Robert Mackenzie
April 28, 2005

The Steering Committee has failed to provide suitable opportunities for adequate citizen evolvement in the LVEC process. Its worst failure has been its failure to respond to its critics. As a result the Steering Committee has failed in its responsibilities and Council should not rely on its work. It is now the responsibility of Council to ensure that the missing scrutiny of the LVEC proposal takes place. The work of the Steering Committee should be the subject of peer review.

The recent public comment session held by the Steering Committee was entirely inadequate. It was a one way process. Many citizens who came with carefully prepared comments were restricted by the imposition of a three minute limit which resulted in rushed presentations or being cut off in mid-thought. About half of the comments were critical of the LVEC proposal.

When the Steering Committee met the following morning to consider its recommendation to City Council there was no reference to anything that was said at the comment session. There was not even a mention that the session had taken place. It was as if the comment session had not happened. Is it too much to expect that the Steering Committee should have adopted some means to indicate that comments were heard and considered and a response provided? This would require at a minimum the preparation of a summary of the themes of the comments as a basis for a Committee response.

The fact that the Committee imposed a three minute limit at the comment session and scheduled its meeting so shortly thereafter were forewarnings that little effect would result from anything that was said at the comment session. The three minute limitation was confirmation that the Committee was more interested in getting through the session than understanding the concerns of citizens with the possibility for modifying or enhancing the acceptability of the LVEC proposal. It appears that the Steering Committee intended the comment session to be little more than window dressing.

At a minimum, citizen involvement can be used as a tool to persuade the public to accept a proposal. The Steering Committee went one step further in requesting the public to comment. The full potential of citizen participation is realized when dialogue with citizens is integrated into the planning process and not added on at the end. In some situations the City gets closer to this level of citizen participation but there has been little evidence of it in the work of the Steering Committee.

Even if citizen participation is limited to obtaining comment, just holding a comment session is not sufficient. Citizens have to believe that their comments will influence the decision and that their comments were either accepted or rejected in a considered manner. Otherwise why should citizens bother? Without evidence that their comments matter, citizens begin to believe that the turnoff effect is the one really being sought. Small wonder that so few citizens bother to vote.

City Council has recently reduced the opportunities for citizens to appear before it and has put more responsibility on committees to provide for citizen involvement. This is a serious change taken without consideration of the overall purposes of citizen participation and how it is to be achieved.

Citizens have a wealth of knowledge and bring a wide range of perspectives and interests to bear on any public matter. They can assist representatives to be better informed and in the process citizens learn as well. The best processes will not necessarily eliminate all differences. The process should be sufficient to leave all with the feeling that everything was given reasoned, unbiased consideration and be sufficient to provide a basis for reluctant acceptance by those whose views do not prevail. The City needs to adopt a code of citizen participation applicable to all its governing and advisory bodies.

The decision making approach of the City regarding the LVEC has been time driven and inadequate. Without adequate citizen participation the process has resulted in severe community divisiveness. Rather than debate being focused within the deliberative bodies of the City it has by default taken place in the newspapers. The Steering Committee has shown no evidence that it is open to learn from its citizens. It is committed to an objective and is not prepared to let anything stand in its way. After Monday evening's comment session and Tuesday's morning Steering Committee meeting one can only be very cynical about the whole LVEC process.

The important responsibility assigned to the Steering Committee by Council has been mishandled. In proceeding in such a single minded manner the Committee has failed to learn from its citizens and allow its work to stand the scrutiny of its critics. Council should not rely on the work of the Steering Committee.

It is the responsibility of to Council to now ensure that the missing scrutiny of the LVEC proposal takes place. Council should therefore open all matters relating to the proposed LVEC to peer review and objective consideration. Citizens should be assured that the peer review is undertaken at arm's length and they should be consulted in the course of the peer selection process. Citizen concerns should be addressed in an visible manner. This is the only way in which trust in the LVEC process can be restored. Concurrently Council should review the role of citizen participation and facilitate meaningful citizen involvement in civic affairs. Provision for good citizen participation would nurture responsible citizenship and go a long way towards restoring confidence in civic government.

Robert Mackenzie
Kingston ON