Battle lines being drawn over SoBi Hamilton
Councillors square off over future of bike-share service, the opening skirmish of a larger battle that looms
It’s hardly a city hall secret that from time to time Terry Whitehead’s bullheaded style of argument gets under the skin of his council colleagues.
But now the Ward 14 councillor has been accused of trying to deliberately drive one of them out of her mind. At Wednesday’s council meeting, an exasperated Maureen Wilson reproached Whitehead for persistently “gaslighting” her, a term used to describe the manipulation of information in order to gradually make a person question their sanity.
“The gaslighting that continues from the member of the Mountain in Ward 14 is not appropriate, it’s not accurate, and I’m going to dismiss it and I would ask that he would just cease and (desist) this,” Wilson said.
The Ward 1 councillor was responding to comments Whitehead made during the debate over the future of SoBi Hamilton, now on the verge of expiring after owner Uber Inc. notified the city it’s killing the popular bike-share service June 1, supposedly because of a battering from the coronavirus pandemic.
As councillors struggled to get a handle on the stunning development, Whitehead served notice he’s not on for pumping an estimated $700,000 a year into the operation to keep it afloat when the city is staring down the barrel of a potential $60million deficit due to COVID-19. Whitehead groused that some councillors believe money grows on trees and that the city has dollars to throw at every social program going.
For her part, Wilson challenged the notion that the city shouldn’t pay for nonvehicular transportation, arguing that the city has never calculated the direct and indirect costs of maintaining its road network.
Wilson says she doesn’t object to spending money on roads but council should apply the same criteria it uses for motor vehicles to other road users and rethink how it’s investing money.
Mayor Fred Eisenberger and Nrinder Nann said they wanted to explore all opportunities for keeping SoBi alive and not draw lines in the sand.
That muscled up Whitehead. He said he was being transparent by letting his constituents know where he stands. And he began disjointedly barking about how the road system is more important to all stakeholders than cyclists.
Obviously flashing back to Wilson’s push last year to turn busy four-lane Aberdeen Avenue into two lanes in the name of traffic calming, Whitehead fixed his criticisms in her direction without mentioning her by name.
“She’s clearly anti-car and it’s unfortunate,” he said.
That sparked Wilson’s “gaslighting” accusation.
“He states outright that I’m anti-car. I am not anti-car. That’s a lazy, cheap, uninformed shot,” she said, adding she’s just asking to use the same return on investment standard for all road users.
She advised Whitehead to do his homework and bring some thoughtfulness to his seat at council.
Demonstrably, there is no love lost between the two. They’ve clashed on several occasions during this term and will likely do so again.
In some ways, it’s a collision between an earnest policy wonk serving her first term and a visceral nuts-and-bolts politician who’s fought and won five consecutive elections. In other ways, it’s a battle between fixed principles and practical considerations.
Still, make no mistake, barring a miraculous bailout, their quarrel was the opening skirmish of a looming larger battle. Whitehead is not alone in his opposition to using local tax dollars to keep SoBi afloat. Councillors Judi Partridge and Sam Merulla signalled the same disapproval, albeit without the truculence.
Merulla noted that though he himself bikes about 20 kilometres a day and is strong supporter of cycling and bikes lanes, he’s not prepared to spend “a cent of taxpayers’ money” on a program that is not a city-wide service (SoBi bikes hubs are only located in Wards 1, 2, 3, 4 and 13).
Merulla suggested SoBi supporters need to “rally the troops,” perhaps tapping monied people in that throng for help.
There is that. And then perhaps there’s also that old council standby — the slush fund known as area-rating dollars.