Tuesday 27 December 2011

Of course, but...

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         He who dares not offend cannot be honest.

                                                                                                       Thomas Paine
                                                                     1737 - 1809









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Tuesday 20 December 2011

Bradley Who?

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After the current pre-trial? phase in Fort Meade Bradley will be back in Fort Leavenworth. Mail (preferably by air!) sent to him now at the address below will reach him!

Bradley Manning
                    89289
830 Sabalu Rd
Fort Leavenworth, KS 66027
USA




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Wednesday 14 December 2011

Nelson (Star): Mayor Fletcher

Following is a Letter to the Editor, Nelson Star, sent Dec. 3, 2011

Re: Former mayor's grave marked at last
Nelson Star, Fri. Dec. 2, 2011

When the tomb-stone for Mayor Fletcher was contemplated by Don Tonsaker - according to the Nelson Express, about one year ago - researchers Ron Welwood, local historian, and Pat Rogers, Community Heritage Commission (CHC) and Touchstones Archive, supposedly couldn't find much information on the mayor.

Crucial information they seemingly hadn't found - even though readily accessible - was information which actually defines Mayor Fletcher's legacy. Unless they had unearthed it, and the Express just failed to mention it. Or something.

Bear with me: Local discrimination against the Chinese population of Nelson in those early years was of punching-bag status - with John "Truth" Houston right in there as loudly outspoken racist and the Nelson Weekly Miner advocating to arrange to kill off, if any legal way can be divined to accomplish that act, every mother's son of the almond-eyed pigtail wearers living at present in any country inhabited by white men. He is a filthy, immoral piece of human machinery, not a man in the sense in which the word is used by civilized peoples.
This despite the fact that these filthy, immoral piece(s) of human machinery at the time - while forced to live in the Lower Hill ghetto - were feeding Nelson with cheap, fresh produce, grown under extremely harsh Anglo-determined conditions; had been playing a major role in building area-railroads; did all dirty work for Upper Hill ladies; kept most everybody's clothes clean and mended.
Instrumental in putting Nelson on the map!




Here goes: At that time Chinese farmers asked Mayor Fletcher to lease Cottonwood-Basin land to them - they wanted to establish market-gardens there. Mayor Fletcher could not do this because the land had been given to Nelson by the CPR as park-land. But he did give them permission to work the land as squatters! This was a truly remarkable gesture of generosity at the time - with Chinese habitually used and abused. Taken from - but never given to! 
And then the licensing-fee fracas. Alderman Irving attempted to see a licensing-fee of $25 per year imposed on Chinese market-gardeners. This was a ploy devised by Anglo vegetable-farmers, trying to rid themselves of Chinese competition - even though the Chinese were the first to work Nelson's outskirts as market-gardeners. In fact: some of these Anglo farmers were growing crops on land which had been leased to and cleared and cultivated by Chinese. Meaning: the Chinese had paid money to landowners to be allowed to clear and cultivate their land! To then be told unceremoniously to leave - when the land appreciated in value because of it! Anyway, $25 was an impossible amount for the Chinese to come up with; Alderman Hamilton thought that $10 were sufficient. The issue had everybody jump up-and-down loudly for a while - until Mayor Fletcher put a decisive end to it, saying: the Chinese had been cultivating this land for the owners, and without them it would have remained wilderness! Council was deadlocked, and the issue was dropped!

In both cases Mayor Fletcher showed himself as a man of reason and objectivity - a leader - his own man, way ahead of his time.

Asking to have these two crucial facts published as a letter - I wrote to the Express, as soon as it published the article about the intended tomb-stone and supposed dearth of Fletcher-related facts.
The letter was never published.

I sent a copy of it to Don Tonsaker through Kim Charlesworth, then CHC member from Council.
This e-mail was never acknowledged.

And there is no mention here in the Star about these facts either: information more revealing of the man than anything else published about him in Nelson since his time in office.

Heritage selectively acknowledged - Nelson's heritage!

Claos Schunke
Nelson

End of letter to the Star.

I don't fault the writer of the article for not including this information; I want to bring to his (and anyone's) attention though that - no matter how convenient a conduit the Touchstone Archive may be - there are other excellent conduits with possibly more and/or different historical sources in the area: such as the Selkirk/Castlegar Reference Library.

Which, of course, has nothing to do with the Nelson Star not being interested - now, after it ran its story - in this additional Nelson-specific information of substance about Mayor Fletcher and his time - delivered to its door!
How convenient is that!




As of this date: my letter above to the Nelson Star - more than 3 issues ago - has not been published.







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Wednesday 7 December 2011

Heronically Nelson

Choosing one of the three unimaginatively similar suggested locations for the heron-post may be difficult for many: nobody I asked knows the Heritage Inn Point - there are several points along the waterfront, parallel to the soccer fields. What here (and here alone) is called the Waterfront Amphitheatre seems to be the stretch of grassy slope across from the Nelson Rowing Club.

The mock-ups provide no visual context: leading to an uninformed choice only.

An added consideration - not mentioned anywhere - is the bronze osprey in a nest on a wooden post, in the bay next to the mall's parking lot. This by local sculptor Denis Kleine, within the osprey's natural environment. The osprey is iconic in this immediate area - the heron is not! Regardless - putting the heron that close to a bird on a post we already have makes no sense!

In the mock-ups this post appears to be about 10 feet high, meaning that the remaining 15 feet or so are sunk into the ground. The Nelson Post does not mention how high its sculptor envisions the heron above-ground.

So - aside from possibly not being able to tell exactly where, people also can't tell exactly how high. How real is that!

We do know though that the ground isn't particularly solid in this area - what with sand, landfill and rocks - so it would not be a simple matter of digging a 15-foot hole and sinking the post into it. On the other hand - the higher the post's section above-ground is - the more well-engineered support it will need: considering its weight of about one ton and strong winds common here! No matter how far above or below ground - the post not tapering towards the top, plus the heron business up there, do not make for the desirable centre of gravity. Top-heavy!

Proposed locations at the Heritage Inn Point and Waterfront Amphitheatre present particular (obviously unaddressed) challenges: the first being right at the top of a steepish, narrow slope into the lake and the second at the edge of a slope, where it drops several feet into the lake or on the beach - depending on lake-levels.
Safe installation at the shown Point-location would mean extensive preparation of a very large/deep hole for a foundation-box, possibly reaching into the lake as containment-wall. Three of its sides may have to be fenced. There are lake-level and erosion issues! There is the wind-factor! The commemorative Heritage Inn plaque - seemingly giving the Point its name and being its centre - would need to be moved. A reminder: the post is about 25' high and weighs about one ton! Placing the post closer to the path would mean a completely changed appearance of the Heritage Inn Point. What's in a name?
Challenges of installing this post at the Amphitheatre slope-drop are greater yet: a very large/deep gash would need to be carved out for a foundation strong enough to support this post of - one more time! - 25' in height and one ton in weight. Ground-volatility, erosion-containment and water-issues are a certainty. Added here is that frequently strong winds would hit the post  unimpeded: vibrations from the post into the foundation could eventually mean major disaster.

Of course, all this could be dealt with - but at what environmental, aesthetic and financial cost?

The three images shown in the Nelson Post - the heron just stuck into the ground - are simplistically and reprehensibly misleading: the CDC's attention possibly engaged elsewhere, while preparing for this presentation of no-choice choices for the public. With no engineers present. All this seems to be a rush-job, focused on getting a handle on the tax-receipt issue looming largish.

No matter where the post is eventually located - the City will be well-advised to figure-in a hefty all-purpose insurance policy ad infinitum.

Another angle: The City's agreement with the sculptor has him construct a decorative base he already designed - $6000 received? - which is only doable on flat ground, thus would call for considerable ground-modifications. If the post were to be erected in a way not at all suitable for this base: would the sculptor agree and still keep/get his $6000? The three mock-ups do not show his base or any kind of (necessary!) location-specific foundations.

When the Kelowna City Council came up with a minimum of $40.000 in installation costs, they seemed to know what they were talking about - they had done the math! With these locations here: Nelson can only guess! Even just a rough cost-estimate for various possible location-terrains has been deferred since the beginning, in July; and the CDC said in the Nelson Star, Nov. 16, 2011, that the most important/difficult thing now would be finding the location for the post. The rest - like money? - would be easy!
This approach has made me wonder all along how great a surprise the costs will be eventually.
Information made public about the heron has been sparse and often cheerfully vague. Particularly about money involved. No matter who hands it out for this venture - the source ultimately is the tax-payer! As the City - according to former Councillor Stacey - will definitely not pay for any of this, the public needs to be able to finally see more transparently in this matter. And regardless of how soothing the community-input idea for locations may be: this mock-up construct is superficial fun at best - but certainly not reality-based! How deeply is the community really (supposed to be) involved in this selection process - voting-response has been minimal thus far!

What if the popular location-choice presents significantly more installation problems - thus costs - than another location? But we wouldn't know, would we, if no engineering-based across-the-board estimates are done prior to the decision. What if costs of installing the post in any one of the three locations - one after the other - ultimately should prove prohibitive? Start over somewhere else: with the cart before the horse! Again! Non-existent money to burn!

Unless, of course, all this has been handled efficiently - step-by-well-reasoned-step - already, with the tax-receipt in place. And we just haven't been told!




Could it be that instead of catching a bird - we may just be laying an egg here.







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Thursday 1 December 2011

Nelson in Living Colour

                                                                          Painted Lady - San Francisco CA
1.
Summary of Sustainable Downtown and Waterfront Master Plan
July 11, 2011
Baker Street is one of the most healthy and vibrant main streets in British Columbia, due in large part to an effective revitalization planning initiative 30 years ago.
The downtown will become even more vibrant with modern multi-use buildings that showcase heritage assets...

Plan recommendations
- Adopt design guidelines to provide direction for ways to relate new construction to heritage
  buildings.

2.
City of Nelson Official Community Plan Bylaw No. 3114, 2008
Development Permit Area Building Design Guidelines          Page 41
3.2.29 Colour
Colour is one of the most powerful design tools. The colour schemes of individual buildings and aggregate appearance of various paint schemes within the overall streetscape are very important to the image of the Nelson Commercial Core. Most major paint manufacturers have developed special palettes of "Historic Colours" - it is recommended that reference to these colour charts be made in order to select appropriate colours and shades.
Guidelines
Colour schemes for individual buildings within the Nelson Development Permit Area(s) should be devised to respect the qualities of the community's heritage and the natural environment, and to work harmoniously with adjacent building colour schemes and the context of the entire streetscape.
                                                                         

 
                                                                 LoJo - Victoria BC
3.
Proposal to Revitalize Revitalization
This proposal will look realistically at and challenge sustainability of a healthy and vibrant Baker Street as an impossibility - within the context of Nelson's current mindscape.
It will specifically present a new approach to relate new construction to heritage buildings, with colours - if chosen imaginatively/creatively - indeed being a most powerful design tool for Nelson to make a statement, to expres itself uniquely.
The proposal's aim is toward economic growth - possibly sustainable only through a conscious revitalization of the revitalization planning initiative 30 years ago. A second renaissance, if you will.

3a.
Baker Street - Reality Check
For about half of the year Baker Street can be colourfully alive: sun; appropriately dressed crowds; leafy (for a while flowering) trees; hanging flower baskets; many cars - a summer mood. 
For the other half of the year - like right now - it is possible to see Baker as it really is: no sun means not having to duck under canopies, awnings; uncrowded sidewalks means not having to focus on dodging; no leafy trees, flower baskets and fewer cars means being able to see the other side of the street easily and clearly.
And what one sees now - unadorned, unobstructed and in plain view - is a few blocks of colourless, dingy - even shabby - pseudo-gentility. Gentility - a wishful mindset only: certainly not provided by the street's heritage buildings as such.

Stripping buildings down to their historic gestalt - back then - gave Nelson a context with considerable depth - a raison d'etre. It energized Nelsonites, gave them confidence in themselves and the future: they became enterprising.
This heritage context was recorded, given rules, packaged: it became an industry. At first for practical economic benefit, then to just keep this initial rush of energy coming. Which promptly turned into an addiction. Part of this addiction's ever-tightening grip came from Nelson wanting to appear big and wonderful to the outside - while feeling it really didn't have much else to offer. Granted: there is the lake, and there are the mountains, but they are not unique to Nelson. Neither are heritage buildings, but because Nelson for some time was an economic and transportation hub, there are relatively more to be found clustered here than in other places in the area.


Baltimore MD                                                                                                                     

2a.
Official Community Plan - 3.2.29 Colour
Colour of heritage buildings: there isn't much on Baker (and at first wasn't in the rest of Nelson either) - just as there wasn't much when heritage buildings were put up anywhere else. Considering environmental conditions - the mud! - and well-controlled emotional conditions of the Victorian master in the early days - colour was definitely non-WASP and faded quickly with those non-WASPS who wanted to be folded into the motherly bosom.
Also - paints would have been a frivolous expense for most - even if they had been available and wanted anywhere within the Anglo-colonial psyche.
This presents a problem with Nelson's Official Community Plan: there is no such thing as a special palette of "Historic Colours" - they are a marketing-ploy coming from corporate paint-manufacturers' boardrooms. Translated into: regardless of local context - by using these pre-digested and predictable mudpuddle-colours - heritage anywhere looks like it all came from the same puddle. Nelson's heritage - where coloured - is part of this puddle, and even non-heritage buildings have been splashed by it. What exactly are appropriate colours and shades? If this corporate assembly-line colouring is very important to the image of the Nelson Commercial Core, what's with local creativity, originality? DOA!

2b.
Official Community Plan - Guideline
.....to respect the qualities of the community's heritage...and to work harmoniously with adjacent building colour schemes and the context of the entire streetscape.
The qualities of the community's non-Anglo/Victorian heritage have thus far not been respected. Acknowledgement and integration of Northern-, Central-, Southern-, Eastern-European and Asian heritage would mean an array of colours in the entire streetscape! 

2c.
Official Community Plan - Colour Chart
There is a paint-chart in the bottom-right corner of the Plan's page 41 with an explanatory text. Seemingly an older chart, with an array of pleasantly predictable autumnal shades. This probably is meant as an example of heritage colours presented by a paint-manufacturer of long ago. It's accompanying text reads:
Colour schemes should respect the precedent of historic paint palettes and consider the colour schemes of adjacent buildings.
Magnification of this so-called palette actually shows that the chart is a basic colour chart only - Colours 101 explained - primary, secondary, tertiary colours. And a bar of the supposedly primary colours across the top - they should be a deep/clear blue, a deep/clear red and a bright/clear yellow - actually are a flat bluish/grey, a flat soft/orange and a sandy yellow. What follows is that supposedly secondary and tertiary colours aren't either! Provided one starts with colours commonly acknowledged as primary - one would get a rainbow.
But there's definitely no pot of gold at the end of this chart's result at the bottom. None of these colours fall into the most basic colour-construct the chart talks about; they are faded, washed-out beyond reasonable recognition - having nothing intended to do with heritage colours either! Possibly a poor print-job, exposed to the sun too long.
Page 41 generally presents a superficial and misleading approach!

1a.
Downtown/Waterfront Plan
A year ago Mayor Dooley talked about Baker's need of a paint-job. Aside from the one at the Co-Op recently - no painting or water-blasting seems to have been done there in years.
What started out as a tangible downtown revitalization planning initiative 30 years ago and became very effective has - over years - turned into an abstraction: constantly discussed and tweaked, but now without real momentum and outside the context of the whole - Nelson.



   LoJo - Victoria BC

2b.
Official Community Plan - Guideline
So - the CHC will earnestly weigh a miniscule amount of narrow purple trim on a building on Vernon, set way back from the street and hardly noticed, provided one cared to look even - while Baker buildings are fading away or covered in grime - or both! 
And while the CHC is lengthily discussing a set of inoffensive beige awnings on Vernon - the Masons on Baker have hung one awning - in very strong primary blue and yellow (their colours) - across two store-fronts and the building's entrance, with the Subway logo very prominently displayed on its front. One McHeritage to go, please! The awning has received much negative attention. How it relates to heritage buildings - harmoniously yet - is open to discussion.

3a.
Baker Street - Reality Check
More awnings. On the southside of Baker - between Ward and Stanley - we have the KWC Block, Lawrence's Hardware (Sonja's) and the Hudson's Bay Company (Nelson Trading Company Mall): all 3 have awnings - 15 in total. And over much time (never cleaned!) these awnings on all 3 have come to life with a streaming yellow-green growth. Straight out of Blade Runner. In addition, there are 10 more properties on Baker with awnings in conspicuous stages of benign neglect over years - from very dirty to growing moss. Most of them are heritage buildings:

660-690 Baker
King's Restaurant
247 Baker
333 Baker
441-445 Baker
507-509 Baker (and Ward) - Medical Arts
555 Baker
553 Baker
571-579 Baker
593 Baker

Again - during busy months tourists and locals don't look at buildings across the street, and even if they do - they look at shops over there but hardly up to the 2nd and 3rd floors. This applies to Baker anywhere. With few exceptions, very little of heritage is noticeable to out-of-towners, walking under canopies and awnings, looking at shop-windows. That and the lack of distinctive colour in these buildings hardly make them exist above and around stores on their ground-floors. 

This may be just as well. The very long Nelson Trading Company - potentially an attractive building - looks particularly decrepit: doors forbiddingly closed, with darkness behind; dirty brickwork; a multitude of filthy awnings and tacky signage.

I do not know how deep the concern for the preservation of heritage in the Nelson Commercial Core  actually goes on a practical level - but I do know that Nelson must strengthen its economic base to reach much-touted sustainability. The Downtown and Waterfront Plan talks about modern multi-use buildings downtown - seemingly mindful of  heritage assets but modern nonetheless. For this to be possible the city will have to lighten-up (literally!), let go of its heritage-enclave attitude and facilitate interplay between  Nelson-as-was, Nelson-as-is and Nelson-as-can-be. 
After 30 years - the heritage-theme as wherewithal has run  its course and is tired. This tiredness (and not much else) shows, while holding back development with its restrictive self/all-important rules. 


Painted Lady - San Francisco CA

4.
Heritage of Colour
Heritage and its joyous expression in traditional folk-customs and celebrations usually is colourful in all countries - except for that of Victorian Anglos of the realm - and with that appreciated and cheered by most. Not so in Nelson when it was young, where non-Anglo otherness was unacceptable - except as a fetch-it labour-force. And with Anglo-colonial heritage thus having become the unquestioned norm here, Nelson - despite some creative vibes finding their way in - still is bewildered by colour as a state of mind and keeps it and heritage boxed and stored separately as much as possible.
San Francisco introduced colour as a life-force with the Summer of Love; Berkeley had the Free-Speech Movement around the same time. And England presented the Beatles and Carnaby Street with bold patterns. In California clothes and attitudes were stripped-off - a desire for freedom of ideas and imagination unbound was paramount. England went along with the stripping of attitudes but - being British - wasn't quite ready to strip-off clothes. So it minimized them by making them tight and short. Thus the mini-skirt was born.
In San Francisco people were painting themselves and each other boldly - life as art - and then expanded to painting their environment.
Houses!
This was the beginning of the Painted Ladies - Victorian gingerbread houses painted in all colours imaginable and beyond. Not as rejection of establishment values but as never-before celebration and appreciation of these buildings' design - often deliriously ornate. A riot of colours accentuating structural and ornamental intricacies, adding what those Victorian grandiosities had been lacking all along: beauty, wit and - life! Very quickly these pieces of lived-in art became a magnet for the Leave-It-To-Beaver crowd in the Midwest - where a man was a man, and a woman's place was in the kitchen! Tours! T-shirts! Postcards! Books! A tourism industry! Still today!
Nelson?
Victoria - the most BC-colonial of colonials - started to pay attention to its architectural heritage as a life-form - so to speak - in the 70s. Since then it has at least begun to overcome its maternal prissiness: it now has candy-coloured Market Square and LoJo - Lower Johnson Street - with the winter-issue of Westworld saying about it in a full-page write-up that a new rush was triggered: independent stores and eateries studding a jelly-bean stretch of heritage buildings, now Victoria's hippest hangout.
Nelson?
Over time heritage buildings everywhere/anywhere - often  in seemingly unlikely places - have got a make-over: dress-up, make-up, the works!
Nelson?

Cathedral - Glasgow, Scotland

5.
Nelson Alive!
And why not Nelson? The city has talked about cultural tourism for some time - except the cultural part has not been identified and manifested. Talking to tourists about facilities we have - like the Capitol Theatre, Touchstones, the Royal and the Spirit Bar - is not enough, because their oeuvre is not consistent and not consistently available. Nelson needs to provide a basic feel-good setting - a heart! For many tourists there's nowhere to go in the evening: a missed economic opportunity for the city. And with heritage rarely on the tourists' mind even during the day - at night it doesn't figure at all.
So the tourism booklet for Nelson advertises a lot of commercial venues with unsupported over-the-top promises and finds only meager bits of general local interest with which to fill its pages.

I can see Baker - and spreading out from there to all of Nelson - embracing colour. Not as a CDC-contest for untried local talent but initially professionally planned. Turn all of Baker into a colourful piece of art everybody lives and participates in. Substantiating the Far Out/For Real slogan of the Nelson Kootenay Lake Destination Marketing Organization with this process! A breathtakingly  stylish environment: providing a totally-fun indoor/outdoor shopping/eating experience during the day (with vehicular traffic on Baker minimized) and in the evening (completely closed to vehicular traffic) a cool strolling-dining-shopping-entertainment experience: all this well-lit; shops welcoming with open doors (literally!); tourists and locals dressed-up and gathering downtown - the place to be and be seen; sidewalk-dining with laid-back acoustic sounds - also strolling!

Items: I can see the Hudson's Bay building painted creatively - with appealing signage at the entrance; new awnings; flower boxes under windows; street-level doors invitingly open in summer; attractively lit/decorated inside - in total providing a strong, cohesive two-storey shopping environment. I can see the RBC's public-toilet architecture across the street modified with colour. And I can see the Capitol Theatre -currently with an appearance of no character whatsoever - make a bold statement in its packaging about its contents!

Turning Nelson as such into a place to experience - cultural (including heritage!) and recreational activities part of but not all of it! A time of exuberance - instead of earnest, unproductive single-focus stodge only. In summer and winter alike! Now!



Dublin, Ireland         

The Marketing Organization is perfectly placed to become a prime mover in this: part Chamber of Commerce and part local merchants. A truly vibrant downtown would benefit them thus Nelson - and potential economic benefit certainly was the reason behind its inception. Focused investment in the future. Pro-actively creating a solid economic base - instead of dreaming of an economic upswing, based on a dream 30 years ago!

Introducing colour into local heritage - long overdue because of its various components to begin with - would also allow for easy integration with Nelson's non-heritage and contemporary parts. Done everywhere else. Nelson's insistence on keeping heritage caged does not promote - it stifles. In an odd twist - it bumps into limitations it set for itself! Colouring Nelson's core extensively and dramatically (and then spreading outward!) should also appeal to the art crowd: creative expression on a grand scale such as here proposed may provide a more fertile foundation and environmemt for individually creative expression.

 
                                                                                        
Painted Lady - San Francisco CA


Most important for a renaissance in/of Nelson is its willingness to embrace change.


                                                                                                           

                                                     

Tuesday 22 November 2011

Someone else

























Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

                                                                               Oscar Wilde





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Saturday 12 November 2011

Nelson: electme@nelson.ca

On http://www.nelson.ca/, the Meet Your Candidates page shows contact info of all candidates for office - mayor, councillor, school trustee (incumbents, challengers) - ranging from minimal to comprehensive.
All 14 provide an e-mail address - 11 are personal and 3 are City-of-Nelson staff-addresses (@nelson.ca), the latter used by currently serving council members, running to be re-elected.

The mayor and 2 other councillors - all 3 running again as well - use personal e-mail addresses. This is appropriate: seemingly to avoid the public perception that they are using their current office (and its resources) for the benefit of their re-election efforts.

The appropriateness I see in their decision leads me to look at: why - for election purposes - choose to either stay with the City-provided address or switch to a personal e-mail address.


The 3 councillors - directly using their current official e-mail addresses for said purposes - do not seem conflicted by having their current official construct-as-is overlap with a future personal construct-as-envisioned. Admittedly - this may be a grey area, but - to be prudent - the emphasis here ought to be on wanting to be elected: as in future-staff, not staff-now! The clincher - they may not get back in!
Use of these contact-addresses within the given scenario also could have a domino effect.

The City's e-mail system provides councillors with a programmed personalized ending to messages they send.
When using this official address - there is no difference between the ending of a directly council-related message sent by a now-councillor and a message dealing with non-council re-election issues by the same incumbent as wannabe-councillor.

Double-Use Ending:
Novembra Election
Councillor
City of Nelson
Ste 101 - 31 Ward Street, Nelson BC V1L 5S4
Phone: (250) 352 8263 Fax (250) 352 2131
E-mail: nelection@nelson.ca web: http://www.nelson.ca/

This e-mail may contain confidential and/or privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient or have received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender immediately and destroy this e-mail. Any unauthorized copying, disclosure or distribution of the information contained in this e-mail is prohibited.

Line-By-Line Look At The Above:
1. It seems inappropriate for the candidate - within this re-election context - to here call him/herself "councillor" so directly - unless City Hall is openly involved in his/her re-election!
2. It seems inappropriate for a candidate to make the City Hall postal address his/hers for personal use - unless City Hall is openly involved in his/her re-election!
3. In a re-election message the e-mail address should be a personal one - instead of that provided by the City of Nelson - unless City Hall is openly involved in his/her re-election!
4. In only 2 of the 3 incumbents' City-of-Nelson e-mail endings a personal phone number is given - regardless, all 3 list the City's phone- and fax-numbers. If Joe Elector were to mail, phone or fax candidates at the City's mailing address or numbers - he could only do so through the support of City personnel/equipment/material. This official support could be substantial (and costly!) - what with all of these re-election mail/phone/fax communications having to be received, redirected, printed, recorded, filed, and conceyed by City-staff, while a candidate addressed - a part-timer at City Hall - is on the re-run out there somewhere - or maybe having a nap at home! Surely a multi-level concern - unless City Hall is openly involved in his/her re-election!

Confidentiality Statement
This statement at the very end of a re-election communication in his/her City-provided e-mail-address construct may seem rather too James-Bondish, but it could raise a seriously real question - within this context - if the candidate has to make the password of the account available to a campaign worker. I mean - how's the worker to know whether a message received is - for instance - a reply to a reply to a reply of/to a Council hush-hush-message or the offer of a bake-sale fundraiser. Unless the message is opened.
And copying, disclosure or distribution of information contained in the e-mail is prohibited by whom? Context!

Also - surely significant here - the programmed ending in total of an e-mail message may look impressive to Joe Elector: it comes from established authority, from City Hall! And because generally superficial public perception in politics usually outweighs facts - re-run candidates could have a substantial edge because of that over first-time challengers!

PLUS!

A big PLUS here! As in: there is no rule/law in place, dealing with incumbents utilizing a city hall's manpower, equipment, material for his/her personal gain - which could be one interpretation of running for public office one more time.
The Ministry of Community, Sport(!!!) & Cultural Development - in charge of electioneering - says that There are very strict rules regarding the conduct of local government elections to ensure that they are fair, open and honest and promptly fails to address incumbents on the re-run, who know their way around the system much better than do first-timers and could conceivably use it to an advantage over them. Fairly, of course! Years of in-house exposure vs. an orientation meeting.

Nobody local is officially locked-in to say yes or no electionwise, because the BC government is calling the shots here (even by not calling them!) in the election-sport of running; a city hall has little say in what can/can't be done in its own local election, unless it is the reinforcement of a BC-dictated rule: like a basic advertising matter or a who-can-run-and-what-money-sort-of-thing. What follows - be still, my heart! - is that the lack of re-election-specific rules and the inability to make decisions locally then would - democracywise - also apply/be applied to first-timers. Except - who's to know!
Provided they all do know this - can't you just see incumbents and first-timers re-running and running their campaigns (and against each other!) totally at/from/through City Hall! With staff freely(!) available for hands-on stuff.  Yes, yes, yes, of course this is hypothetical - but just because it hasn't happened before does not mean it can't happen ever! Theoretically and legally (simply because not made illegal!) doable! There is a real Canadian movie in all of this!

Apropos real Canadian movie: some time ago, on a CBC talk-fest the host said that Mitt Romney looks the way an American president would look in a Canadian movie. Great mirth all around!

Anyway!

Right now - under the given (or not given!) circumstances - it's a matter of personal responsibility acknowledged. Only! And as far as the e-mail-address issue goes: the mayor and 2 councillors - using off-City-Hall e-mail addresses in their re-election efforts - show some of that.
Although!
When sent there - these 2 councillors also respond from their City-originated e-mail address to election-specific concerns focused on them personally. Convenience superseding!

My concerns here may seem like splitting hairs to some - a tempest in a coffee-cup! But in Nelson - a small town aiming to become a big town - even proportionally small "City" things can/should be building-blocks. After all, if allowed - minor bad habits now will grow into major bad habits later. That's how the bad-habit-thing works!

Ethical wink-wink practices should not become socially acceptable just because there is no law against them.




Hesitant steps steadying into sustainable strides.




Monday 31 October 2011

Nelson (S)elects!

A long time ago, in a galaxy far away - San Francisco. A bunch of drag-queens create a new order - the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. Dressing-up in their very particular versions of a nun's habit. Wimple and all! Pale make-up, black lipstick and fingernails. And the merest touch of glitter. At first! Fashion-and-otherwise way ahead of their time. On roller-skates. The girls are in-your-face trouble wherever they go, and - as bad girls will - they go everywhere! San Francisco adores them!

Local election in never-say-Frisco! And what with the city being a pluralistic culture - not as smarmy law but getting-on-with-it reality - a lot of very different people run for the Board of Supervisors. And this lot has many very diverse platforms. We've got agendas!
The perpetually indulged/indulging Sister Boom Boom also runs. Her platform: Nun of the above! San Francisco goes wild - she gets 23.000 or 32.000 votes. Depending! I seem to remember 32.000.
The sisters don't mind if their nail-polish gets chipped; in full wimple and with a vengeance they - by-passing political constructs - get into reaching-out where help is most needed. Anytime - anywhere in the city! Low on earnestly dithering predictability and high on the good times of helping others!
Over the years - their fierce in-your-face efforts have been making remarkable contributions. Today an internationally incorporated charitable organization. A work in progress - now with a cast of thousands - of life as art and the art of life. In full glitter!

Local election in Nelson - advance voting starting in five days, the main event in less than three weeks! No - of course I won't compare Nelson to San Francisco. That would be like comparing the newly installed gravel pits at the Nelson Medical Clinic to Ryoan-ji. I am just remembering that an election needn't be dull, predictable - like Nelson's! Non-campaigning leading to the  non-event of a non-election.
In creative, progressive Nelson.

What we have here is a predominantly conservative public's general lack of active interest in matters civic; and the smaller cool segment going downright frigid when it comes to challenging the incumbent city-hall establishment.
Council:
Only one councillor is leaving, meaning that one of the three candidates will fill the slot. So one would expect these three to do some serious strategizing - but I haven't seen/heard/read anything of the kind so far. As a voter I should not have to dig for info on candidates - it makes them seem inaccessible. If all three want to get in - two incumbents would have to go. Three or two new ones could be good: considering the new-ideas/issues-and-energy thing even incumbents have been advocating (see post Nelson: Strings attached below). They could hold onto each other and make some serious noise. Whatever - a perceived lack of new ideas/issues and energy does not bode well for the coming three-year term!
Of the incumbents  - so far - only one has run a same-old-same-old ad (I saw) in the Star and put-up one sign (I saw).

Mayor:
The mayor wants to stay - and will; his two sort-of challengers - also in non-campaign mode - do not pose an actual challenge. Definitely not with phoning it in from out of town or identifying with a former mayor who - even though producing results in some respects - was a racist extraordinaire. 
I have seen one predictable ad in the Star and two re-elect-me signs for the mayor - nothing from the other mayoral candidates.
There is a problem with the placement - as I see it - of one of the mayor's signs. It is large - 4 feet x 4 feet - and placed on the right shoulder of the road (off Front St.) leading down to the city-hall parking-lot. It is also very close to Superior Lighting, and to those who don't know: it could seem to be on this store's property and an expression of its political alignment with the mayor. Neither is the case. Great placement - everybody walking/driving down Front Street clearly sees it! It turns out: the sign is actually on city-property - Superior Lighting was not consulted before it was put-up.
Somewhere in election-laws - dealing with advertising of those running for office - it supposedly says: all manner of advertising using city-property by candidates is disallowed - except for signs. And signs aren't permitted within 100m of a polling-station. So this sign is placed legally, but its ever so close proximity to City Hall and being on city-property may present the appearance that City Hall is totally behind re-electing the mayor. And - at the same time - that Superior Lighting is as well!
Although I do admire the cleverness behind this placement - ethically I feel a tad conflicted. Still - this may be as controversial as the coming election will ever get! Unless several incumbents using their nelson.ca e-mail adresses in their personal re-election efforts is/should become an issue!

It is quite possible that - unbeknownst to the general electorate and not feeling the need for more - incumbents and challengers are actually out there somewhere with their established fan-base - or attempting to create one.

The City - on its home-webpage - provides a link to contact-info of incumbents and new candidates. Information below is according to that page. This list - in itself - tells stories.
All incumbents provide necessary contact info - like phone number, e-mail and postal mailing-address. As mentioned above - some of them are using the City's e-mail address system - appropriate for City-business only - in their re-election efforts. To me - this seems to be crossing a line! A no-no!

In the mayoral "race" both challengers provide adequate contact info.

Of the three challengers for Council - Paula Kiss only gives an e-mail address  bearing her name for contacting her. She volunteers nothing else. This is unimaginative and careless, shows possible unfamiliarity with election-mechanics and definitely lacks openness.
Charles Jeanes provides a phone number and e-mail address. Not offering a postal address tells me that he is not available enough to the public/process.
The third one just about has it all - a purpose-specific e-mail address, Facebook and Twitter. An attractive website shows the candidate(?) in a kayak - nice touch! I would like to see her face though on this website - face-recognition. And I want to know how to pronounce Candace Batycki's surname. Seemingly of Polish origin (I am thinking of Penderecki!) - proper pronunciation here/now is crucial - name-recognition! Aside from these two points - she looks ready for downtown, once she puts out all this contact info in newspaper ads as well. For traditionalists. Not everybody is interested and/or techno-inclined enough to surf their way towards candidates; not everybody facebooks or twitters. Go, girl, go! 

Among the three SD8-Trustee candidates - Curtis Bendig is the only one to have a website, and his Facebook page seems purpose-specific. His colorful website is informative and has his picture - all lookin' good! And putting him way ahead of the others - once he communicates these conduits and personal info through the newspaper as well - now! 


  


Voters have a choice: Will they turn out in force and elect as many new ideas, issues and as much new energy as available, or will they select from among the low-energy group with the same old ideas and issues.






Thursday 27 October 2011

Nelson: Karen's Ginkgo

Lanzhou - Gansu Province, PR China, just a bit below the Gobi Desert, mid-autumn 1994 - acknowledged as one of the ten most polluted cities in the world.
Densely stacked layer upon layer of viscous grey - particularly solid now, with people beginning to heat their homes with low-grade coal - essentially coal-dust mud, shaped and dried into uniform round chunks and sold by the piece. No sun - ever! It left in frustration long before the beginning even of ever!
Very little green - most left with the sun, and what stayed behind has no choice but to conform. Fit in.

On the Lanzhou University campus, the Ginkgo tree in front of a building housing faculty has taken pity on me in my first autumn here: It reminds me of a sun and its possibilities out there somewhere, by completely cloaking itself and the predictably grey concrete tiles under and around it in a feather-light, buttery-yellow shiver. Being over two storeys tall and quite broad, it fills the two windows of my apartment. And when I step outside on my balcony - I do this often now - I can almost touch it. The tree feeds me, grounds and comforts me. When I have to I am reluctant to leave its shelter; when I come back I can see it from farther off - a torch! - and I hurry. Then I walk under it, stop and look up.

After a few days of this - coming back from morning-lectures - I find the area of the tree has been swept clean of leaves. A shock! This repeats daily - I go out in the morning, and the ground is carpeted with yellow Ginkgo leaves; I come back, and they have been swept-up and taken away. But there are many leaves on this tree, so no matter how often the caretaker sweeps - though the shiver is thinning - the tree will continue to be what it has been to me for a little while now. I think!



Then - one late afternoon when I come back - the most shocking sight: There is not one leaf left on the tree and the ground! Not a single one! The caretaker - seemingly partly because Chinese have a passion for sweeping, partly because the leaves made it all too untidy-looking, and partly because he was too lazy to deal with this any longer - somehow managed to get up and into the tree and take down every single leaf! The torch has been extinguished!
Later I find out that he is doing this every year - a well-working strategy: He waits for the leaves to be loose enough on the stem - so to speak - then shakes the branches and beats them with a bamboo pole!
This despite the Ginkgo being China's national tree and its medicinal properties well-known and widely appreciated - in what we call traditional Chinese medicine - for a few thousand years. The caretaker would know this - not so much its beauty and affirmation of light-thus-life. A job is a job!

There are many remarkable facets to the Ginkgo - it is the oldest living direct-line whatever - catalogued as a "living fossil" and reaching back about 270 million years; it has no close living relatives; it does not flower - there are male and female trees. Don't ask - it's complicated! The female - predictably - bears fruit, in appearance somewhat like a green walnut; with its seed in China called yin xing - silver almond - and eaten as a special treat.
In Japan - six Ginkgoes are among the very few living things/beings to survive the far-reaching atomic-bomb devastation of Hiroshima, growing within less than two kilometers of the blast. Though seemingly completely charred - their cores remain healthy; these trees recover and are still alive today! There are Ginkgoes said to be 2500 years young.
In the West - the Ginkgo has been intensively studied scientifically and accepted as having medicinal value - particularly in prevention/treatment of memory loss. A Ginkgo's long memory!


Nelson - Province of British Columbia, Canada, just a bit below Elephant Mountain, mid-autumn 2011 - acknowledged as a place with very little pollution.
The last tree on the east-west beach promenade - closest to the bridge - is a male Ginkgo biloba. It's the only one in that row of trees with age and girth, planted rather too close to its neighbor, and - relatively shade-intolerant - for years growing-up literally in the shade of its big, overpowering cousin many-times-removed. What with branches on its west-side reaching into those of  this neighbor and vice versa, much of the year the Ginkgo is not particularly prominent. And in autumn, its own feather-light, buttery-yellow shiver - although just as delicate as that of the Ginkgo in Lanzhou - is not standing out as much because of many colorful maples in the vicinity. Also - the air is clean, so the sun has no reason to leave for long.

Then - about a year ago - the cousin is cut-down, and suddenly this Ginkgo has enough space all around to just be. Now apparent is that its branches on the big-cousin side are sparse - intimidated and too close for independent development - but the trunk has managed to pull away somewhat from the influence, even though that means also away from the sun! An I've-gotta-be-me sort of thing!
All reminiscent of Nelson - in a larger context.
Well, it can come into its own now, but I wonder how much time will pass before branches fill-in and this Ginkgo stands-up (straight) for itself.

One thing is certain - now that we are having our first nights of grass crackling whitely - very soon this tree's leaves will turn that yellow, nobody will compulsively sweep them up every day. And I will stand under it and look up.

Although my blog often is about shaking the tree to see what will fall out - it will not be this one!




To Karen MacDonald, Keeper of Works and Parks!