WHY THEY VOTED THEY WAY THEY DID

Councillor Janet Davis

Council had no policy around unsolicited bids and she was surprised to learn Tuggs can reassign part of the sole-sourced lease to another company. “Had I known that it was going to be big chain restaurants I would never have supported it. I was totally surprised to see the transformation that happened.” She said she is also unhappy the city has no way of knowing the financial arrangement between Tuggs and Cara.

Councillor Joe Mihevc

“You trust the local councillor,” he said of his support in 2007. “There was no skulduggery that I could see. You have a family that has invested in the site, and councillors prefer a mom-and-pop operation.” Still, “it’s the other end of the city, it’s not like most of us gave it a lot of attention.” Mihevc said he is “disappointed” the site has “gone corporate” and is concerned by Tuggs’ right to reassign part of the lease.

Councillor Paula Fletcher

“It’s not the vision I was sold, it’s not the vision I voted on. It’s turned out to be a nightmare,” she said of the chain restaurants and concerns over community events in parks. “We didn’t have a partnership office to properly vet an unsolicited offer. It wouldn’t have happened if we had a better staff process in place. I don’t see an end to it — this is going to go on for years.”

Former councillor Joe Pantalone

He said the ongoing controversy is a failure of both sides to make the lease work for Tuggs and the community. He said he does not in any way regret his vote for the lease extension in 2010. “You need a private sector partner. If you’re dancing with somebody well into the evening, you can’t say ‘Let’s start all over again.’ That’s not how you build credibility in the business community.”

Councillor Gord Perks

“In today’s policy framework this whole thing could not happen,” he said. “We didn’t have the framework to turn (Foulidis’s) proposal down, but we do now.” Perks said a risk of contracting out is that the original winner is going to have an advantage when renewal time comes. “From advice we had in staff, this was the best deal available to public at the time and that’s why I went along with it.”

Councillor Pam McConnell

“It was a long, drawn-out process. It was very late at night and there were not very many people there,” she recalled. “Our interest was to improve the (restaurant) infrastructure on the site.” In 2013, when the Centreville amusement park lease came due, she made sure it went out for tender. McConnell said she would not have voted for a sole-sourced Tuggs lease knowing part of it could later be reassigned to a big corporation.