Record of meeting between OFGAC and EAC 6
January 2004
OFGAC: Joanna
Dean, Iola Price, Guy Brassard, Jackie Oblak
EAC: Paul Koch, Tim Marta, Caroline Ladanowski, Mary
Hegan, Sophie Sommerer
OFGAC distributed its own revisions to its mandate
statement which have been presented to Erin Bell and which are under discussion
with her. With the exception of
"the assist clause" (see below) EAC has agreed with Erin Bell's
revisions to its mandate. Erin Bell's
idea of ACs working with each other has merit, and the suggestion to her will
be to add a new responsibility to all AC's mandates as follows: "Liaison
with other city of Ottawa Advisory committees as appropriate" (neither AC
were comfortable with the phrases suggested by Ms Bell using the word
"assist").
ACTION:
·
OFGAC and EAC will suggest to Erin Bell that the
following line be incorporated into all AC mandates "Liaison with other
city of Ottawa Advisory committees as appropriate".
·
Each of EAC and
OFGAC will add the new liaison sentence as above to its responsibilities
section.
·
When revised, the
two ACs will exchange committee structure/organizational matrices.
Clarification of roles is important. EAC introduced a table it developed earlier
in the Fall that showed with EAC taking on responsibility for quality
issues (contaminants, air quality, water quality) and OFGAC dealing
with quantity issues. OFGAC noted that the November 2003
Governance Review worded OFGAC greenspace responsibilities as "protection,
management, acquisition, and conservation of greenspace and other
environmentally sensitive areas in Ottawa" and tabled the relevant
paragraphs from its revised mandate statement.
We reviewed the OFGAC definition of Greenspace and agreed that it was a
good working definition.
It was agreed that EAC would be concerned with
greenspace in regard to water quality, air quality etc. as per its mandate
statement and that OFGAC would use its revised mandate statement to guide its
activities on greenspace issues. EAC
proposed maintaining greenspace as an issue in its matrix and discussed
changing it to a horizontal (cross-cutting) line in that document.
Both ACs agreed that close consultation on the
greenspace issue was necessary both to avoid overlap and duplication and to
further clarify roles and responsibilities in the coming year(s).
ACTION:
·
EAC to revise its
matrix to make greenspace a horizontal rather than vertical issue.
·
AC consultation
on greenspace issues as they arise will take place.
On major issues in which both ACs have an interest
such as transportation and transportation corridor, West Nile Virus, pesticide
and other bylaws, etc. EAC and OFGAC
agreed that each AC would work independently (i.e. neither committee would take
the lead and there would be a high level of communication). As a matter of record, each AC agreed that
having separate Coordinators was a good idea.
ACTION:
·
Use the AC
minutes, email and the services of the AC Coordinators to maintain awareness of
who, on each AC has taken the responsibility for an issue. The AC chairs will play an important role
also. The Parks and Recreation AC
should also be involved in this communication issue.
EAC receives its reviews from Cynthia Levesque who
screens all development proposals that are sent to her based on the EAC's
criteria; OFGAC gets its reviews directly from the planners. Both ACs have criteria that should be used
to guide the selection process but both the criteria and the process need
fine-tuning. EAC has a development
review report listing 11 issues and options for EAC consideration. EAC's concerns are similar to OFGAC's: the
ACs receive proposals to review very late in the process; some developments
that an AC should review are not brought to its attention; there is overlap and
duplication between ACs; difficulty in determining whether the AC's reviews
having an impact; the quality of the review must be good in order to retain the
AC level of credibility.
OFGAC distributed a copy of a revised draft of its
review template (has not been distributed to the OFGAC development review
subcommittee). OFGAC uses the
development review subcommittee and its chair as a peer review/quality control
mechanism. EAC is trying to determine
the level of impact that its development reviews have; OFGAC noted the long
(6-8 month on occasion) time interval between submission of an AC review and
the publication of a staff report.
Independent review reports are important but consultation with other ACs
is useful on some occasions. There was
some discussion on the potential to share workload, but no firm conclusions
were reached.
ACTION:
·
Each AC will
continue to do reviews independently according to its mandate but implement
processes to increase consultation (such as having the AC Coordinators add a
column in their tracking tables to note who in the other AC is conducting the
review); the onus will be on the
reviewers in each AC to contact each other;
if one AC reviewer thinks that
another AC should be reviewing the proposal that has not been sent to that AC,
s/he will alert the Subcommittee chair in the other AC.
·
Tim Marta and
Iola Price will meet to further refine the communication process.
·
Each AC reviewer
will put the other AC reviewer on its distribution list for final review
reports. EAC and OFGAC will exchange
"criteria/trigger" lists.
·
Each AC will meet
with at least the four senior planners to explain its criteria list and ask for
a more timely proposal distribution process.
Each AC has a database with names and addresses of
citizens interested in its issues. How
can those people be harnessed for AC work?
The City has strict controls on who can use the databases and for what
purposes. EAC is considering a website
but hasn't the expertise or an interested person yet (this may be something
their student intern, Joel Fisher, may be able to work on); each AC will maintain separate websites; the City may put some resources into AC
websites.
Communication between ACs is vital and OFGAC proposed
a social "meet and exchange info on interests and expertise" event at
the Bill Mason Centre.
EAC is considering a public meeting to define expectations about the Environmental Strategy; OFGAC is concentrating its efforts on the follow-on documents such as the Greenspace Master Plan as these will implement the ES (assuming they survive in the 2004 budget). Getting the city planners to buy into the ES is considered an important role for both ACs.
ACTION:
·
EAC will determine
the level of interest in a joint social at its next meeting; OFGAC will do the same and would host the
event if accepted. Otherwise, some
other venue for the two ACs will be developed (possibly including Parks and
Recreation AC?).
·
The ACs will
exchange member CVs; once a year, EAC
and OFGAC will send someone to each other's meetings, and once a year, the
chairs will attend the other ACs' meeting to brief on major issues and
activities.
Wrap up: All present
agreed that it had been a useful and productive meeting and that such
discussions should be encouraged.