Are city council’s hopes too high?
By Joel Wittnebel/The Oshawa Express
There is a truly awful cliche that says even if you shoot for the moon and miss, you’ll land among the stars.
It makes me cringe to write it, but it serves a point here because it seems Oshawa has plans to do exactly that in 2016. However, the difference is if they miss, they won’t be awash in a starry glow, but instead splash into a sea of angry taxpayers.
In 2015, Oshawa council made some serious strides forward in addressing some concerns of residents.
They changed the pet owner bylaws to increase protections for our furry friends, they regulated the designated driver industry (or at least started to), something municipalities have been seriously struggling with in recent years. Council approved a new firehall for the north end of the city, got the ball rolling for safety improvements at the Wilson Road rail crossing and dealt with major infrastructure installments like the Highway 407 extension and the start of the process for the Eastern Mainline pipeline.
However, last year’s plans, many of which were celebrated when completed, weren’t all good news stories as several items slated for the 2015 to-do list actually rang in the new year without a check mark beside them.
The review of Municipal Law Enforcement services was slated for a review in 2015. That process is still ongoing. Also, an assessment of the city’s operations was supposed to be completed last year. It’s now set for the first quarter of this year.
It’s the things like this, while only small policy items, that are indicative of a troubling trend that could pour over into 2016, and there are some important items set to be completed this year.
In terms of high-profile items, the harbour is one that many residents of the city have their eyes on.
The city says it should have some of the land converted to passive parkland uses by the end of this year.
Great, but there’s a lot that needs to happen before that can get done.
The environmental work needs to be completed, and the city has more than $2.2 million in expenses to deal with.
This is only a a single example, and probably one that the city will be focusing on due to the ongoing attention surrounding it.
Residents should be paying attention to the small items as well – the policy items, the plans and the strategy development. These are what form the backbone of how the city operates, and keeps operating in an efficient manner to ensure your tax dollars are being used effectively.
Two of these items fell off the radar in 2015 and have been slipped back into the 2016 plan without a word.
Council has made some big promises in 2016, and laid them all out in nice spreadsheets for their residents to see. So, take a look, print them off and follow along, because Oshawa really is shooting for the moon this year.
Let’s just hope they don’t miss.