#480 After seven years

Campaign Video (2019)
https://youtu.be/zBxbnuPAazE

Campaign video (2026)

The defining issue: east end crossing

apologies for the sound quality

https://youtube.com/shorts/7i6lrbEkthI?feature=shared

Peter Karwacki · Ward 13 · September 2, 2026

“King seeking a third term, same challenger as last time.” While accurate its also incomplete.

Sixteen other people ran in 2019 when the chair was empty. Most of them did not come back once the chair was occupied but I did. In 2022 I finished third with 716 votes, 6.8 percent. King took 80 percent. I am running again in a two-person race against an incumbent. Why?

Persistence or a failure to update? I am simply doing my civic duty. And so should you!

What have the last seven years produced.

Anti Racism?

A Secretariat was created and staffed. Consultation occurred with the Community Anti-Racism Advisory Table and racialized residents. Institutional infrastructure exists. Infrastructure, however, is not evidence of impact. Three years later, “we built a data process” remains the main answer to “what changed,” and that process has yet to show the public positive trend reports.

LRT

King has called for stronger oversight. Across his tenure he has never sat once on the Transit Commission or the Light Rail Subcommittee — the two bodies where that oversight actually lives. The St-Laurent tunnel, in this ward, had urgent inspection findings in 2020. The 2022 follow-up was skipped. Repair is still years out. Pre-tender estimate sits around $9.5 million. Knowing a tunnel needs fixing is awareness. King has been mute on the issue of the repairs and repair timeline that will affect this ward. Scheduling the fix is the job. On the judicial-inquiry vote he was right to vote in favour but since then he has been virtually invisible except in his own promo shots.

Police Services Board

King sat on the board and resigned in 2022, vouching for its competence on his way out. Then the independent workplace investigations office created in 2022 was shut down in 2023 without board consultation. Members found out the day of their meeting. In May 2026 the Auditor General found OPS reporting to the board contained inaccuracies. The auditor’s word was “vague.” The safe-workplace budget went from $8.2 million to $5.4 million. I will not quit. He did. That is not a personality contest. It is what happens when the unglamorous part of oversight arrives.

Lansdowne and more

Council voted 15–10 for a $419 million project. King voted no, citing the Auditor General and speculative revenue. In Overbrook, 26 percent of renters are in core housing need. The question is not whether one no was well-phrased. The question is whether Ward 13’s one vote at a $5 billion table is being used to properly interrogate the next overrun well enough before the contract is signed — the library over run, hospital share over shoot, landfill purchased at $95 million after an estimate closer to $23 million.

Sidewalks

King’s motion to circumvent planned Manor Park sidewalks lost 16–7. Council’s view was no exemption: we need sidewalks. Fighting a vote you expect to lose looks like local representation but it really is pointless though I realize this is not the electorally expedient thing to say in that ward neighborhood but this is what leadership - not pandering looks like.

Infrastructure Deficit, Hydro, parks, 311, CSOs

The data-centre queue is 86 percent of Hydro Ottawa’s average load. Bathgate and the local parks budget shrink when downtown projects run over. 311 delays and sewer overflows are not dashboards for their own sake.

That is the paper trail. Four hundred-plus posts. Most residents will not read them. That is fine. The test is whether the person asking for your vote can point to specific files, specific votes, and specific gaps — including the ones where the incumbent was right.

What a two-person race costs you

A crowded 2019 ballot was a confusing mess. A two-person contest is quiet and gives voters time to think, discuss, confer and ruminate. Ottawa incumbents win almost all of the time. Turnout sits near 40 percent. Urban wards are 9 of 25. Put those together and you understand why 17 became 2.

I did not quit. My livelihood does not hinge on the October 26 outcome. I am the only challenger. So what if the electorate already chose two times. I do not mind as long as the issues and record are discussed. For example, I say we should lead on the new East End bridge not sit with our arms crossed.  We need to shape the bridge discussion not be shaped by it.

So do not simply take the headline. Take the record. I am an experienced senior manager, data analyst and project specialist. The incumbent is a communicator and career politician.

You do not need seventeen names to have an election. You need residents willing to compare what was delivered with what was said, and to vote as if six in ten neighbours will stay home — they really will.

On October 26, one of the two names on the Ward 13 ballot will be mine.

This time around, inform yourselves. Vote differently. Vote wisely.

Vote Peter Karwacki for Rideau-Rockcliffe.

peterkarwacki.blogspot.com

After seven years, how many of these were installed in Rideau Rockcliffe?  We need them at Cité Collegial and Aviation aa well as Birch and Etienne Pkwy.