City Administrator Steve Kanellakos is touched by the before and after photos he saw of the people who used Ottawa’s day rest centers.
“Some of our residents who have come in when they haven’t had a haircut and long beards, and you see pictures of them having a haircut and their beard cut off afterwards – and it’s just a wonderful story of just treating people with humanity,” Kanellakos told CBC.
“It’s a fantastic thing our people have done in our community.”
The Day drop-in centersThe result of the COVID-19 emergency was people being able to use washrooms and showers, have a hot meal and contact social services. But they have “fundamentally changed the health of all those people who need these services,” Kanellakos said in a recent – and rare – long-range interview.
The service was so successful that he advocates that relief centers – locations and funding still unknown – be permanent.
The Tom Brown Arena served as a recreation center for people with homelessness and provided a place to rest, shower, eat and contact social services. The city needs to find a way to make recreation centers permanent, says Ottawa’s city manager. (Jean Delisle / CBC)
It is an unexpectedly positive result of a challenging year.
A lot has happened since the province imposed its first lockdown 12 months ago, about a week after the city of Ottawa’s first confirmed COVID-19 case.
“It was around this point that I realized that this was not going to be someone else’s problem – this would be our problem,” says Kanellakos.
The city’s emergency response center put it in high gear and met for practically the first time ever. Internal “task forces” have been hired to oversee the monumental efforts required to tackle everything from liaising with vulnerable residents to helping small businesses to keep the town hall running.
And in the past few weeks, the Vaccines Task Force has required a huge logistical effort, including 1,000 people, many of them Part-time city workers temporarily laid off last year.
Like other organizations, Kanellakos said, the city is making efforts to respond to the ever-changing COVID-19 recommendations and figure out how to keep employees safe. But not every organization needs to turn a ship of 17,000, of which only about 4,000 can work from home. Thousands continued to provide essentials, from ambulances to clean running water to garbage disposal.
At the one-year mark of COVID-19, while Kanellakos pondered how the pandemic was draining capacity, he was equally keen to discuss the opportunities for permanent change that this would bring, as well as the post-pandemic challenges.
City services online ahead of their time
COVID-19 forced the city’s technological hand almost immediately. Online innovations that would have been carried out through years of pilot projects were carried out in weeks. Council, committee, and community meetings all went virtual with remarkably little disruption. An update on how elected officials will meet this fall will be available soon.
And with the physical information desks closed, the city relocated many services such as getting a parking permit or marriage certificate online. Kanellakos says “the safety of our employees and the ease with which the public can continue to have access to these services has been greatly improved”.
This applies in particular to the planning department, in which documents for many building owners could be delivered and paid for electronically for the first time.
City workers migrated their building permit applications – and payment options – online in a matter of weeks instead of having to appear in person at a service counter. (Andrew Lee / CBC)
Kanellakos said the city “focused” on the construction sector because it was allowed to continue operating during most of the pandemic. Employees realized that if the city put its licensing system on hold and the system was secured for months, thousands could lose their jobs unnecessarily.
“And that never happened,” he says. In fact, the city issued 2.6 percent more permits in 2020 than in the previous year.
The local economy needs to be stimulated
Of the task forces Ottawa relied on to respond to the pandemic, the “economic recovery” is the most novel – the city has never established an emergency group to tackle the local economy – and the most troubled.
There is little the city can do to support individual companies. According to state law, local governments are not allowed to offer companies tax cuts or other financial support.
However, some efforts have been made to help from postponing property tax bills to providing COVID-19 related news and information to retailers. The outdoor space available for some restaurants has been expanded, a move many hope will become permanent, and the terrace opening hours have been extended. But these are minor measures in the face of the struggle for survival that many mom and pop stores face.
Steve Kanellakos, manager at the City of Ottawa, says teenagers in particular are drawn to the services and amenities of the downtown area, which means they’re likely to return once the pandemic threat is over. 1:06
“This is a community issue in terms of what is happening to a lot of our small businesses and our main roads,” Kanellakos told CBC. “It is probably the greatest thing we can do when we give the city support and voice so that the community can gather around our business.”
To this end, city officials plan to submit a report to the council’s Finance and Economic Development Committee next month presenting a public relations campaign “to restore confidence in the community that … it’s okay.” is going out and shopping again and doing things and doing it safely. ”
The city will work with Ottawa Public Health to reassure consumers how to safely patronize local businesses again. Tourism, Ottawa’s third largest economy, will also need special attention as travel restrictions ease.
“We need a runway and support so they can try to lure future events,” says Kanellakos. The 200th anniversary of the ByWard market in 2027 could now call for the kind of hoopla that surrounded Canada’s centenary in 2017.
“Maybe we’ll be planting something bigger there than we normally thought, a little bit 2017-esque, where we’re starting to have some really special events.”
Mayor Jim Watson has pondered the opportunity to bring La Machine, shown here in a 2017 photo, back to Ottawa for the 200th anniversary of ByWard Market. (Matthew Kupfer / CBC)
On the closer horizon, the city has left open the possibility that special events or small, physically distant festivals could take place later this year.
“Time of Incredible Growth”
Kanellakos knows he insists the pandemic has opened up opportunities in the face of the many naysayers about Ottawa’s future, including dire predictions of people fleeing downtown, lots of money being wasted on the LRT, and new condos with no buyers in them want to live . He doesn’t buy any of it. At least not now.
“I really don’t see any emptying of the city center,” says Kanellakos.
Sure, some downtown offices may not be as busy as they were before COVID-19, but people will find other uses for this space.
City Administrator Steve Kanellakos says there will be flexible work arrangements for employees, including working from home and working in city buildings closer to where the employee lives. 0:57
“I think that void will be filled by other generations who, once the pandemic goes beyond us and people are vaccinated, want to join.”
That is not to say that working life will not change, including for the city council itself, which has tentative plans when it brings employees back to their offices later this year to implement a system that will allow employees to work in You can book the nearest municipal building to their homes, accessible on foot or by bike.
Responding to suggestions that the city should pause its LRT plans until plans are clearer for post-pandemic commuters, city administrator Steve Kanellakos says the O-Train system is “incomplete” and needs to be finalized for future generations. (Simon Lasalle / CBC)
As for the LRT, Kanellakos says the O-Zug is an “incomplete system” and needs to be extended to all parts of the city in the long term for it to make sense.
“It’s a game changer when we get to level 3. We need transportation to the outskirts of the city because that’s growing.
“It’s not for the next 10 years. It’s in town for generations.”
The town hall is under great pressure this year. The treasurer’s department is still grating with the numbers that the federal and provincial funds to support the communities will be enough to cover the revenue shortfalls for 2021.
The federal government has yet to decide what its return plan looks like, and its 150,000 employees have a huge impact on the operation of the transit system as well as the local economy.
When it comes to paying for the LRT, the second phase under construction is fully funded, but the second phase after Kanata and Barrhaven – priced at nearly $ 5 billion – isn’t on Die City’s long-term transportation plans until after 2031 recent hopes that the schedule could be accelerated could be dashed as both provincial and federal governments grapple with billions of dollars in deficits in the coming years, much larger due to the economic collapse of the pandemic .
Kanellakos understands that. He is also aware of how tough the past year has been for residents and companies. Nevertheless, he is optimistic about the future.
“I think we will enter a period of incredible growth and economic development in Ottawa that, despite the pandemic, we have never seen.”
