Words sound nice but common sense actions are needed

City of Ottawa mayor Bob Chiarelli proposed a rural summit in his state-of-the-city address at Ottawa city council's first meeting of 2005 last Wednesday.

This rural summit will be a gathering where issues of concern to rural residents in the city of Ottawa will be discussed and strategies developed to try to solve these issues.

The rural summit, apparently, is not going to be held until 2006 as city staff has to make the arrangements and prepare for this event. But more consultation is not what is needed. Surely the mayor and indeed all of the city politicians should be aware right now of what upsets rural residents about the new city. On of the distressing aspects of the new city is the endless consultation which takes place, all of which unfortunately seems to lead virtually nowhere.

If there is a city politician on Ottawa council who does not understand what the issues of rural residents are, then the politicians must be asleep or out to lunch. The issues are well known and easily identified; it is the solutions that are far and few between.

If all of the time and effort which is going into the holding of this rural summit were spent instead on coming up with solutions to the concerns of rural residents, we would all be better off. But, instead, in nine or ten months time or whatever, we are going to be treated to a dandy rural summit, at which there will be glowing words and great visions. But at the end of the day, nothing will have changed.

So, who needs it? What we need is a city administration that respects rural residents and listens to their concerns and takes action to deal with them.

A rural summit sounds nice but actions speak much louder than words, and rural residents want to be shown some tangible and beneficial changes; they don't want to talk about them and consult about them and see nothing done.

The mayor's words sound nice, but realistic and common sense actions are what is needed.