Ottawa council approves transit commission

Ottawa's newly elected city council approved the creation of a transit commission to govern OC Transpo, one of several reforms pushed through during the first session on Wednesday.

The new 12-member commission will feature eight councillors and four members of the public and operate at an arms-length from council in a manner similar to how the TTC functions in Toronto.

The commission is expected to be up and running by the Spring of 2011.

The proposal was one of several pushed by newly elected mayor Jim Watson as part of the city's governance review.

Counc. Rainer Bloess (Innes Ward) was one of two who voted against establishing the commission. "Well for me it's the expertise we're talking about bringing in civilian expertise," said Bloess.

"In theory we hire those people, they're working either at OC Transpo or we bring them in as consultants. For me it's a possible duplication that I don't think is necessary."

New council moves fast on proposals, appointments

Watson and ten new councillors joined 13 returning councillors for the meeting at Andy Haydon Hall, and quickly pushed through proposals to track spending, reorganize the city's committee structure and appointed two permanent deputy mayors.

Council agreed to appoint an integrity commissioner, create registries for both gifts and lobbyists and instituted other accountability measures, including requiring councillors to post monthly expenses on ottawa.ca.

They also approved splitting the planning and environment committee into two committees giving each a higher profile and the combining of the audit, budget and finance committee and the corporate services committee into a new finance and economic development committee.