A Familar Refrain

Maybe it is time to look at a different from of governance for large urban centers as it is obvious as our cultural makeup changes the voters aren't meeting their responsibilities, low turnout during municipal elections, and mayors are elected by special interest groups. Maybe a City Manager concept......

Tremblay all policy, no action opposition:
Mayor won't answer blast from Eloyan

LINDA GYULAI
The Gazette
Friday, January 26, 2007

Mayor Gerald Tremblay's answer yesterday to a blast from city hall opposition leader Noushig Eloyan was silence.
"No comment," Darren Becker, a spokesperson for the Tremblay administration, added when asked for the mayor's reaction to Eloyan, a Vision Montreal councillor who accused Tremblay and his Montreal Island Citizens Union of "doing absolutely nothing" for the city over the past five years.
"There's an abandonment of responsibility," Eloyan said at one of the few news conferences she's given since replacing Pierre Bourque as opposition leader after he quit in May.
Eloyan listed a host of what she called Tremblay's unfulfilled pledges, like improving public transit, fighting homelessness, curbing street gangs, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, adding bicycle paths and stemming the exodus of Montrealers to off-island suburbs.
"Above and beyond the slogans, action is lacking," she said.
Tremblay's "trademark" is to release policies, she said - on heritage, trees, culture, sustainable development and economic development.
The promised Cavendish Blvd. extension and redesign of Notre Dame St. E. have yet to happen, Eloyan added.
And she derided Tremblay's announcement from Paris last February that he'll build a tramway on at least one artery, Park Ave., within four years.
"He's like a boy wanting a toy," she said. "He sees a toy and he absolutely wants it."
She added it isn't the opposition's role to come up with ideas.
"That's his job as mayor."
Eloyan said her party - which has 11 councillors compared with Tremblay's 48 - plans to push for action at borough and city council meetings and public hearings.
Still, Tremblay's refusal to rebut Eloyan is "discouraging," Vision Montreal councillor Mary Deros said last night. She noted he also didn't heed the 42,000 signatures on petitions against renaming Park Ave. and Bleury St. after the late premier Robert Bourassa.
"They're too comfortable," she said. "They don't have to respond because they know they're going to be there another three years."
lgyulai@thegazette.canwest.com