Butland blasts slowpoke response to Essar, Tenaris woes

Slow as a slug on sleeping pills, Sault Ste. Marie's community adjustment committee is taking so long to materialize that former mayor Steve Butland worries it may now be too late to do much good.

"It's seven months since this was initiated," the Ward 1 councillor scowled at a City Council meeting last night.

Supposedly a high-priority response to problems at Essar Steel Algoma and Tenaris Algoma Tubes, the committee's membership has still not been determined, its focus is undetermined and there's no work plan.

Sault MPP David Orazietti announced in April that the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities was providing $200,000 to kick-start the community adjustment committee.

Two weeks ago, a city news release indicated that Gayle Broad, recently retired after a distinguished career at Algoma University, had been selected as the committee's chairperson and executive lead.

"I have been pestering [Chief Administrative Officer Al] Horsman every two weeks for the past several months," Butland said last night.

"It's a community adjustment committee and many, many have already made the adjustments. It's too late for them."

"I'm glad to hear what the goal is of the committee. But I think we've dropped the ball on this one. If it's not too late, let's go hard at it as fast as we can, because I think the community has been looking for this for quite a while," Butland said.

The issue was raised by Ward 1 Councillor Paul Christian, who initially pushed for the committee.

Christian asked CAO Horsman for an update on the initiative.

Horsman said a formal report will be presented at the next City Council meeting on August 22.

Don McConnell, the city's planning director, said that committee members are currently being recruited.

"We have met several times with the province and we're in the midst of not only identifying different committee members but starting work on the work plan and getting ready to move forward," McConnell said.

Later this week, advertising will begin for a full-time project coordinator who will support the committee's activities.

"We are making progress. It is moving forward," McConnell said.

"They do have a year's length of time to pull together a plan on this, but we've met with the province and we're all in agreement that if there are good initiatives that are readily apparent to the committee, then we can begin to implement those initiatives prior to the plan being completed."

Councillor Christian then asked McConnell about the committee's focus, concerned that it include suppliers and vendors who are owed money by Essar.

"The mandate of the committee has basically no limits," McConnell said. "It will be up to the committee itself to determine where their focus is going to be. It certainly will have a heavy labour and restructuring and retraining component to it. But at this point we don't have a detailed work plan on that. We will have it for August."

Councillor Christian encouraged the committee to move quickly to make up for lost time.

"I think it's incumbent upon council and this committee to show some real leadership by moving forward as soon as possible. We really can't wait too long to get this project off the ground. The city's in dire need and we need to show as a committee and as a council that we're trying to address these issues."

"We are working quickly," Horsman replied. "We realize there's a one-year window but we're looking to be a lot more adept than one year. We're looking at a few months in some cases. There are activities that are already ongoing."

"I don't think it's too late," added Mayor Provenzano. "There's a lot of productive things that can happen. We didn't get here in seven months. We got here after decades. And we're not going to get out of where we are after a few months."