizen.com

Hi Tim,

As you know, the budget of the City of Ottawa is one of my preoccupations in this life along with other Council activities. I also follow the provincial and federal budgetting processes very closely. There are several reasons why I do this, one being that I see a budget and the decisions surrounding its development and implementation as very good indicators of the priorities and direction of the respective governments. Budgets are also planning tools - if the $$ aren't there to do something, it won't get done so the choices made at budget time affect the ability of the City to do the things it wants and/or needs to achieve.

It will also come as no surprise to any of you that I believe very strongly in citizen involvement in the democratic process. A necessary part of that is the presence of a GOAT down there on Lisgar Street (more on that at another time). One of the essentials for citizens to be able to participate in city government is information. That information has to be timely, accurate and complete in order to be useful. I do my part in trying to get information out to people - I know you're aware of what I call my '400-closest-friends' list (as well as my broader lists that reach around 2000 others) through which I email individuals and organizations to pass on whatever I come across that might interest them. Councillors get some but not all of those dispatches. This includes the good, the bad and the ugly of the world of politics and community. {Just to clarify, the word "This" in the previous sentence refers to the information I'm sending, not to the councillors
 or other folks who receive it.}

Obviously - to me, at least - one of the prerequisites of citizens acquiring information and being able to use it to work with their communities and with Council is the sharing of that info by the city. Manipulation and suppression of information is counterproductive to several pieces of the process. First, it subverts the ability of the public to participate in processes if they don't have the facts. Second, it creates mistrust between players in the process whether that's council/staff; council/community; staff/community or any other combination of folks. That contributes to the breakdown of those relationships since it's difficult to work with people you don't trust. In addition, when you need the other party to believe something you're telling them in the future, they will have difficulty doing that. Third, it is just plain wrong ethically and morally.

Which brings me to the point of today's rant. The second thing I came across this morning was a couple of David Reevely's blog posts (see below) about the infamous GPS system on the buses. I am a) a technopeasant and b) not sufficiently wealthy to have anything other than a stupidphone so the possibilities of tracking the imminent arrival of my bus are not something that keeps me up at night. I am, however, concerned with the other things that are mentionned in the blogs. Alain Mercier is quoted as telling you and Councillor Egli that staff has been told to withhold information to avoid "stimulating the media during the budget process". Of course, information kept from the gaze of the media is also kept from the public and from Council. 

In the last couple of months, I have been providing information about various OC Transpo-related goings-on to folks as well meeting with people in the community who are concerned about a whole range of transit issues including fares, PRESTO implementation, Para service or lack thereof, creation or disappearance of bus routes and so on. One of the things I heard over and over in the last few weeks was that "we needed this information when the budget was being approved" in reference primarily to the fare increases but also the whole business plan. Imagine how surprised they will be - NOT - to find out that OC Transpo was told to suppress that information so as not to excite the media during the budget process!

So ... do you and other members of council support the withholding of information and suppression of communications either for the purpose of keeping the media from becoming 'stimulated' or to stop the City's full plans and intentions from reaching the public at budget time or any other point in the year? Is it on the instruction of either Council or the Mayor that this took place or was it ordered by someone on staff? If it was an instruction from staff, my speculation would be that it would have to be a very senior staff member if it was City-wide. It would appear to be someone higher up than Alain which eliminates all but a very few people.

And, while I realise the attractiveness of diversionary tactics, it's irrelevant that Alain Mercier is no longer with the City so nobody needs to point out his departure to me. It's the activity I'm concerned with, not the actor, particularly since I don't think he was the only one who received and acted upon the instruction to stem the flow of information out of the City.

I don't think I've used very many clichés in this email so I'll leave you with a couple. Information is power. Power to the people.

Thanks,

Linda. 

http://blogs.ottawacitizen.com/2012/04/27/transit-commissioners-knew-about-idea-to-keep-gps-data-closed-months-in-advance/

Mercier responded to emails from Councillors Keith Egli and Tim Tierney in November 2011:
“... I am very sympathetic to your concerns over communications as we have cancelled every plan to communicate to avoid stimulating the media during the budget process. This is a strategy we were asked to respect – ex move Business Plan to January, not launch web feeds etc.
Alain”

http://blogs.ottawacitizen.com/2012/04/27/an-oc-transpo-chief-on-the-defensive/ 
>From a memo he sent Nov. 23:

“... The Business Plan will address this directly when it is tabled in January. We originally planned to table the Business Plan in November, however we were directed to have the updated Business Plan follow the Budget approval. ...”

That went to Keith Egli, Tim Tierney, Beverly Munn (the senior aide to Diane Deans) and a handful of other staffers.

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