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THE MUNSTER OMB DECISION
OMB told the City to STOP THE PIPELINE WORK, and do the evaluation correctly! City can't take "No" for an answer, and defies the OMB to this day. Where City is at odds with the OMB Ruling:
PLANNING ISSUES: The City is still refusing to acknowledge its lack of adherence to multiple OP provisions, even though, Mr. Katary, in his Decision, stated: "The Board prefers the evidence of the land use planner called by the appellant because they were rooted in a thorough understanding of the land use planning implications of the proposed amendment."
TIMELINESS AND EFFICIENCY: From the Region’s acknowledgement (in 1992) of the need to address the Munster WW treatment problem, it stated ‘timeliness’ was of the utmost importance. In most of its actions, however, the City has demonstrated the opposite. Here are some of the time-related historical features of this case: The original Council Motion of March 11, 1998, stated the preferred solution had to guarantee to meet the (MOE) compliance schedule, (…approximately one year from that date). Conestoga-Rovers and Associates (CRA) ---strangely--- did not put a 'time component' into the evaluation methodology. By next year (winter of 2002), the City will have trucked sewage from Munster to ROPEC (approx. 70km), for five years, at an extra cost 5 x $600,000 = $3,000,000, because it did not take into account, the time-wasting implications of their RFP irregularities, and incomplete evaluation matrix. The OMB stated
that even though One could assume that the Board, by this action is attempting to save time, by avoiding the need for the City to go back to square-one. The City appears to have little regard for saving time or tax dollars. The City, by appealing the OMB Decision (for the 4th time), and hiring RV Anderson to duplicate the earlier results, is further demonstrating its reckless wastefulness of time and money.
SPECIFIC STEPS TO FOLLOW (AS PER THE OMB RULING): Rather than follow the specific steps required by the Board, the City seems bent on trying to duplicate the earlier results, by duplicating the same ‘fuzzy-logic’ of the earlier matrix. The Board Ruling specified that the City should :
●
Retain a qualified person or
persons with a history of disinterestedness.
●
Undertake a reevaluation of the
three treatment alternatives. ● Employ the standard qualitative assessment of merits and demerits of the alternatives.
● Seek
facts and opinions from the interested people, CRA, and the
proponents of the treatment
● Include
rationales
with the evaluation criteria, to demonstrate how the evaluator made its
OFFICIAL PLAN COMPLIANCE: The City appears to have little regard for environmental, economic, land use and socio-economic planning policies under its own Official Plan (OP). By ignoring the OP
provision to spend (tax payer’s)
"limited resources wisely", it is self-evidently being
wasteful of the very time and
money spent in drafting the OP
...if they do not intend to follow it.
PUBLIC INPUT: (pg.5) The City has ignored all requests by appellants for opportunity to give input in the City’s obligation to follow the OBM Order. Furthermore, they have ignored all correspondence relating the same. "Seek facts and opinions from the interested people, the CRA, and the proponents of the treatment alternatives to ensure thorough canvassing of all the facts and opinions…"
RATIONALES: (pg.5) "…including an explanation of why certain facts and opinions were disregarded."
Further, the abuse of public trust and bad faith conduct by Region Staff and Government, in conjunction with the evaluation process, along with, underscored the predetermination for a pipeline as the selected means of wastewater servicing for Munster Hamlet. The evaluation process was at best superficial. The evidence presented in the OMB Hearing, and the decision of the Board (a quasi-judicial body) confirms this in resounding fashion. The Board decision has been upheld by the Superior Court of Justice in the denial of a Leave Application to the Divisional Court, initiated by the City. While the OMB Decision confirmed the inadequacy of the previous work conducted for and by the City, it generously afforded the City of Ottawa, in good faith, the opportunity to "perfect its case", averting further delay and cost that would be incurred with an outright rejection of ROPA 5. In his decision, OMB Chair N.M. Katary stated: "Instead of simply
turning down the Official Plan Amendment as Regrettably, and in spite of the generosity afforded the City by the Board, the City continued to arrogantly disregard the public interest, and challenged, for the fourth time, the Board’s authority to rule in this matter, by seeking leave to appeal from the Courts (Plan "A"). At the same time, the City is in the course of proceeding with a "Work Plan" (Plan "B"), equally as superficial as the original evaluation process that has led us to the current impasse. EVALUATION METHODOLOGY: (p.20) The City seems determined to repeat the use of the ‘imperfect’ evaluation methodologies, and evaluation criteria, that led to the OMB Decision against the City. The City risks further delays in the Courts, by pushing it’s own agenda through, in defiance of the OMB ruling. The City risks being held in contempt, for its actions.
"…the facts presented as part of the
evaluation methodology are Dr. Naqula defence of his methodology …"advocavcy" (p.15)
"…his approach to
defending his methodology used in this instance
(Use King City quote from Exec. Summary: unreliability of Evaluation Matrix): "The Decision Matrix procedure utilized in the ESR is extremely sensitive to criteria weighting and subjective with respect to individual score assignment. The procedure is, at best, a screening tool and should not be used for making a final decision between the Regional and local treatment alternatives." Yet a major part of the revaluation consists of duplicating the same ‘imperfect’ methodology.
THE PUBLIC INTEREST: (pg.20) The City appears to have little regard for the public interest The OMB ruled that, "..the Board is of the view that the public interest is best served by perfecting the case." The City is not showing any intent in addressing the public interest, as stipulated by Mr. Katary, by perfecting the case, but rather, appears to be retaining consultants who will presumably be directed to confirm the earlier erroneous conclusions. The City has violated the public trust by manipulating the PLC: by preventing public access to the meetings (including an Environmental Sciences student was barred from the PLC proceedings), strongly suggesting that the PLC’s agenda had little room for environmental efficacy, or public information 'liaising', by allowing direct involvement and manipulation of-and-by a City employee, where such committee involvement should have been excluded, (and Consultant's findings, only, reported to the 'City-Client'), by allowing direct involvement and interference by the Mayor of Goulbourn Township, working in consort with the City, in conflict with the public’s self-expression. The City has violated RFP Contract Tendering Protocols (detailed by Quote text). The City appears to have little regard for the Ruling of the Board, or, in fact, the due process of Law. (The City’s Solicitor, handling the case has led four (4) legal challenges to the Board’s right to adjudicate the Munster Hamlet Wastewater Servicing issue. Three were denied by the OMB, The final effort was denied by the Superior Court of Ontario. These actions exceed any sense of sound judgment, or fulfillment of responsibility on the part of staff and governmental officials. The subject Staff have been reckless, in the extreme, with our Citizens’ tax dollars, have demonstrated continued disdain for their public trust, and must be relieved of their involvement in this matter.)
It has been clearly revealed that a pipeline is an inferior environmental solution to the wastewater servicing requirements of Munster Hamlet. The project is now three (3) years behind schedule. And costs associated with the City’s (former Region) misguided effort to date ---(Consultants, sewage haulage, OMB Hearing costs, legal challenges, more Consultants)--- far exceed the guaranteed cost of a state-of-the-art, on-site treatment solution tendered in conjunction with the 1998 RFP, and in accordance with the criteria set out by the Regional Council! Mr. Chiarelli, the current Affair bears no resemblance to the promise in your letter of April 1, 1998, that the selection process would secure a technology that: "…can meet the
requirements of improving the level of treatment, can guarantee A review of the City’s RFP 00401-92587-P10, just issued this month, leads to several more disturbing observations. The RFP is directed to four engineering firms, selected by City staff, with no input from the OMB Appellants. Clearly, the City is in a position to influence and direct the recommendation of the consultants, in the absence of scrutiny and input of interested parties. This is in direct violation of the will of the OMB Decision. The City’s selection of those engineering firms —all having previously worked for the City and desiring to continue same in the future, should, (in order to comply with the Board Ruling), automatically disqualify for this assignment. Suggested names of independent experts, that you have been given, were totally ignored. (That, in-itself, discloses the City’s agenda, with crystal clarity.) The lack of legitimacy of the re-evaluation is further confirmed by the continued involvement of Mr. Steven Forstell, P.Eng., as Project Supervisor. He is not a disinterested person as contemplated in the OMB Decision. His aggressive involvement in the Public Liaison Committee, showed a bias in favour of the pipeline solution, to the exclusion of all other technologies. His actions in particular, are central to those that led to the OMB Hearing, the litigation, and now, this manipulated RFP for re-evaluation. ANY involvement by him, in the current RFP process is sufficient reason to abort, and to re-start it with at least some new semblance of transparency and integrity. REQUIREMENT FOR "DISINTERESTNESS": Mr. Katary was specific in his instructions, that further evaluation be conducted by individuals with a history of "disinterestedness". Mr. Forstell fails that test at an unimaginable level, which if not openly apparent to the current Council, will be fully revealed in due course. The present course of action is in direct violation and contempt of the OMB Decision, unless the City, at a minimum, chooses to: 1.) remove Mr. Forestell from all present and future involvement. 2.) select new, disinterested evaluators, without past or future retainer interest, who do not have any other current relationship or involvement in any other project with either the City of Ottawa, or Conestoga-Rovers and Associates. follow the SPIRIT and LETTER of the OMB Ruling …and immediately seek further direction and clarification from the Board. OMB ORDER TO CEASE ALL PIPELINE -RELATED WORK, & NOT TO REPEAT THE AWARDING OF CONTRACTS WHILE OMB PROCEEDINGS UNDERWAY [Violation of Section 24(3) of the Planning Act] The City has proceeded with considerable haste on several projects related to the Munster-Richmond Pipeline project, i.e.:
Link to Munster OMB Decision (PL990527) |