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Until this week Ted Cooper thought he was a hair away from being fired by the City of Ottawa. Wednesday, he will walk into Mayor Larry O’Brien’s corner office at City Hall and be congratulated on a job well done.
Tuesday Mr. O’Brien said that, regardless of what an independent review of the proposed Kanata West development finds, Mr. Cooper, a 46-year-old water resources engineer who has rocked the boat at City Hall, is to be applauded for standing up for what he believes in.
Mr. Cooper was the water engineer on the Kanata West project who warned that the proposed development of 700 hectares around Scotiabank Place could cause serious flooding. When the city team and the developers’ experts on the project consistently disagreed with him, he was bounced off the project staff in the fall of 2004. He was formally reassigned in July of 2005.
But this week came vindication, when the city acknowledged problems in the computer modelling done for potential flooding. Mr. Cooper says his reading of the consultants’ study showed that they failed to account for the stormwater that will run off from the development site, which could contribute more than half a metre of flooding from the Carp River. Such flooding could threaten Queensway bridges and between 500 and 1,000 houses yet to be built, according to Mr. Cooper.
City manager Kent Kirkpatrick, already alerted to problems with the study last month, asked the Ontario government to hold off any approvals for the development until the issue is resolved. The city is saying nothing will proceed until it has an independent engineering consultant assess the potential flood risk.
The whole matter has left landowners in Kanata West – who wanted to build offices, houses and shops – wondering whether the concerns are serious enough to stop or further delay development that been planned for many years. Not affected are the lands in the area owned by Mattamy Homes, which is building a new subdivision.
“Ted Cooper should be commended for his work and his persistence on this issue,” said Mr. O’Brien. “You welcome professionals who are willing to take a stand. He stood his ground. People like Ted should be embraced.”
Mr. Cooper didn’t exactly feel embraced in the last few years.
He testified at a recent grievance hearing that he was threatened by a representative of one of the developers involved in Kanata West. When he raised the matter with his superiors, there was no action taken, the arbitration hearing was told.
In the fall of 2004, Mr. Cooper was taken off the Kanata West project and forbidden by his superiors at the City of Ottawa from talking about it. Still, on his own time he studied the issue in extraordinary detail and raised objections with the Ontario government.
Mr. Cooper was prohibited from working on anything about Kanata West, any work involving conservation authorities, any work involving stormwater management, surface drainage or flood plain management.
He was suspended for one day when he sent an e-mail from his home on his own time to fellow employees at the city, warning them about the potential health effects of flooding and saying it was an ethical issue for engineers because public safety was at risk. The city’s management said the communication was harassing to fellow employees.
He was “walking on the edge all these years,” not sure if he was close to being fired. His relationship with his boss, planning director Dennis Jacobs – who had the office next door – was strained. (Mr. Jacobs left the city late last year and is working as a planning consultant for clients that include Minto Developments.)
Mr. Cooper didn’t move with his family to Ottawa, as was his plan, because he and his wife were so uncertain about whether his job was secure. He commutes to work from Renfrew County.
In the grievance over the suspension, Mr. Cooper, represented by the Civic Institute of Professional Personnel, lost his appeal of the suspension but won the right to work in all his areas of expertise, though the prohibition from working on Kanata West was allowed to stand.
Right now Mr. Cooper is working on the city’s upgrading of its infrastructure master plan. He has little contact with the public. Other engineering and planning staff have the chance to deal with new development and deal with citizens. Mr. Cooper wonders why he can’t have that opportunity as well.
“I just want to do my job,” says Mr. Cooper, who warns that the independence of engineers in Ontario is being lost as developers, not cities, hire and manage their work for development projects.
One message he will get from the mayor today is that even unpopular views can be expressed in the city administration.
“His future is safe in this city,” said Mr. O’Brien.
The Cooper case has raised caution flags at City Hall.
Mr. O’Brien said yesterday that the “system” did work in the end, with senior city staff stepping in, but he said it was slow to happen.
“I’m a little concerned about how this whole thing unfolded,” said Mr. O’Brien. “I have lots of questions.”
Councillor Peter Hume, who is chairman of the city’s planning committee, says there has to be some kind of honest review of the matter to see where system checks failed to kick in. The city’s auditor general, Alain Lalonde, has done a review of the Kanata West issues and Mr. Hume wants that report released as soon as the city’s management has had a chance to respond to it.
It will be up to city council to make the decision to make the report public before the normal May date for such releases.
© The Ottawa Citizen 2008