A few things:
1. There is a mechanism for councillors to call a special meeting if 9 of them ask for it (I'm actually shocked that Corbella mentioned this in her piece).
2. I imagine there are actually a ton of moving parts involved in calling an emergency meeting (all of the administrators, etc.). It's probably best to reserve this mechanism for actual emergencies. What action(s) could have occured between Dec. 21 and Dec. 31 to save this? Aside from completely bending to the demands and just hoping that will be the end of it?
3. Do we presume it was just one conversation between Gondek and Edwards and then she hit tweet a few hours later? Clearly not...IIRC from the meeting the other day, Dagleish and Bean had escalated (albeit not 100% formally) the breakdown to Duckworth and Edwards. It was certainly days and weeks in the making.
3b. It does seem clear that communication to councillors wasn't ideal, but we also have to remember that 9 of the 15 were brand new to the job for less than 2 months (and Pootman/Chabot returning after missed terms). So there are 4 councillors: Gondek, Demong, Carra, and Chu who were continuous from the previous council who had voted on previous motions related to this building. We expect the other 11 (really 12 if we acknowledge Chu's illiteracy) to become fully versed and somehow save this deal in 10 days over Xmas?
4. I think there is something poetic in how this deal went from public to a vote in about 5 business days in the middle of the summer...and now it's fallen apart in 5 or less business days over Xmas.
5. The Dec. 31 deadline was largely meaningless from the city's side...as we've seen, council has found a way to keep the pilot light on indefinitely. It's not like all of the work to this point was thrown in a paper shredder.
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