July 17, 2022
I witnessed a bylaw officer exercising his power by writing a ticket for a car pulling away from the curb, occupied by a hurried mother dropping off her child at day camp. On the same day, I also experienced an unbelievably friendly outreach by OC Transpo. Let me describe my day.
Although bylaws are necessary, and I support them, sometimes I find them heavy-handed when enforced to the letter of the law. A case in point is a situation I witnessed yesterday dropping off my granddaughter at a soccer camp by the University of Ottawa, which upset me to such an extent that I wrote to the Mayor of the City, Jum Watson, about it.
“Jim, I witnessed an outrageous incident this morning. Dropped off my granddaughter for soccer camp at the University of Ottawa Minto field on Templeton this morning when one of your meanest and nastiest bylaw officers wrote down the license plate of an unfortunate parent, going to work after dropping off her child. Yes, she was in a no-stopping zone and yes, the officer did what they pay him for. But…
Parents have to walk onto Minto field with the child to register, so one has to park and walk the child to the field, which takes a few minutes. Now I have the time to park a block away and walk back to register my granddaughter, but many parents work and try to drop off the child by putting on the flashers. This poor woman I saw running back to her car and getting in while the bylaw officer wrote the ticket. She drove away, and the officer was still writing the ticket. What a mean-spirited attitude!
I wrote this in the heat of my anger but received the following reply:
Thank you for your correspondence. Your feedback and concerns are always appreciated. I have shared your feedback with the Mayor and his staff for their review and consideration.
There you have it. Courteous and brief but will go nowhere. Perhaps they will copy their human resources group to train bylaw officers to use their power judiciously, considering the individual situation.
The same day, my granddaughter discovered double-decker buses in the city when we drove to her soccer camp. She wanted to ride one. Not knowing which routes these buses run and at what time, my wife contacted our local councilor, who referred our request to OC Transpo, the agency running the bus service. In a couple of hours, we received an email:
“Hello, Katherine. Thanks for reaching out. We have an idea that might be the most flexible in your needs to get your granddaughter on a double-decker bus. I understand why she likes them. They are very different and fun to ride. It would be much easier to talk a plan through by phone. Please give me a call at your nearest convenience and we can discuss it. “
The upshot of the phone conversation was that a transit supervisor met us at 5 pm at Baseline station and flagged a double-decker bus for us, shepherded us into the bus, and recommended that we take the bus to the end station and wait and come back on the same bus, which took a different route to where we parked our car. The supervisor suggested we sit on the top deck, on the left, so that we can enjoy the view of the Ottawa River. We had a scenic ride that the supervisor recommended, almost a tour of a part of the city. My granddaughter was beside herself.
This was much more than we expected; all we wanted to know was where and when the double-decker buses run so we could take a ride on one. OC Transpo went beyond our expectations to assist us.
Lessons learned? The city provides numerous services; do not judge its performance by any individual activity. In one case, the city was client-oriented, while in the other, it was not.
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