Would super villain Bane be a better mayor than Tony Van Bynen?

John Daggett:  I've paid you a small fortune

Bane:  And this gives you power over me?

This memorable exchange from the movie The Dark Knight Rises involves John Daggett a construction magnate and the super villain Bane.  I bring this dialog up as a comparison between how things are done in the movies versus real life.

In the movies, people in power stand up to greedy developers.

In real life (and in the case of Newmarket Council in particular), the developers usually get their way.
 
Take for instance the mysterious circumstances surrounding the Hollingsworth Arena.  The only reason why I use the word "mysterious" is because we truly don't have much information about the deal.  Council is keeping a lot of secrets these days.  But most expect that the public recreation facility will be sold off and we'll get the usual line that the deal is good for us.  Like the soccer club loan, we won't be told either the details of the deal or receive an explanation how we have benefited.  We will just have to take the gruesome twosome's word for it that the public has done good.

Back in April, Council decided to tackle the issue of parkland.  With new development coming to Newmarket, Council had to make a decision about how much parkland would be needed for these new communities.  Council decided that 1 hectare for every 300 housing units would be the appropriate formula.

To demonstrate what this means, consider the case of the recent Glenway subdivision which is purportedly to be approximately 750 housing units. The formula would require two and a half hectares of parkland to be given to the Town of Newmarket by Marrianeville (the developer).

Upon learning of Council's decision on this formula, developers, including their lobbying arm known as BILD, went ballistic claiming that such a formula would cause them undue hardship.

Did Council stand by their convictions and send the developers a clear message that Council is "in charge"?

Sadly, no.

Council has decided to hire a consultant, Mark Conway, Senior Partner at N Barry Lyon Consultants, to work with the developers to find a compromise.

As we seen with Glenway, when the issues get tough for the gruesome twosome, they hire consultants in order to avoid making a decision themselves.

Its really too bad that when an issue comes up between the people who want a "live-able" Newmarket versus the greedy ambitions of developers, we can't rely on our elected officials to do the right thing.