NEWS FEED: OPP Investigates Larry O's Calian

A copy of backup data from Ottawa Mayor Larry O'Brien's hard drive at the company Calian Technologies Ltd. was seized as part of an Ontario Provincial Police investigation into allegations against the mayor, say court documents obtained by CBC News...

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More on Larry O’s Ilegal Take-Out

The bribery controversy just won’t go away. Poor old Larry O can’t shake allegations that he offered fellow right-wing candidate Terry Kilrea up to $30,000 to cover campaign expenses if he dropped out of the 2006 Mayoral race as well as help to get a federal appointment.

This week the controversy even made its way into the House of Commons with the Liberal pressing the regional minister John Baird to divulge what he knew about the potential appointment to the national parole board. While this may only be the typical question period sabre-rattling, the evidence supporting the claims is strong.

The evidence includes statements to police from MPP Lisa MacLeod and the mayor's niece, Heather Tessier, both of whom said they knew about an alleged offer. Moreover, Kilrea has sworn to his allegations in an affidavit and also passed a lie-detector test about its contents.

Meanwhile, Larry O who always takes the high-road, took time to lambaste the investigation as hampering his effectiveness as Mayor. That is it Larry. The reason you have bumbled every file so far at City Hall is because of the investigation, and has nothing to do with your secretive, confrontational management style, or your complete ignorance of municipal politics.

One again having a bad week, the Mayor turned to his preferred medium. The secret and closed-door meeting. Earlier this week, our revanchist mayor convened a secret breakfast meeting with 13 Councilors to shore up his support luring them in to Lansdowne park with free coffee and donuts (Yipee!). Thankfully Councilor Alex Cullen, who was not invited, reminded the Mayor that this kind of private meeting contravenes the spirit of the Municipal Act which calls for public meetings of council. Larry, did someone forget to remind you that you are now a PUBLIC servant, and no longer the CEO of a Temp worker agency?

Expropriation

"We're blacksmiths here. We're not budging. These are blacksmiths, tailors, cobblers, carpenters. But their work is here. They can't leave."

Le Mani sulla città (1963)

The Metropolis and Mental Life

"Lasting impressions, the slightness in their differences, the habituated regularity of their course and contrasts between them, consume so to speak, less mental energy than the rapid telescoping of changing images, pronounced differences within what is grasped at a single glance, and the unexpectedness of violent stimuli."

Georg Simmel, The Metropolis and Mental Life

The Urban Growth Machine

Francesco Rosi’s 1963 classic, Le Mani sulla città, provides a fantastic visual exposé of the urban growth machine at work. The Italian director succeeds brilliantly in simultaneously portraying how key power brokers act both in the public and private realms to enclose and direct the city’s growth. Using marvelous scenes shot in the historic Naples council chambers, the back-rooms of bourgeois homes, the offices of the city’s ruling-class, and streets of rapidly expanding Naples, Hands Over the City follows the dirty politics postwar urban development. The polemical script follows the intimate relationship between developers and the ruling party, several of whom have interest in property development whilst also sitting on council.

Armed with these powerful connections and the ability to control City Hall, the governing party is able to rule the city, using its influence to overturn even the sacred city plan, and to overrun old districts to make way for porfitable development projects. The most notorious of land developers, Edoardo Nottola (pictured above), is also Commissioner of Building Standards, and he uses his power to expand his real estate empire with shoddy buildings for tidy profits. The governing party is more than willing to be complicit so long as Notalla is able to secure votes for them - until scandal erupts.

After one of Nottola’s buildings collapses, the media demands answers, a scandal ensues, and the various factions at city hall try to put their own stamp on the conflict. Nottola’s main protagonist is the fiery and combative leftist Councilor Da Vita. De Vita proves to be a worthy opponent for the governing coalition as he works tirelessly to expose corruption at City Hall, against a well-oiled corporate elite. The glorious oratory of the Rod Steiger (Nottola) and Carlo Fermarillo (Da Vita) plays out in the theater of City Hall Chambres.

Rosi provided a sophisticated portrayal of insular city politics and the urban growth machine. All the elements of a perfect city politics drama are there: political control over development, complicity between the political and economic elite, scandal, corruption, class politics, concrete, back-room dealings, cooptation of social movements. If the script is brillant, the real story of Hands Over the City is about the conflict and cooptation of interests.

In one of the key scenes, now hamstrung by public scrutiny, Nottola makes a visit to the home of an influential fellow councilor tos hore up his power. Now clearly inpublic view, Nottola argues for the need for his building project to move ahead despite the accident.

“Those buildings must come down but my name mustn’t come up,” Nottola notes.

“Just what do you want”

“No. It’s “What do we want?” Your interests and mine are identical,” Nottola rebukes.

The story of urban development and redevelopment is also the story of how the interests conflate and are easily co-opted. No one is above them, no matter how sincere their will. As the leftist Councilor De Vita notes during a riot as the residents are protesting their expropriation:

“There’s no choice, you must go. You brought this on yourselves. This is what you get for voting for them. You gave them power to do as they please. What have they done to you? Think you’ll live in those buildings? You’ll end up somewhere even worse, where you can’t even walk.”

Just as they voted against their interests, De Vita is willing to abandon them.

In both of these scenes, Rosi shows a sensitivity to the geography and the political economy of urban development. For anyone interested in urban politics it is a mesmerizing story played out in cities across the world, and a wonderful insight into power, politics, development, and the truly disturbing trend of voters voting against their own interests. Why, indeed, can’t they just keep their hands of our city? Rosi has asked a question for the ages, and provided an essential film for students and scholars of the city.

An Update on the Murk at City Hall

Mayor Larry O’Brien’s disdain for public administration, and preference for closed meetings and decision making processes continues. Despite having a wealth of experienced policy analysts, managers, and administrators at City Hall, our gold-Mercedes-limo-driving Mayor hired his old pal Gordon J. Hunter as his new ‘senior advisor on transformation’. Larry O's election campaign manager, former Department of National Defence employee, and current defence industry lobbyist was paid $80,000 to work on the study (the Mayor’s annual office budget is $819,000). To charge these rates, Hunter must be well qualified to conduct a study of the City's complex functioning. I am sure that in his previous roles Hunter had extensive experience with public transit, housing, recreation, and social services. From my understanding these are services with which a procurement manager at DND and defence lobbyist has everyday contact.

It is not only a question of (in)competence, but also of openness and transparency. The City continues to withhold several documents produced by Gordon “Defence Lobbyist” Hunter. Furthermore, neither Hunter's rate of billing or hours or work was released. These are basic facts which related to the public allocation of funds and to public tendering rules. When the Larry O spends 10% of his annual budget to hire his buddy we have to ask questions, and have a right to demand full disclosure. After all the Mayor’s office budget is a public expense, owned by the Citizens - it is not his own personal slush fund. Today, Councillors from Left (Cullen), Right (Harder) and Center (Feltmate) asked for the reports findings to be released. I laud them for their effort. We have to keep pressing for open process at City Hall. Too much is at stake to let revanchist autocrats like Larry O and his coffer-stuffing buddies steal off with our city.