CITY OF WATERLOO GET THEIR COMEUPPANCE

Today's Waterloo Region Record carrys this story "Waterloo Mayor to put an end to closed-door budget meetings". Now that was a quick turn around! Apparently after the provincial Ombudsman Andre Marin took to Twitter condemning the city's practices; the City have reconsidered. Marin referred to the City's behaviour as "it's such a transparent, amateurish attempt at just flaunting the law". He also spelled out what many have said about the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) investigating municipalities through their LAS. Marin stated "Waterloo picked AMO's LAS to "investigate" violation. So council's safe".

On the one hand the Ombudsman is exercising his influence without even being formally asked to investigate. That is good news. The bad news is that a city bureaucracy or Council who would pull this crap so early in the game needs to be watched carefully. They've been pulled up short this time but clearly there is a problem with people being so willing to flout the law in order to avoid legally mandated public input.