LRT delays didn’t haunt election because voters ‘understand,’ mayor says
The largest infrastructure project in Ottawa’s history is late, the city isn’t sure if it’ll recoup delay costs and no one knows when the trains will start carrying passengers on the $2.1-billion LRT system.
Yet, voters overwhelmingly supported a third term for Mayor Jim Watson and returned most of the incumbent councillors to city hall in the municipal election on Monday. Seventeen of the 24 council members were re-elected. Four current councillors didn’t seek re-election.
Was Watson surprised his famous LRT slogan, “on time and on budget,” didn’t haunt him during the election campaign?
“No, not really, because I think people understand that I can get blamed for a lot of things but I don’t think the sinkhole is something I really had anything to do with,” Watson said Tuesday morning as he participated in his traditional morning-after sign wave, this time on busy Bronson Avenue during the commute.
The Rideau Street sinkhole in 2016 has been cited as the major cause for the LRT delay.
“That set us back quite a bit of time,” Watson said. “In terms of the ‘on budget,’ we do have a fixedprice contract. We are very much of the opinion that any cost overruns for our increased costs are the responsibility of the private consortium, not the taxpayers of Ottawa.”
The city wants to recoup costs related to the delay from Rideau Transit Group, but the builder hasn’t agreed to the city’s demands. RTG is being penalized $1 million for missing the November deadline and the city will hold back payments if construction milestones aren’t met.
On top of the cost overruns from the delay, there were city-requested add-ons to the LRT project that weren’t in the fixed price contract. The city calls it “incremental” work.
The LRT system was originally scheduled to be ready for city commissioning work last May 24. The deadline was pushed to Nov. 2, but that handover date also has been scrubbed. The best the city can estimate is that the LRT system will be ready in the first quarter of 2019.
Watson said he’s scheduled to be briefed by RTG in the next week or so to get a more definitive handover date.
Ideally, there will be more information in time for a Nov. 6 finance and economic development committee meeting. The committee has been responsible for all things LRT. Committee meetings have been main communication vehicle for city construction updates on the 12.5-kilometre rail line.
Launching the LRT line is a top priority, the mayor said.
“At this stage, it’s a preoccupation,” Watson said.
“We want the train up and running. That was one of the things I heard loud and clear on the campaign trail. People are excited about LRT. They just want to see the trains start rolling.”
LRT isn’t the only thing on Watson’s mind as he prepares for a new council term, which begins Dec. 1. There will be seven new councillors and a 2019 budget that requires immediate attention.
Watson said he wants to get a sense of how the campaigns went for the incoming councillors and what they want to accomplish in their wards. With that information, he’ll start to write the 2019 budget with city staff.
The mayor also must decide on the makeup of the finance and economic development committee, whose membership traditionally includes all committee chairs and deputy mayors.
Council eventually will approve the new membership for all committees and boards.
Watson, who intends to continue chairing the finance and economic development committee, said the first job is to find out where councillors want to serve. Planning committee, for example, has a large workload, with rezoning applications usually hitting agendas every second week.
“You have to balance out geography, gender, language and expertise to make sure you have good representation on the committees,” Watson said.
There’s also the matter of being the subject of a court application accusing him of wrongfully blocking people on Twitter.
Watson wouldn’t address the allegations because they’re before the court, but he promised to not saddle property taxpayers with legal bills that might come from representations on the lawsuit.
“There will be no costs to the taxpayers because of this issue,” Watson said. “That’s the last thing I would do.”
Three council incumbents lost their re-election bids: David Chernushenko, Shad Qadri and Michael Qaqish. All three had leadership roles on council.
Watson urged defeated incumbents to not take their election losses personally.
“My thoughts are with them because it’s a very public dismissal,” Watson said. “Most people who are dismissed from their jobs, it’s pretty confidential and private and you move on. This is on the front page of the newspaper.”