Stonebridge Home Owners Alliance letter to Mayor Watson and the Ottawa City Councilors

sent to M.Rick O'Connor, CMO
City Clerk, on May 22, 2020 with acknowledge of receipt, to be distributed to all Members of Council shortly.

Dear Mr. Mayor and the City Councilors.

The Council is planning to impose a new tax on roughly 3500 households without all the necessary work that was suppose be done by the Councillors of the 3 wards impacted. 

The legal authority for the new tax is the Municipal Act, Special Service Levy provision. As per Municipal Act Special Levy is a Councillor driven initiative. Yet none of the three Councillors had initiated it, neither one made an effort to directly notify all his/her constituents about any information sessions, forums, gather feedback and alternative proposals.  In fact, Councillor Meehan stated that it is not Councillor driven initiative.  Most of us did not get any communication from the City during months prior to the letter with the ballot. 

While Mr. O'Conner had provided a body of references to the sessions that went into the effort, none of these are relevant - these records show that the City was working with SCA, not the community. Which is a serious issue, particularly in light of FIA documents which recently became available.

SCA and Stonebridge community are two different things, which are not be conflated.

SCA is a small private business, no different from many others. Historically it is affiliated with golf and real estate and has nothing to do with most of the residents. Most residents have not met it's members. It's a self-appointed body.  Nobody had ever authorized SCA to represent our community, nobody elected them either. We already have elected officials who represent us - City Councillors.  There are roughly 3500 households, and SCA may cover 200 people (not households) on a good day on average. Only a handful of people is interested in their web pages, and SCA ban those they don't like from their site, silencing opposition, express their bigoted remarks about immigrants, don't hesitate to tell people to "move out". They represent special interests of a small group. What's worse, since Mattamy's hire - Jack Sterling - handpicked SWG members (mostly from SCA), SCA/SWG are also acting as Mattamy proxies in this matter. 

The only distinctive feature of SCA is that Ms. Harder is friends with them. But this is not a good enough reason to impose new tax on all of us.  Ms. Harder has long ties with Mr. Sterling as well. It also came to our attention that Ms. Harder's daughter works for Sterling.  All these connections rather disturbing - it raises questions wither they had any impact on his choice as Facilitator 

Any of the sessions City held on record were announced to SCA, not to community at large.  Rather than send letters to every household, hold forums, session, gather feedback and alternative proposals, making sure everyone is informed, the City had relied on SCA - a non-elected, not authorized, special interests group of people acting as proxies for the developer - as a vehicle to propagate information to the residents. This SCA driven information dissemination can be best described as confusion and complete lack of transparency .

As the result only 300 households on average and 400 at maximum were aware of the ongoing effort.  Councillors posting notes to SCA and their web site has no relationship to informing our community - most of us has nothing to do with SCA. Posting notes on SCA web site is simply informing SCA. These communications bare no relevance to the work between the Councillors and residents in their wards. 

Since SCA is neither authorized by us nor elected by us - they have no obligation to pass any information along to all the residents. And no one expects them to.  We expect that from you - our elected and City officials. You are the ones held responsible - not SCA. Yet not a single Councillor has made an effort to inform their constituents by mail, collect feedback or alternative proposals. None of us received any communications from our Councillors about any sessions or surveys.  Instead the Councillors were directing constituents to work with SCA on alternative proposal submission, somehow overlooking the fact that SCA would only work with those they please.

The effort was coordinated by Jack Sterling. Jack Sterling was hired and paid over 44 thousand dollars by the developer (Mattamy, see FIA documents attached) and he was the one to assemble SWG (the working group) - which makes their effort developer driven. So, of course, they did not have the obligation to notify everyone and collect alternative proposals - they do not represent us.

The first and only communication each resident had received from the City directly, was that ballot for October 10, 2019 opinion poll. And that is why roughly 1000 people did not vote at all - simply caught by surprise and out of context, since that was the first time, they'd heard of this. And that is why 741 other people voted No - they became aware at the very last minute and denied any input. And a larger portion of the 1400 remaining also became aware last minute - only ~400 households were involved in the process through SCA prior to the poll. This poll was not gathering alternative proposals either, instead the community was rushed to express a yes/no opinion about a non-existent contract. Think about it. 

This opinion poll had shown, that there is NOT enough support in the community to create Local Improvement Levy petition - it has yielded only 42% support against the required 2/3 (66.67%). Thus, making it impossible to claim that this is a bottom up, community driven levy. In addition to insufficient support - community had no idea that Jack Sterling was paid by Mattamy. The level of support may have been even lower, if this was publicly disclosed by the City to all who voted. 

The poll simply indicated - people do not want development. But the deal does not guarantee that at all. The deal is flawed, there are 4 distinct ways it can fall apart during 10-year period and only one out 5 outcomes can bring about service this levy is supposed to pay for. The Council is about to impose additional tax on a service it may never provide. Yet Jack Sterling said that the residents will never get reimbursed.  He said the money will be repurposed. That alone goes against the Municipal Act. The arrangement should either be changed or cancelled altogether. But no one is accepting alternative proposals. 

The SCA is adamant that no changes or alternative proposals can be made after Sept 30, 2019. The City ballot came after that deadline, deeming it too late for most people to make proposals.  So why it is SCA who's making decisions about such deadlines and alternative proposals, if the City Council claims the initiative ?  

According to the Municipal Act Special Levy is a Council driven initiative. Council should be negotiating with Mattamy , collecting feedback, working out proposals and deals and making decisions about alternatives. If things are done in accordance with the law - SCA should be out of any decision making what so ever.

But the facts are - it was SCA/SWG who created the proposal, it is SCA/SWG who conducted dubious surveys (where the same person and members of the same household can be surveyed multiple times), it is SCA/SWG who is making decisions about when to take and when to reject alternative proposals. How can the City Council claim the initiative when we cannot even submit an alternative proposal to the Council ?? How can the Council claim initiative, when it is SCA/SWG who imposes the deadline for alternative proposals ? How can you now claim it is a Council driven initiative, when at least one Councillor says it is not ?

At the end of the day a developer and its proxy, who are friends of Ms. Harder, had come up with the initiative, developed it, controlled who will know about it and who will participate. The final proposal benefits that developer and SCA:  Mattamy gets 6M dollars and SCA is the first option buyer of the land and gets the golf business for free. And Ms. Harder is helping her friends on SCA to make it happen using her position on the City Council to obtain money from the residents via taxation. On top of all that Ms. Harder is bringing in old associate Jack Sterling to make 44 thousand dollars using the opportunity. 

 The only reasonable defense the City might have until today - someone has misrepresented SCA in front of FEDCO and the City did not know who SCA is. 

Now you do.