From: Klaus Beltzner

My comments on "the Bulldog" in reference to "Open House to Discuss
Light-Rail Impact"

http://communities.canada.com/ottawacitizen/blogs/bulldog/archive/2010/0...

@Yet another David:

Sadly you are right, and there is more.

To date, no DOTT public consultation (open house) and no TMP public consultation (cafe round table, e-consult or open houses) has led to as much as one word changed in the documentation going forward to Council.

And it is not as if Staff did not receive thoughtful and constructive comments on where they are making serious errors, and where they should consider more practical and less expensive alternatives. They just chose to close their eyes and ears -- very professional of them.

The sad fact, and it is a fact, is that public consultation is a requirement on their check list so they go through the motions of listening and what they are really doing is "selling" their work to the public. I think they call it "public education".

And, Staff wins both ways. If no one comes, they claim that the public is happy with what they are doing. If lots of people come, they claim that lots of people are interested in what they are doing and go away happy.

When it comes to the transit file in this City - there is no listening by Staff to anyone but to their favourite long-term consultants. And, after decades of being the City's consultants, they really have nothing new to offer and both Staff and Consultants go on auto pilot and enter the zone of "group think" where only they have the right answers and everyone else is wrong. Must be great to be 100% right all the time...but sadly their record of major failures and ongoing cost overruns would suggest otherwise.

One would think that "bells would have rung" by now to alert Council that we need a change in the Consultants who are giving advice to Staff, and in the Staff that present this advice to Council.

A growing swell of public outcry has started that many Councillors are way past their "best before date"; the same holds true for senior Staff and their favourite long-term consultants.

Its time that the City changes its senior staff on the Transit file as well as the Consultants that this Staff have consistently engaged for over two decades.

We need fresh ideas and new competencies and neither are possible by maintaining the status quo.

Klaus Beltzner