By Mark D'Arcy
Contributor
The citizens of Fredericton are tired of
back-room deals that have been made months, and even years, before the public
finds out about them.
On March 17, 2012, seemingly out of
nowhere, the public reads the front-page article in The Daily Gleaner entitled
“City seeks replacement options for Playhouse". The media spin started about the Playhouse not being an
adequate venue, and the Fredericton Playhouse Inc. and the City of Fredericton
announced that they have issued a joint public proposal call for a feasibility
study from architects and facility planners for a new performing arts centre to
replace the city-owned Playhouse. Proposed locations for the new Playhouse were
already being discussed, including the old Acadian Busline terminal on Regent
Street and the old Court Records building beside the Crown Plaza.
This was mentioned in an item posted by
the Purple Violet Press.
Mayor Brad Woodside pulled the plug on this
request for proposal immediately after this article was published. Damage control was in full swing. The public was told that the request
for proposal would now be issued sometime after the spring election.
But decisions had already been made, and
actions taken, all without any public consultation. The construction of the Convention Centre on Queen
Street, and Chancery Place on King Street, essentially orphaned the existing
Playhouse inside walls of concrete.
All parking space was eliminated for the large transport trucks that
often accompany symphonies, dance groups, and music acts. Why would you do this? Unless you
already knew that the Playhouse was going to be replaced.
All public consultation and feasibility
studies should have been conducted before plans for the Convention Centre and
Chancery Place were conceived. But
this is not how the Old Boys’ Club works here in Fredericton.
With over 15 years of community vigilence
in development issues here in the City, let me list some of the tactics of the
Old Boys’ Club: councillors who do not disclose requested information, do not distribute electronic documents, and who seek to
curtail or reject public presentations and opportunities for debate; unanswered letters or e-mail requests from the City
Clerk’s and Mayor’s Office; city staff reports released a mere 2 days before
development meetings planned weeks in advance; the use
of City of Fredericton spam filters to block all e-mail messages from selected
individuals and community groups to city staff and councillors; not holding ward
meetings in your community; the Mayor ending all discussion by stating that a
particular development or decision is now a “non-issue” and needs no debate by
Council; selling parks without public tender;
and the systematic
public relations campaign waged against concerned citizens to label them as
reckless, anti-development, and ruinous to the economy of Fredericton.
Perhaps the most troubling sign of this Old
Boys Club is the new phenomenon over the last couple of years for the entire
City Council to not hold any debate when they hold their third reading and final
vote on an important decision.
This arrogance is now routine at public meetings of City Council during
important decisions, and they call it “efficiency”.
Third reading of developments used to be
the opportunity for the public to hear each Councillor comment about the
reasons why they are voting to approve, or turn down, a decision. Now there are very few public comments
by Councillors during 3rd reading of important decisions. This was recently highlighted by the
breathtaking silence and speed during two key decisions:
On March 14, 2011, City Council took a
brief, breathtaking two (2) minutes to approve another 70’s style sprawl
development in the UNB Woodlot. There was no debate.
Not one city councillor made any public comment, and there was no resolution for a Flood Risk study that was formally
requested by the Friends of the UNB Woodlot.
And on April 10, 2012, City Council took
another brief, breathtaking two (2) minutes to approve a weak “you-have-to-ask-us-first”
resolution on shale gas development within the city. Not one city
councillor made any public comment about the public health threats from outside
air pollution drifting into our city, and there was no
resolution for a formal ban in Fredericton using our zoning by-law, or a resolution
to the Province asking for a moratorium or ban on all shale gas
development.
These decisions highlight that more and more decisions by City Council
are made behind closed doors. The
shale gas issue is most telling. Mayor
Brad Woodside was on record that he never came out on
the side of shale gas, that he was not at the meeting of the Union of the
Municipalities when the Sackville resolution on a shale gas moratorium was
narrowly defeated, and that the City of Fredericton has not taken a formal vote
on it.
But the public was deliberately misled when they were told that the City
of Fredericton has not taken a formal stand on shale gas. In fact, Fredericton voted against the
shale gas moratorium resolution at the Union of the Municipalities of New
Brunswick meeting last September 2011, a meeting attended by Mayor Brad
Woodside and Councillor Stephen Chase.
This resolution was put forward by the Town of Sackville for the Union
to lobby the Province for a moratorium on shale gas but the resolution was
narrowly defeated 22-to-18.
On May 3, 2012, CBC Information Morning
Terry Seguin interviewed former Fredericton Councillors Norah Davidson, Joel
Richardson, Brenda Sansom, about this “old boys network”. This interview confirmed that
councillors form little groups that organize and push through their agendas,
and make decisions without listening to the public.
The way our present Mayor and City Council
do business is not acceptable.
A major priority over the last decade of
the City of Fredericton has been to avoid public review for new
developments. More and more developments here in Fredericton now fall
under this "as-of-right" zoning. This is why our zoning maps
indicate more and more pre-zoning land use rights to property owners.
This is also why our Zoning-Bylaw is continually updated with "permitted
uses". Another "Zoning By-law Review Committee" has just
been initiated by the City of Fredericton and it is stacked with developers and
their stakeholders. I am disappointed but not surprised. We need to
change this "as-of-right" development or else the public will lose
its participation in any meaningful long-term planning and co-ordinated
development of our southside downtown, Main Street business area, and our
neighbourhoods.
Most important amongst these initiatives is
to reverse "as-of-right" development in Fredericton, engage the
community at the start of any development planning for their neighbourhood, have
councillors hold regular Ward meetings, allow a Public Input Period for citizens
to make presentations to Council, post the agendas of Committee and Council
meetings in a timely manner, and make available digital copies of City Staff
Reports prior to public meetings.
Without these
changes, the threat to our neighbourhoods is real. I would suggest everyone take a look at the new buildings
that have been allowed to be built on Victoria Street between York Street and
Westmorland Street. The absence of planning, setbacks, or landscaping is what
our present Mayor and City Council allow developers to inflict on our
community.
We need to vote for change on May 14th.
