Blog

Two years ago today, Ottawa voted for a new style of leadership at City Hall. Residents tell me that they are happy to finally see Council working together and making progress on a number of important priorities. Midway through my term as Mayor, I’m writing to highlight a few of the things we are working on to move Ottawa forward.
On Friday October 12, 2012 I hosted over 200 youth from across Ottawa for the Mayor’s Youth Summit at City Hall. It was a great day filled with a lot of energy and great speakers including the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean, Hélène Campbell of A Lung Story, and David Hale of the Soshal Group.
Addressing the issue of our aging infrastructure won’t happen overnight.  We recognize that solid progress has been made over the last couple of years, but much remains to be done in terms of addressing the infrastructure deficit in the east end and across our city. The challenges we face with maintaining infrastructure are not isolated to one part of the city. In fact, this is a growing issue for municipalities across Canada. 
There are few things more frustrating in everyday life than getting stuck in gridlock. Time that you would rather spend with family or friends or at the dinner table should not be spent sitting in a vehicle. And with the recent sinkhole on the 174, I share the frustrations of our east end residents. This is a huge challenge, particularly for the tens of thousands of Ottawa commuters that use the 174 to get to and from work or school every day.
In our first two years, City Council delivered on our commitment to keeping tax increases below 2.5 per cent, and in the upcoming 2013 budget we will do the same. This allows us to continue to invest in our communities, our infrastructure, our transit system and our families in a fiscally responsible manner.
Part of my day as Mayor and that of your City Councillor is meeting with various individuals who are legitimately seeking to change or implement a particular policy or by-law. This is no surprise in government, the City of Ottawa makes decisions, and there are people who are hired to influence or inform those decisions. Until today, there was no way for citizens to know who City officials meeting with or on what topics. The City of Ottawa’s new Lobbyist Registry changes this.
Up until last week, Ottawa was subjected to a prolonged period of minimal rain. These drought conditions have been somewhat alleviated in the last few days, however, the effects of this harsh summer dryness will continue to be felt for months to come. This is especially true in the rural parts of Ottawa where some of our farming families are directly impacted with hay and cash crop yields plummeting because of the drought. Naturally, this has a domino effect for any farms that produce livestock as commodity prices rise. 
Summertime is upon us and I want to take a moment to mention some of what has been achieved by our City Council so far in 2012. In the hurly-burly of our daily efforts we often do not take notice of just what is accomplished along the way. It is helpful to take a step back and look at the big picture. There is an impressive list of shared successes that touch all parts of our City:

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