Working as CliveForMayor: I did it my way

Well, last night Ottawa elected a mild mannered politician and said good bye to the sober second thought on council and a mayor who was prone to lashing out irrationally.  My congratulations goes out to Jim Watson and his campaign team for running a long and well won race.  They did so with a level of grace and civility (when it came to Clive Doucet and his campaign) that I had no issues dealing with them online or in person.

I learned a lot over the last several weeks, but my role as the social media “guru” on the campaign team was a lot of fun.  I started off my day usually quite early.  I would collect the news stories that spoke favourably of Clive and looked for little bites of text to use for tweets.  I would also prepare all my tweets on his schedule and start sending out the schedule and news.  When it came to interaction with voters, I was not comfortable (in the beginning) with being the voice online and constantly worried I was misrepresenting Clive.  That changed after a few #AskClive Twitter sessions and getting to know how he thinks and what he believes in.  I also worked on Clive’s Facebook page giving updates, sharing news stories and eventually also talking more on there with voters.

When Nenshi won in Calgary, riding on a wave of momentum that grew through social media and the support there from, I noticed an immediate response toward Clive.  I had already been building the positive buzz and working 13 hour days trying to keep his name out there.  Within 12 hours of the Calgary election, Doucet’s office went from a comfortable working pace to near frantic as supporters came out of the woodwork and before I knew it I was interviewing with Cory O’Kelly of CBC.  That’s when I was certain I could double up Clive’s poll approval with a little more work and being less business-like and more personable through CliveForMayor.

In the end, I started on the campaign when Clive was not polling well.  Within two weeks a poll showed him sitting at 5.6% and I was determined to increase this as much as I could.  On my own Twitter account I decreased my agitating tweets and on CliveForMayor I increase the dialogue with the voters.  On Facebook I did the same on Clive’s page and started thanking people and encouraging them to get out there and vote. On election night, Clive ended at 14.89% and while some at the campaign headquarters last night attributed a lot to me, I would like to think that we did it as a team.  There are a lot of people both inside and outside of the campaign group that pushed Clive’s name online and equally, there are a lot of people who pushed for Clive in the “real world” too.

If you are interested in just how much work was put into the use of Twitter during the campaign, take a look at Professor Josh Greenberg’s latest blog Tweet, Click, Vote: Twitter and the 2010 Ottawa Election.  It’s more shocking to know that 99% of the posts from CliveForMayor in October all came from me.  Yikes!

W.
Voice of CliveForMayor on Twitter

ps. Now the real task is turning what I learned into career opportunities.  I really enjoyed new media and politics combined.  I’ll take suggestions on my Twitter account or emailed. ;)

Ottawa Citizen misses on Transit

From day one this mayoral campaign, the Ottawa Citizen has made it clear that they will only “focus on who they considered contenders for mayor in Jim Watson and Larry O’Brien.”  They wanted to do very little to appeal to alternative frames of mind away from the O’Watson campaigns and encourage the Jim and Larry show; well, that might have worked to an extent, but did they ever fire a missed shot on transit issues in Ottawa.

(You might ask yourself why I am saying O’Watson a lot.  Most of what Jim Watson is proposing is “stay the course” mentality.  He has the same transit plan as Larry O’Brien with absolutely no deviation.  None.)

Jennifer Green released a “news” piece on October 17th titled Transit tops voters issues, that boasts that transit issues needed to be found and then gushed over this proposed transit tunnel idea for downtown. My issue is with the poll finding anything about transit is only slightly insulting to the general public.  Of course transit is the number one issue; we are not far from the second year anniversary of a long and bitter transit strike – and the Amalgamated Transit Union still does not have a contract in hand.

So why am I incensed this time? 

That is what O’Watson and the editors of the Ottawa Citizen simply do not want people to see and/or comprehend.  This simple image put together by the Clive Doucet team explains how Light Rail Transit goes from vision to putting butts in seats within four years.  The cost of this will be less than 1/3 of the total cost of the mistake that is the O’Watson plan. 

Now, O’Watson, Haydon and even some public will say “but a tunnel downtown will help congestion!”  I do not buy it.  The tunnel downtown will take pressure off of Slater and Albert streets during rush hour, but very little else will change in the core.  The City of Ottawa, under the other three former mayors, will not give affordable, cost effective and reliable transit to their citizens until 2031 at the very earliest.  What we require in Ottawa is a viable transit option now.  We need something that can connect the major suburbs and offer solutions to driving downtown 365 days out of the year.  That is the only way to reduce congestion within the core of our city.

There will likely be someone who says “but if we cancel the tunnel plan now, the tax payer is on the hook for millions in penalties!”  No, the City of Ottawa is not on the hook for anything.  There is nothing done other than some talking and a couple of surveys to see if it is possible or not.  Even the findings from the geological surveys are not made public.  The only thing that we know for certain about this tunnel is that O’Watson thinks it is a good idea to spend billions for a long shot when we are all old and grey rather than millions on a sure bet now.

The Ottawa Citizen missed on this one.  Painting the election about transit and missing the only real contender and patron of transit solutions in the picture.  Sure, I am bias, but if anyone came to me with a transit plan that saw me sitting in a train across the city in four years with a young child of my own rather than having my adult child join me for the first ride many years from now, I would sign on with their campaign too.

W.

Edit: Borrowed this graphic from @alexlaq on Twitter:

Watson Wrong on the Numbers

I did promise I would not post about Lansdowne Park again, but unfortunately this post is inspired from an email I received on the topic. In said email it was pointed out that the City of Ottawa can walk away from the redevelopment of Lansdowne Park if (and likely when) if the heritage approvals from Ontario Heritage Trust are not granted.  The city can then terminate the arrangement to the tune of $8.14-million to cover Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group’s costs. The question remains to the Siemens lawsuit of $110-million thanks to Larry O’Brien?  If you are not sure, please take the time to read the rest of the information lifted from the websites of both Mr. Watson and Mr. Doucet.

The following information has been taken from Jim Watson’s website and is misleading to the public at best about Lansdowne Park redevelopment.

~ The current council and mayor have approved the plan, and Jim Watson has indicated he will not risk another lawsuit and tear up the agreement. (You may recall the current council tore up the light rail agreement at a cost of $110 million). Jim has indicated that if he is elected mayor it will be his duty to ensure the plan is implemented sensibly and that all relevant concerns for the surrounding community and taxpayers as a whole are dealt with.  Tearing up the agreement and starting the process all over again would cost the taxpayers millions of dollars and delay rejuvenating Lansdowne by another four years. The process was not perfect, but we need to move forward with the plan in a thoughtful fashion. There are some exciting aspects to the redevelopment of Lansdowne that will help revitalize this 40 acre site. ~

Since this is a debate about Lansdowne Park then obviously the only other candidate to talk about it is Clive Doucet.  From Clive’s own website comes the following information:

~ What people need to know, and are not being told, is that it’s not too late for the City to choose a different path for one of Ottawa’s most important and cherished public spaces.  

Lansdowne needs to be revitalized – but not at any cost. 

Several exit ramps out of this mess are still available.

While the Council vote on June 28^th has been described as giving final approval to the Lansdowne Partnership Plan (LPP), a number of significant steps need to be completed before the partnership scheme is finalized. 

The first category of ramps can be taken at no cost to the City.

Under the LPP Project Framework Agreement, the City has the right not to proceed if prior to closing certain requirements are not met, including:

·   environmental and legal due diligence matters;

·   receipt of third party approvals (heritage approvals are a serious and major stumbling block);

·   satisfaction that the retail component contains “Distinctive Uses”;

·   acceptance of the final financial statement respecting the project and the “waterfall”.

The City Council also has the right to terminate the LPP agreement “for convenience” prior to Stage 3 which is scheduled to commence sometime in March 2011.

Should the City exercise this right, it would be required to pay various costs incurred by OSEG to that point.  According to the LPP, total “Stage 1 and 2” costs to OSEG are $8.14M. 

This means that the next duly elected City Council can terminate the LPP for just over $8M and can proceed with a new process that is open, competitive and transparent. 

The $8M cost can be recovered through a more modest go forward plan for Lansdowne that can be achieved in the next term of Council. ~

W.

The Politics of Negativity

I have never been one to sit back and take it on the chin.  A personal attack, regardless of the medium, has always been one of those things that just irks me.  Generally speaking, people lash out irrationally and I am baffled by it.  However, I have grown a thicker skin in recent weeks.

Over this campaign I have noticed that when the Ottawa Sun or Ottawa Citizen post an article online people respond with some awfully spiteful comments about the candidates.  I have also noticed that whenever Clive Doucet encounters some of these remarks, he simply shrugs them off and continues forward.  He realizes that there are people who simply do not understand him or that people may not “like him”.  I personally do not understand the concept of disliking someone without actually knowing them, but I can dislike their policies.  Example: I do not know Larry O’Brien, but I dislike his policies.  Equally, I do not dislike Jim Watson now that I have met him, but I do not like a lot of his platform.  I am sure his team feels the same way about me as well.  All is fair in politics.

There are five common remarks about Clive Doucet and his bid to become mayor that I find problematic.  The first is that Clive is dead last, in the single digits, as of the only poll to come out in weeks.  Yes, he was according to that poll, but that poll was clearly commissioned by an interest group (I’m looking at you Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group) that would stand to benefit from it.  It was not done scientifically let alone ethically.  If you have yet to read about it, please check my post on the Holinshed Poll here. 

We know that this poll is likely inaccurate because the campaign is all over the internet like a rabid spider monkey and the on-ground canvasing is turning up positive results.  Is he behind?  Likely, but he is also likely gaining and gaining fast.  O’Brien has basically tanked and that has become clear from attack ads and push-polling techniques.  Now with that in mind, people are saying they’re less likely to vote for Watson (seeing through his platform as nothing less than undermining democracy and similar to O’Brien’s).  More interesting, people are saying they will vote for Doucet now because it is clear a vote for Doucet is not a vote for O’Brien.  Not even remotely close.  Four years ago we Ottawans made a huge error in splitting the vote.  With 15% of the vote going to Chiarelli, O’Brien (47%) was able to beat Alex Munter (36%).  A lot of that election had to do with the conservative nature of Ottawa. We were clearly not in favour of electing an inexperienced businessman, but also did not approve of Munter (point of fact: I voted for Munter.  He was the right choice).  This election, people can be less afraid of electing in O’Brien and draw a battle-line between Watson and Doucet to take this election to the end.

What about these comments and the politics of negativity?

The remark I see an awful lot of is that Clive Doucet is a “crybaby”.  To show any sort of emotion other than rage for men in western society is somehow shameful.  It is better to come off as some sort of idiot who cannot contain their anger than it is to wipe a tear after a hard fought battle lost.  Especially when that battle was lost specifically because the city was more than willing to bend to the will of the money rather than that of the people.

How about Clive Doucet is a Glebe-centric candidate?  This links to the previous “crybaby” remark because the one issue everyone still remembers in the sole-sourcing redevelopment of Lansdowne Park.  I will not get into it, but you can read another one of my posts here on the matter.  However, there is no way Clive Doucet is focused on one neighbourhood.  His transit plan links the city suburbs together to the hub as a means to release pressure on the 417 and through the core.  He wants to build a food terminal so that our farmers in rural Ottawa can sell their goods at competitive rates here in Ottawa, not ship them to Toronto and Montreal first.  He wants to stimulate the arts and culture communities, increase tourism and see the city benefit from the economic payoff there of; this includes all communities!  People who lean on the remark that Clive Doucet is Glebe-centric are simply unaware of his campaign platform. Neither Watson or O’Brien have any aim to help suburban Ottawa let alone rural Ottawa.  Both want a tunnel under downtown and that does not fix anything but possibly downtown issues.  O’Brien wants a ring road which goes around Ottawa, but again, does not help the suburbs.

“Clive Doucet will spend, spend, spend and raise taxes for it!”  Really?  On the fiscal part of the platform he refuses to peg a number on taxes and wants to keep it to inflationary rates.  Of all the campaigns, Clive Doucet has promised the most frugal tax initiative of them all.  The spend, spend, spend theory is sound, but the money is not coming from the wallet of the citizen.  There is a lot of money to be spent around the city without the tunnel and LRT (as proven by 13,600+ riders a day on the O-Train) can and will make money for the city.  This theory and fear of spending in Ottawa sincerely has to stop.  The City of Ottawa has a dismal spending record over the last decade and Clive Doucet is insisting on a restructuring of how business is run.  He is not pitching blowing open the coffers and let the city go further into debt, but rather to pull it out of debt by its own accord through stimulation.  Overall, Watson is looking at 2.5% ceiling on taxes and O’Brien gave Ottawa a 0 means 14% increase over four years.  Both of them want to invest in a project to nowhere and will cost tax payers money to do and maintain.

Overall, my favourite comment I read time and time again is how Clive Doucet “helped his son get the job at OC Transpo”.  Well, first off, Julian Doucet is not employed by OC Transpo per se.  He won a double blind competition to be the voice that calls out the buses stops so that OC Transpo drivers were not required to use the already installed microphone on their bus.  It is, of course, no shock I thought we wasted money on the system when a driver can do it, but then we get into the whole debate about understanding each driver as well as bilingual service.  In the long run I abandoned the argument and accepted that Julian Doucet’s voice work was just a better option.  Did Clive Doucet get his son the job?  No.  Not convinced?

Doucet's Rant from Myke on Vimeo.

Overall, the politics of negativity in Ottawa is baffling. This is not a matter of xenophobia, but rather a simple case of ignorance.  Some people are not afraid of Clive Doucet, they simply have not taken the time to be informed.  It is, however, unfortunate that some of these people are lashing out irrationally on the Ottawa Sun and Ottawa Citizen websites with little to no moderation for their remarks.

W.