Crowd jeers mayor, councillors

A crowd of citizens descended on the borough hall to express their displeasure at the secretive nature of the move, demanding the re-opening of the register, or public consultations. Insinuations of corruption were formulated, and some went so far as to demand the borough mayor's resignation.

Beaudoin, however, remained steadfast.

"We made the right decision, and we will not reconsider it," she repeated numerous times to a frustrated crowd, which began to jeer loudly, forcing Beaudoin to call for order multiple times. One woman was even ejected from the council chamber, and the microphone was cut off several times while residents were sounding off.

With 192 people present in the chamber (about ten times as many as usually show up), 55 of them rose to ask questions, many of them on the move. Of that group, only two residents expressed their support to the move.

But the mayor maintains that she didn’t take her decision without taking the pulse of the public on the idea of a new borough hall, saying she had received a number of complaints from citizens saying they didn’t like having to go left and right to get what they needed from the borought. She also mentioned a survey where residents of Ahuntsic-Cartierville were asked for their thoughts on the subject. At press time, the survey had not yet been made available to the media.

Citizens, as well as local representatives of Projet Montréal suggested the mayor hold public hearings into the subject, but that notion was shot down by Beaudoin, who wants to move forward with the move, slated for December.

That determination didn't stop a number of people from insisting the borough cancel the lease.

In response to one question from the public, borough director Éric Lachapelle said the lease had not yet been physically signed, but that council's decision July 3 to accept the lease constituted an act of signing.

That declaration gave hope to the citizens hoping to reverse the move, but Lachapelle insisted that according to norms, the lease was considered signed. Official opposition leader Noushig Eloyan suggested reversing the resolution, without any support from the other councillors.

So it was with great disappointment that the Sept. 4 council meeting wrapped up, with citizens feeling that Beaudoin’s usual attention was, this time, not sufficient to satisfy them.

(Translated by Marc Lalonde)