What started as a proposal to help councillors fund street closures in their wards to help residents practice physical distancing quickly escalated to a combative 70-minute debate at Ottawa city council Wednesday, with some labelling the dustup as “shameful.” Kitchissippi Coun.
Jeff Leiper started with a motion asking council to open up the funding envelope available to councillors to pay for street closures in their wards — an initiative that can help pedestrians to keep their distance from one another on crowded sidewalks during the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Leiper said that he’s been paying for these closures of his office’s traffic-calming budget — funding normally earmarked for longer-term projects such as speed bumps — and that he’d