 |
|||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|||||
|
Bulletin
SAVE UNION STATION, Bulletin No. 5, November 11, 2002.
********* 1. Actions – what you can do right Now. As reported in Item 2, below, the Administration Committee seem ready to look carefully at ways to involve the public in the process the city is following for negotiations about Union Station’s future. A sub-committee has been established to bring forward proposals, and the matter will be at City Council on November 26. A proposal from our committee around public participation is in Item 3 below. Each of us should take the opportunity to making our views known to City Hall about public participation – referring to our proposal if you think it appropriate, or making your own suggestions. You might start by calling your own councillor and speaking to him/her or the executive assistant, beginning with finding out the councillor’s position on making the bid and the process public. If your councillor is unclear about allowing full information to be made public, you might ask for a brief meeting to discuss it further. Councillor phone numbers are on the city’s site, http://www.toronto.ca . The objective is to ensure the matter is raised at council and that appropriate motions are passed at that time. We also suggest e-mails followed by phone calls to the three members of the sub-committee (Councillors Holyday, Ashton and Sutherland) and to other councillors likely to raise the matter at council – who would include, judging from the discussion at the Administration Committee, Councillors Miller, Ford, Johnston, Walker, and Moscoe.
Doug Holyday (chair):
Brian Ashton:
Paul Sutherland:
Rob Ford:
Anne Johnston:
David Miller:
Michael Walker:
Howard Moscoe:
2. Making headway at City Hall The Administration Committee met on Tuesday November 5, and members of our group were there. In fact 18 people spoke about the kinds of issues we have been raising, including Lawrence David, Linda Sheppard, Wayne Olson, David Jeanes, Stephen Otto, Grant Turnbull, Bobbi Speck, Stig Harvor, Wilfred Walker, Robert Hines, Phyllis Creighton, David Hannah, Marcia Cuthbert, Hamish Wilson, Lois James, Andrew Jeanes, and John Sewell. (Several of the briefs presented can be found in the Background section of the web site.) The presentations began at 11.45 am, the committee broke for lunch between 12.30 and 2.00 pm, and debate did not conclude until 5.35 pm – so the matter received considerable attention by the committee. One point made by Councillor David Miller was that the council decision in July has stated that if an agreement had not been negotiated with the Union Pearson Group by October 15, then staff was instructed to negotiate with the other bidder, LP Heritage. Staff, however, interpreted the motion to mean that they should not be negotiating with LP Heritage unless it seemed unlikely they could reach an agreement with Union Pearson. But on the question of immediately opening the process up, neither staff nor the committee were so flexible, taking the position that council had not authorized the bids to be public, and the committee could not make them public without re-opening the issue at council. Accordingly, a motion by Councillor Miller inviting the bidders to make their proposals public gained only the support of Councillor Rob Ford. Miller also pointed out that one member of the Union Pearson team – the SNC Lavelin company – has a senior director who sits on the management of GO Transit, which is a part to the negotiations on the city side. He pointed out that this looks like a conflict of interest, and he asked that other possible conflicts be identified. Miller also tried to separate out negotiations with Union Pearson for additional density on the site, and not pursue them at this time. This ran into procedural difficulties, and the decision was made to get a staff report on this matter at the November council meeting. Councillor Ford continued to take a very strong position that something nefarious happened in the deliberations to choose Union Pearson over LP Heritage last June or July. He claims, having briefly seen some of the papers, that one member of the staff committee evaluating the two bids ranked the LP Heritage bid very low on the six evaluation criteria (in three cases awarding 0 points) so skewing the voting that on the total votes of the six evaluators, Union Pearson was slightly ahead. Ford made the analogy to the French figure skating judge in the recent Olympics whose voting, which was so far from ordinary that it could not be explained, managed to deny the Canadian couple the gold medal. (The couple later was awarded the medal and the French judge was punished.) Ford’s attempts to make the evaluation sheets public failed. Patty Simpson, the city lawyer leading the negotiations with Union Pearson, indicated that a `Design Concept’ was now being prepared (as several people mentioned privately, it certainly is good that the design is being worked out before the contract is signed) and should be available to the public in three weeks. She mentioned that public consideration might be given to that concept, and when asked the form of that participation, suggested `open houses’ might be appropriate. This was strongly criticized by councillor Howard Moscoe (he is not on the committee, but was present for much of the debate) and he wanted forums and meetings. The discussion within the committee was sometimes difficult to follow given the complications of what staff thought council had decided in the past. The committee agreed to adopt the staff report of October 24 (found in the Background Section of our web site) and agreed to the following additional motions: “The Administration Committee reports, for the information of Council, having: (1) established a Reference Group comprised of Councillors Doug Holyday, Ashton and Sutherland to assist staff to formulate, expeditiously, a public consultation and public input process that optimizes public involvement in reviewing all aspects of the concept design, including transportation components and heritage strategy; (2) requested the Commissioner of Corporate Services: (a) to request the proponents to identify any potential conflicts of interest their Board Members or Senior Managers may have with respect to involvement with any transportation agencies or other affected parties; and (b) to submit a report to the Administration Committee on a Project Management Model that would ensure public accountability of a major Toronto Heritage landmark and transportation asset; and (3) referred the following motion to the Commissioner of Corporate Services for report, directly to Council for its meeting scheduled to be held on November 26, 2002, on its impact to the current negotiations: Moved by Councillor Miller: (1) That the Administration Committee recommend to Council that Recommendation No. (1) contained in the report (October 24, 2002) from the Commissioner of Corporate Services with respect to the applicants rights to any future density, be received; and (2) That the Commissioner of Corporate Services be requested to submit a report to the Administration Committee on the terms of a full public process including the opportunity for charettes and design competitions with respect to the future development potential of Union Station and nearby lands.” As a result of these motions, the sub-committee of the Administration Committee must come up with a public participation process, and the city council, when it meets on November 26, will have staff reports before it clarifying what a public participation process might look like. From the point of view of the Save Union Station Committee, it seems there is an opportunity to create a good public process that will ensure the Station’s interests as protected.
3. A public participation program for Union Station The steering committee of the Save Union Station Committee has been giving consideration to the kind of public participation program that might be appropriate. Here’s a first draft of what might be done. Comments would be appreciated at info@saveunionstation.ca and we urge those contacting councillors to consider this as a model for what they might do. Union Station, a very significant structure in Toronto, is a major transportation hub, a heritage landmark with personal memories and much history attached to it, including elements of the city’s first parks system, and a critical piece of downtown real estate. The future of Union Station touches on many many facets of the city’s life. For these reasons, it is imperative that full public consideration be given to any proposal affecting the future of the Station. This can be done expeditiously. It should be undertaken in a focussed manner to ensure the issues are fairly addressed and understood, and that all reasonable alternatives are fairly canvassed. The elements of public discussion must include the following: * transportation * heritage * future development (including surrounding lands) * finances * urban design Public discussion cannot proceed without full disclosure of possible plans for each of the elements, some of which have already been explored and may be readily available for citizens’ perusal, some of which probably still await study which must be commissioned. Useful public discussion obviously originates from access to full information and is enhanced by the provision of provocative ideas from experts in the areas under consideration. The public must be assured that both transparency and expertise will be part of the process of consideration renovations to Union Station. A good public process should be led by experienced facilitators and a public advisory body consisting of a range of acknowledged expertise committed to public discussion and holding the confidence of interested groups. Council should ensure that such facilitators are hired, and that such an advisory board is appointed. One time-line for a very tight process of public consultation might be: * one month to get underway, including appointment of facilitators, advisory group and establishing basic information. * two further months to generate ideas, hold a two-day opening forum of discussion, a number of meetings on specifics elements, a two day design charette, and other meetings as may be determined; * one further month to pull together and clarify opinions and positions, and arrive at a consensus on whatever issues possible while defining those matters on which there is no consensus, so a report may be prepared for city council to consider as it makes its final decisions. An immediate meeting between city staff and a public interest group such as Save Union Station Committee to help draft a public participation process would obviously be helpful. City council should commit itself to this kind of a process before proceeding further with negotiations leading to an agreement. The availability of a Design Concept by the last week of November, as noted by city staff, should be the occasion for the beginning of the process outlined here, which fits in well with the current path the city is now on, and would not cause delay or require retracing steps.
4. Report on November 4 public meeting By all accounts the public meeting, co-hosted with The Forum at the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, was a great success. Before the meeting about 150 people joined John Sewell for a tour of the Station to take a first hand look at the transportation and heritage issues involved. There were only a few empty seats in the Jane Mallett Theatre, which meant about 450 people were present to hear David Jeanes, John Barber, Jane Jacobs, and Lisa Rochon. Mike Ford, of the group Moxy Fruvous sang a new song he had composed about Union Station (as Anne Michaels has already made clear, the emotions surrounding individual experiences with the building are extraordinary) , and the Raging Grannies greeted people as they streamed into the theatre. We thank Teresa Bellefountaine of The Forum and the speakers for making such an informative and invigorating meeting possible. If you were unable to attend the meeting, or want to review a portion of it, it is available on real audio at the St. Lawrence Centre web site .*** Please consider sending this Bulletin to a friend. If you have not received this Bulletin directly from the site and wish to subscribe, send a short note to to signup@saveunionstation.ca, and please visit our website at http://www.saveunionstation.ca |
Contact Us: info@saveunionstation.ca