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Media Centre - News Release
East end ‘blindsided’ by City, Equality East to seek legal advice
(Posted December 20, 2002)
Orléans, Ontario – An unprecedented coalition of 58 east end community
organizations saw its efforts to secure city funding for an arts and
culture facility blindsided during budget deliberations by the City of
Ottawa’s Health, Recreation and Social Services Committee, says Equality
East Citizens’ Coalition Chair, J.-F. Claude.
Revelations on OrleansOnline.ca this morning that Ottawa city staff
refuse to obtain a legal interpretation of ineligible services listed in
Ontario’s Development Charges Act, 1997 – despite a senior provincial
government official’s admission that no blanket prohibition on arts
facilities is intended – further casts doubt on the will at City Hall to
move the arts facility project forward.
“If the city persists in refusing to obtain a legal interpretation of
the relevant provision of the Act, Equality East will be left with no
option but to explore legal avenues of its own. We owe it to our 58
coalition partners and their 11,000 members to obtain a legal opinion in
this matter,” says Equality East Chair, J-F. Claude. “The fact that a
non-profit citizens’ group is being forced to seek legal counsel in
order to move a community project forward speaks volumes as to how the
east end community’s needs are being ignored in the amalgamated City of
Ottawa.”
Minutes before a motion was introduced at the December 11 HRSS committee
budget meeting requesting that capital funds earmarked for an east end
pool be reallocated to the arts centre, Equality East was notified that
City staff would inform committee members that provincial legislation
prevents the use of development charges to fund arts and cultural
facilities. Over 90% of the pool funding was to be raised through
development charges.
“We were led to believe by councillors and city staff that, with the
municipal reserves all but depleted, the only possible funding option
for the arts facility - within the existing capital budget envelope -
was through a reallocation of the pool money,” says J.-F. Claude. “For a
city official, it is ‘Budget Basics 101’ to know whether a facility can
or can’t be funded through development charges.”
Claude implies that for arts facility proponents to only be informed of
the Act’s restrictions during the city committee’s budget meeting – and
after the group’s presentations were made – suggests that city officials
either “didn’t do their homework and seriously dropped the ball, or
there was intentional interference. Either way, there’s no question we
were blindsided.”
“The January 8 City Council budget meeting will determine whether or not
the voice of 11,000 east end residents, united in a common cause, can be
heard at City Hall, and restore our community’s faith in the City,”
Claude concludes.
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Source:
J.-F. Claude, Chair, Equality East Citizens’ Coalition, (613) 837-7950 |
