Rainer Bloess

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Rainer Bloess is a member of Ottawa City Council. He represents Ward 2 - Innes covering some of the city's eastern suburbs. He was originally a member of the city council of Gloucester, being elected to that council in 1994 on a cost cutting platform. He lives in the suburban community of Blackburn Hamlet. When Gloucester was merged into Ottawa in 2000 he ran for Ottawa city council and was elected after a strong challenge from a fellow Gloucester councilor.

[edit] 2003-2006 term

On the Ottawa council his main issue was widening Innes Road and working to encourage the spread of the booming economy of western Ottawa to the east. He is described as one of the council's fiscal conservatives and was one of three councilors to refuse the controversial 2003 pay-raise city council voted for themselves. He is generally seen as an opponent of mayor Bob Chiarelli. According to the Ottawa Citizen Bloess, along with councilor Jan Harder, are sometimes called the councils "official opposition." He once initiated a controversial motion that would have required that all residents use Ottawa in their postal address, rather than the names of their former communities. He withdrew the motion after the initiative proved unpopular.

In the 2003 Ottawa election he faced a stiff challenge from Jean-Francois Claude who argued that Ottawa East was being ignored by the city and that Bloess had failed to lobby hard enough for official bilingualism. The race was one of the closest for an incumbent councilor in 2003, but Bloess was reelected.

[edit] Light rail extension project

Bloess was an opponent of the city's light-rail extension from downtown ottawa to Barrhaven. On December 7, council voted in favor by a margin of 12-11 to pursue the project without the downtown segment. However, Bloess who was in holidays during the vote couldn't voted against the project which would have derailed it. He mentionned that he wasn't aware that the vote would have took place during his absence. When O'Brien modified his position to vote against, a new vote was held and Bloess was present to it which officially derailed the project on December 14 by a margin of 13-11 [1] [2]