Fund-a-mental Nelson!

Thanks to mainly the Nelson Police Department (NPD) and the Nelson Star - the city got itself into such a tizzy over our mental-health crisis - that for many basic Nelsonites the term "mental health" now automatically conjures up out-of-control criminal doper-wackos, dressed funny and dirty and loud and just not nice.

Their multitudes on Baker directly determining the Nelson Business Association's (NBA) profit margin.
City manager Kevin Cormack said the city is doing what it can to create a more welcoming downtown.
   Volume of mental health calls on the rise in Nelson
   Nelson Star, Jun. 11, 2013 - Sam Van Schie
Changing the Baker amenities was to eliminate their gathering places - and with that these then hippies or catch-all homeless. How many are here now is not clear - it is winter - only very few are to be seen. Yet very few are still too many - so raising the volume by declaring one-and-all mentally ill, mental patients, emotionally disturbed (soon urban terrorists?) is supposed to create momentum to drive them who-knows-where. How about a Wackotown, based on the Chinatown model. For the exact same reasons!
NIMBY!
 

Anybody who has spent any amount of time on Baker Street can attest to routinely seeing marginalized people in distress, some residents and others obviously homeless.
COLUMN: This is what a mental health crisis looks like
Star, Oct. 15, 2014 - Will Johnson
Marginalized by you, Will? Obviously smarmy, patronizing, non-factual twaddle - whether yours or Chief Holland's not clear here!

In the same article (Police Chief) Holland told me the police department has not added a new officer since the 90s.
Is that so!
While Nelson police officers respond to approximately 1000 mental illness calls per year. Some individuals get picked-up multiple times a week.
Always the same - how boring! About 3 times a day, every day of the year! Following a mental-illness-call(!!!) - made-or-not by connect-the-dots. 

But relax! The NPD could have the solution to all our mental-health problems: The Car 87 program would team a police constable with a registered nurse or registered psychiatric nurse to provide on-site assessments and intervention for people with psychiatric problems.
In Nelson the proposal is to use an unmarked police car, staffed with two full-time personnel in plain clothes; a police officer and mental health worker who would immediately respond to emotionally disturbed people.
These mentally ill people could be triaged on the street and in the vast majority of cases have their needs met without being arrested or taken to Kootenay Lake Hospital.
   COLUMN: Car 87 program makes plenty of sense
   Star, Feb. 17, 2014 - Councillor Cherbo
 

Reasons for and advantages of establishing the program are thinnish. No matter how many times this superhero-team would drive a block or two to assess, soothe and then-what: in reality - adding to its already considerable comfort-zone - the insatiable NPD would have itself one more car and one more cop wink-wink - during times when not giving stamps-of-approval to mental-illness cases in the madmobile. 
This addition of equipment and personnel further justified with: it works well in Vancouver. While - according to two researchers from Simon Fraser's  Institute for Canadian Urban Research Studies (ICURS), in Nelson to look at our mental-health situation: There needs to be a localized response. What works in Vancouver or Kelowna may not be effective here.
   Star, Jun. 11, 2014 - Sam Van Schie

Interior Health (IHA) agrees, and regardless of their planned participation in local mental-health management: structured first-response conflict-intervention/resolution here must become a basic given in police-training or upgrading - NOW!

The NPD requesting an increase of $311.000 in its budget for 2015 - tied to its usual comparisons to other places plus mental illness, drugs and street disorder - is an affront to the Nelson taxpayer!
Particularly as thus far - for the NPD - the concept of conflict-resolution has not systematically progressed beyond the acquisition of very costly, totally inappropriate Tasers. Work of the NPD may be less of an out-of-breath effort with (more) training specific to higher-volume incidents.

Sooo - what mental health anyway! Whose mental health? That of the inconvenient or inconvenienced? After all - everybody has varying degrees of at least emotional rumblings - clinically spelled mental-health issues. Usually not copped-to as such within ourselves - while readily judged and felt superior to as social inadequacies of others within the status quo.
Multilevel uncertainties in our daily lives - feeling underappreciated, used and abused - are articulated and dealt with according to the grasp individuals have on the sometimes seemingly overwhelming malaise we perceive to be faced with.
And those who cannot articulate and deal with this are helplessly-hopelessly sucked into it. Often going mental in various forms - shutting-down or acting-up.

The madmobile would present no improvement over currently used all-over-the-place methods of dealing with the few being publicly vocal.

What City Hall, the NBA and NPD have to realize is that this so-called crisis is of the City's making. For years it took great pride in - and Baker merchants hugely profited from! - presenting itself as particularly progressive, artistic and spiritual - all fueled by good plentiful dope. It still does and is. And still does attract young wanderers in search of their bliss, as well as a bit more pragmatic family-groups who want to be able to live safely while on a similar search. Often outside the status quo.
But with spirituality largely an attitude if not a commodity here, no jobs and unaffordable housing: reality soon knocks loudly - at great emotional cost. Drugs - including lots of alcohol - often a temporary escape for the already fragile.

Transients eventually move along - this not so easily done for a family. And they keep on coming: hoping it will be better here than where they came from.

Of course - like any other place - we have homegrown mentals: categorized as such and taken care of or not to whatever degree by the system. But the obsessively big-city-ambitious NPD and the very advertising-dollar-conscious Star - not one mental-health expert among them! - categorically referring to those not conforming as the mentally ill is unconscionable! On Baker they are mentally ill - at Vernon & Hall just hockey-drunk! Eh!
Unsurprisingly - Nelson has no comprehensive vision of its own for addressing mental-health issues as a result of. Allowing the NPD to fill that vacuum with hyping a mental-health crisis. Which we simply do not have!
All in all - we are doing okay with sometimes a few unruly downtown, in a city of 10.000.
So get real already! This is not Brigadoon!

In the pre-election candidates-forum of the Social Planning Action Network (SPAN) - groups discuss individual topics from a list of local concerns - like affordable housing, poverty, mental health and employment. To me a very simplistic approach - and I tell my group that I cannot take-on one item separate from all others: they all are parts of the same gestalt.
I illustrate with the example of Nelson selling itself as especially wonderful - this attracting a certain demographic who might otherwise not have been interested in coming. But once here - with promises unfulfilled - soon adding significantly to above-mentioned problems.
This pushes a button in a mental-health facilitator: getting annoyed with my attention to arriving mentals - we have our own!!! Even though I have not mentioned mental states. Hers is a territorial tunnel-vision within local mental-healthcare.
After the meeting I ask her how many permanent mental Nelsonites we have. She says between 40 and 60. When I ask how many transient mentals are here on the average - she does not know. And - abruptly telling me she has to go - flees! Literally! 

So I wonder how well-or-not she actually is informed of the general state of mental-health in Nelson. Leading to how well-or-not anyone here is. And how well-or-not groups of the mental-healthcare concerned connect with each other. Currently a (the?) common denominator being fragmented funding.

Not a mental-health expert myself - I do have common sense and curiosity. These telling me there has to be an organized pool of any and all local mental-health information and experience - including that of funding, the big bugaboo. This pool then determining smaller, achievable, step-by-step game-plans on the local level - all willingly collective. A study and plan by/for all providers - the local response suggested by Simon Fraser's ICURS.

Without this we probably will remain stuck in fanciful distortion and gimme-gimme self-interests. And the public - unproductively misinformed by news-media - complaining, while not clear on complaining of what exactly.

 


Protect us from the protectors! And their flag-bearers!







Images:
Patrick Caulfield

City Council: 5 Minutes Tops About 5 Minutes Tops

Following is my presentation to the first of the new Council's Committee-of-the-Whole (COW), 22 Dec. 2014.
Plus a Hugs & Slugs addition. God knows I try!

During recent election-campaigning buzz-words like: together, community, listening, inclusive, advice and relationships were part of all-too-familiar rhetoric. Some possibly meant - all to get elected.

One successful selling-point of a candidate for the previous Council was: holding regular cafe-get-togethers to gauge the pulse of Nelson. These get-togethers promptly didn't materialize because the reality of a Councillor's work predominantly is ever-growing stacks of paper and meetings of often seemingly no other purpose than to have reports written about them and agree to meet again sometime. Thus time/energy-constraints soon may seem to leave little room for availability to the great unwashed. And - of course - Councillors do want/need a life and possibly have to make a living. As in Councillor Morrison very absent in the inaugural Council Meeting (and this COW).
Go, Councillors, go!

Having a good-as-new Council - there is an opportunity for the beginning of a new phase. Unfettered by previous habits of self-preservation: campaign-promises actually could become all-inclusive reality. And if not all-inclusive - just more-inclusive would be good!

Example 1:
The COW's Public Participation component of 15 minutes.
Anyone in the audience can voice concerns within 5 minutes tops. Leaving room for 2 more. If there are only 2 - theoretically - they would have 7 1/2 minutes each. And if there is only 1 - he/she would have all 15. This was not the case in the previous Council. It was 5 minutes for 1 or 2 or 3. In fact, in one of my presentations the Chair reminded me that I had 15 seconds left. While I was the only speaker.

After 31 presentations I know exactly how much (actually how little!) information I can pack into 5 minutes - and how much (actually how little!) feedback I could expect from Councillors then. Just in case - I always sent a copy of these presentations to Mayor, Councillors and City Hall's P.R. man. I will continue to do so, also provide links to new posts on my mostly Nelson blog - warts and all.

Councillors - to give credence to the COW's name - need to proactively urge the Whole to attend and participate in these meetings - reconsidering the public-participation process. Like - if more do come and want to speak: how will 4 or 5 or 6 fit into the given 15 minutes?
As a matter of course - dates of the upcoming Regular Meeting and COW must be announced in bold print on City Hall's monthly full back-page in the Nelson Star. Although suggested by me to Councillors several times in the past - this was never done.

Example 2:
The Council Column in the Star - with individual Councillors writing it in a rotation-system.
While the idea was - and is - a good one: its reality usually was a report of City Hall plans, actions previously already known to Nelson. Kept personally non-committal, mostly coming from we've-been-very-busy-and-are-very-excited-about.

Here also - with new Councillors not carrying City Hall's historical baggage - is an opportunity for them to express thoughts about their job in relation to Nelson. Ideally talking about an issue only if clearly identified with, arriving at a definitive conclusion - if not solution. The public has had enough of vague campaign-style concerns with even vaguer answers.
This column - carried on the Star's website as well - is a perfect vehicle for a Councillor putting him/herself out there and asking for the public's input. Not in Twitter-snippets but a thoughtful contribution to the Whole, expressed in a few contextual sentences, actually deliberated prior to commenting.
Someone on Council will have to initiate contact with the Star over this - now! Part of that conversation must be: currently commenting there is possible only for Facebook-Friends - this hardly in the spirit of together, community, listening, inclusive, advice and relationships! The lengthy justification for using Facebook only clearly punched-out for the Star by the Facebook-machine itself.


Any criticism here of the previous Council is only brought-up within the context of factual as-it-was - and how to improve on it.

And with that my 5 minutes are just about up.

  
Hugs
Clearly it is not enough to just vote for the most promising promising whatever - a guessing-game at best, wishful thinking. Bound to disappoint!
Neither is it enough to just promise to get votes.

To make it all work after election: it is the voters' responsibility to keep those elected on track with issues/concerns presented consistently - keep them from getting derailed. That's the deal with participatory democracy (admittedly not big in Canada!). A proactive group-thing. The Whole - as City Hall calls it.

There are several ways of connecting with Mayor Kozak and Councillors by e-mail. The simplest is to message them directly:

Mayor Kozak
dkozak@nelson.ca
Councillor Adams
badams@nelson.ca
Councillor Cherbo
rcherbo@nelson.ca
Councillor Dailly
mdailly@nelson.ca
Councillor Morrison
jmorrison@nelson.ca
Councillor Purcell
apurcell@nelson.ca
Councillor Warmington
vwarmington@nelson.ca

This address-pattern applies to all of consequence in corporate Nelson.



Just because you don't take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you.
                                                                        Pericles
                                                                             430 BC

Slugs
Of course - local news-media must be instrumental in presenting all voices. Yet the Star - generally not the most adventurous in City Hall coverage to begin with - instead of moving closer to facilitating this participatory democracy is moving further away from it by making commenting by the electorate selective.
Facebook-Friends Only! All Non-Friends To The Back Of The Bus!
But - if comment you must: Facebook is right there to I could (and will!) just eat you right up!

I contacted Bob Hall, previous editor, about this long ago, and his reply was a few key-words/phrases from going-on-forever Facebook (NOT Nelson Star) Comments: Frequently Asked Questions, to be accessed by clicking on Commenting FAQ, at the very bottom of each page of the Star's website.
Kevin Mills, current editor, did not respond.
Right!

Worst Spammers of 2014 places Facebook 3rd for sending 263 e-mails on average per user.

More on spam immediately below in
Telus Like It Is!
30 Nov. 2014

Star(s):
Karen Bennett
publisher@nelsonstar.com
Kevin Mills
editor@nelsonstar.com

 














So get involved!
Do something!














Images:
Keith Haring                                                                                 

Telus Like It Is!

SUBJECT: Group Mailing
Imagine you want to throw a birthday-bash for Grampa - so everybody living all over the map has to be invited months ahead of the event. With not all atwitter, facebooking, and calling them individually costing a fortune (you know how it is: getting stuck on the phone with Mom!), also to save time: invites have to go out by e-mail.
To make that as simple as possible you put everybody into an UNDISCLOSED LIST/GROUP on your PC - and the invite only has to be written once. Click SEND! Done!

Over time you may follow-up with a few more of these group-mailings to get everything just so for the big day.

SUBJECT: Spamalot
But - if some in that repeat-group have a telus.net account - TELUS may identify these group-mailings as SPAM! And DELETE the telus.net portions just like that! Not return them: delete as in gone! While only those with a different INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER (ISP) will get theirs.
Happy Birthday, Grampa!

And - be still, poor heart - if you subsequently attempt to message any of these TELUS-contacts individually: same thing! Your IP (INTERNET PROTOCOL) ADDRESS - once blocked as SPAM-identifier of the repeat-group - will pop-up ever after. Promptly swallowing individually sent messages also!

Imagine the impact this simplistic - and among ISPs singular! - GROUP-equals-SPAM approach can have on TELUS customers - period. Certain very big and very known group-mailers seem immune and get through to them - but with a sender's IP ADDRESS not matching a prearranged good-to-go construct within the TELUS modus operandi - red lights flash, bells ring! You're out!

SUBJECT: NOT SPAM!
The above has been my experience with this blog and TELUS - for several years having notified readers in groups of around 20 of a new post. Without a hitch - except I know from 2 of my (fortunately!) only 6 telus.net contacts - out of several hundred with different ISPs: for some time, they have received neither links to new posts nor individual person-to-person messages like: how can this be? The other 4 haven't replied, and how could they: if they didn't receive my inquiry to begin with!

So I call TELUS. The rep guesses: somebody must have reported abuse, possibly even a hundred - who knows. She clearly doesn't! I sort this for her: with only 6 telus.nets who wouldn't complain - why would 100 non-telus.nets report so-called abuse to TELUS while not to their own ISPs?
And what abuse? Seeing the blog is not pushing any kind of illegal issue, Nigerian fundraising or marketing of New! Improved! products - and these brief post-reminders in themselves totally innocuous.

The TELUS-rep realizes there are flaws in their ointment and will take it up with the TEAM. In order to have me unblocked, she needs the link to the blog and gives me a superspecial telus.net address to send it to - while she waits on the phone.
My requested very basic message arrives in the TELUS-rep's office as - drum-roll!!! - SPAM!!! She is surprised - I am not!
I am to hear from her by phone within 48 hours that I, indeed, am not an evil spammer: henceforth off their no-fly list. One week and one e-mail reminder to the superspecial e-mail address later: nothing!

Not a telus.net subscriber myself this is only an annoyance to me - but much more to my telus.net contacts who have to put-up with this limited/limiting while full-price(y) service.
How could I possibly be the only one TELUS is happening to this way! 

TELUS! TELUS! TELUS!

 
SUBJECT: SPAM Control!
Nobody likes SPAM - the real thing - thus not receiving any at all ever is the way to go for many. Let the ISP deal with it: delete, delete, delete!
What many don't consider in their urge to unclutter - there's nobody there there determining pros and contras of individual messages. With TELUS it's a computer-program designed to make extremely narrow assumptions/decisions about sender and message.
Meaning: messages of direct importance to both - sender/addressee, grouped or singly - may not be DELIVERED! And dumped!

There obviously is convenience in having incoming mail presorted. This either needs a separate box for SPAM, or an individual message is identified as possibly being SPAM.
Different ISPs have their own ways of identifying then dealing with it. None are totally fool-proof, just as long as subscribers receive everything sent to them - unless otherwise agreed.
Personal choice!

Some ways of cutting-down on receiving INTERNET Spamalot:
1.
Don't post COMMENTS, participate in POLLS and SURVEYS - unless there's a direct personal connection. Even just clicking on Yes or No will register your IP ADDRESS. Which remains in that particular system!
Proof: If you think you can further your agenda by repeat-voting/thumb-indicating on the same issue - you will be told you have voted already, or your click will be ignored.
What/how you comment, vote, answer determines your value to specific commercial-interest groups ready to pounce!
2.
Never sign-up for Tips on anything.
3.
Never open SPAM!

Of course - how to control SPAM at its source is another matter!

 Bottom-line: All connections made from your computer make its DNA - your IP ADDRESS - available for harvesting. Often sold and resold on lists. As are - you! The more social media you subscribe to and interact through indiscriminately - the more you open yourself to cyberspace-junk floating around out there - including SPAM!






                         You're lonely - get a goldfish!

 

City Hall, 2nd Floor: Then and When

In the last pre-election Committee Of The Whole (COW), 20. Oct, 3 Councillors are absent.
In the first post-election COW, 17. Nov, Mayor Dooley is on his way to a Fleetwood Mac concert in Vancouver.

The latter - also last - COW of this term is just so much (more!) political Smallishtown theater. Supporting actors looking for their marks close to Mayor-Elect Kozak just in case wink-wink. Positioning for future advantage: they are line-perfect and aglow with how particularly wonderful the last 3 years have been on/by City Hall's 2nd Floor. 

But no moment of reflection. No stock-taking. No we could - really should! - have done better!

My reality-check presentation starts-off this COW:

A Brief Post-Election Review of Pre-Election Council

Over the past 3 years I have made 31 COW presentations - usually taking-on aspects of Council's work Councillors either weren't willing to touch at all or had touched only superficially. I routinely provided print-copies of the material and links to my blog-posts. My It's-Your-Job! position towards them eliciting little direct response. Except for making me very unpopular for simply refusing to fit into a City Hall culture unacceptable to my principles.


Bottom-line: Input not welcome here!

But then - being present at most Regular & COW Meetings over that time-period - I don't remember a Councillor ever personally taking-on an issue - focused, clear, comprehensive - demanding the 2nd Floor's attention. Not once!

General unresponsiveness of Councillors to inconvenient issues, each other and the mayor directly facilitated expansion of his and the CAO's range.

Incoming Council will have to apportion substantial time and energy to fixing unattended, unresolved or botched issues before initiating new ones. Such as not-at-all-new affordable housing, secondary suites, water-rates, taxation, poverty - all inter-connectable.

A few more general pieces of Council's legacy:

1.

While the Community Master Plan curiously ignores the heart of the matter - Baker Street - it just as curiously prioritizes Stores to Shores - which finally is beginning to raise eyebrows. The reality of this stroll-to-nowhere raising mine in the COW, 22 Jun, 2013.The not-so-masterly plan having many other holes: embraced by Council in total.

2.

Council's addiction to outside consultants telling us - always at a hefty price - what's best for Nelson, while actually knowing little about us. And their reports usually fading away.

3.

Council glowingly approving the Nelson Commons mediocrity - clearly not a tourist-magnet - to become and remain for a long time the very unexceptional center of the Nelson universe. If it is actually built ...

4.

... because Council has habitually handed-out variances, permits to condo-developers - while ignoring what market? and developers' financial integrity. Despite the fact of over 350 advertised-by-Baker-agents-alone available properties in Nelson and vicinity.

5.

Council passing a very restrictive parking-bylaw change which - if enacted - will have great negative impact on downtown. And this only in order to benefit Nelson Commons financially.

6.

And finally - Councillors having spent much time and energy in meetings on bits-and-pieces championed by numerous groups, committees, commissions. Often with similar agendas. Except for funding and - control!

While - clearly - solutions to many issues plaguing Nelson could be found in inter-connecting groups - joining them like so many weak threads twisted together into a strong rope.

Before the previous election, a then-already-very-old-timer on Council expressed a need for fresh blood, new energy and ideas. As there was only going to be one vacancy: fresh blood, new energy and ideas could only have been infused in sufficient quantities by several old-timers leaving voluntarily. I said at the time: it's unfair to Nelson and new Councillors to just hang-in-there for another 3 years. If you're tired - for the good of the Whole - just leave!

 

Indeed - this Council sleepwalked through much of its term. Generally agreeing

with each other just to get on with it - instead of building consensus based on personal conviction: to arrive at well-balanced decisions.

Undoubtedly - it worked hard, but nobody will remember basic bread-and-butter results. Its legacy will be vital issues producing changes for the better, changes for the worse - and no changes at all.

This is not about blame - but acknowledgement of what is. After all - how can you build on denial?

   (End of presentation as such)

I then address Mayor-Elect Kozak directly - asking her to create an atmosphere in which all Councillors and the public feel free to express themselves clearly/fully - and are heard.
We shake hands, and I leave - missing-out on 2(!) consultants' reports and - of course - the popcorn!

Kozak - while campaigning - is cognizant of current Council not having been fully engaged, wants to facilitate across-the-board communication and further gathering/developing ideas from all. Good! Her first steps towards that: listening to concerns voiced to new Councillors during their campaigns. Good again! And - while totally reasonable - novel on the 2nd Floor!

A large part of her campaign - and its success - was contrasting her leadership-style to Dooley's. It is to be hoped this includes clearly locking-in the decision-making process leading to the implementation-process: Council decides - the Chief Administrative Officer (emphasis on Administrative) implements what has been decided. A growing fuzziness, tut-tutted over by many in the community.
Tightening, streamlining processes - until recently some the pleasure of only a few - will provide more certainty thus efficiency to all on the 2nd Floor. And ultimately Nelson.

... of this term and final post about it.



I look forward to Mayor Kozak and her Council going easy on the glow while leading Nelson from then and when to then and now!

Remembrance of Whatever

While Cpl. Cirillo - family-man and dog-lover, with no physical/psychological combat-wounds to show - will be elevated to sainthood in Hamilton come Remembrance Day - after being shot on his standing-around job in Ottawa by a man with mental-health issues and - for political expediency - praised for this heroic act to high heaven: who remembers those job-over redundants sort-of making it back from experiences of - to the mall-brained - impossible to imagine horror?

They now may want to be nothing more than family-with-a-dog - but what they remember won't let them.

The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.

                                                  Aldous Huxley

Remember who got them there and (if) back like this!

Remember Peace!  

Sankai Juku

Sondra Wampler   

Pelant, NDCC Shape Shifter!

Council candidate Justin Pelant speaks for small business
The Nelson Daily, Nov. 4, 2014
Bill Metcalfe

Pelant's answers to 2 of Metcalfe's questions below - contrary to providing clarity for the non-business/not-wealthy segment of the electorate - may now raise pointed concern among them over his cozy (ongoing yes/no/what) connection(s) with the Chamber of Commerce (NDCC) and Economic Development Partnership (NAEDP).

These 2 questions - in local main-stream media finally! - are a direct result of earlier observations in 3 blog-posts immediately below: the electorate deliberately, consistently diddled for political advantage by 1 Council candidate. 

1.
Metcalfe:
Why, and when, did you step down as president of the Chamber of Commerce?

Pelant:
I stepped down as president because it could be viewed as a conflict of interest. I had not stepped down when I announced that I was running because two of the other executive council (?) were out of town and we were in the midst of selling our building. So at our next meeting two weeks later, I put forward a motion that I was stepping down. Depending on the outcome of the election I will either come back as past president or I will step down entirely. So I am on a leave of absence right now.

We will probably never know whether-or-not he actually did step down - seeing there has been so much dodging-and-weaving and evidence to the contrary thus far (see earlier 3 posts!).
What we do know: since his candidacy announcement, Oct. 8, until the SPAN all-candidates forum, Nov. 5 - Pelant repeatedly publicly used his connection with the NDCC/NAEDP to give substance to his candidacy for City Councillor.
So what's with this leave of absence?

His only-now-declared intention to have wanted to step down from the start, Oct. 8, and reasons for not doing so then are disingenuous at best. Why wait until cornered to speak-up about it - 2 weeks after he supposedly stepped-down? Clearly - his candidacy was hatched within the NDCC collective - way before its announcement. Thus - had the appearance of a possible conflict of interest actually been on the table then: this could/should have been handled before two of the other executive council (sic) were out of town and before we were in the midst of selling our building.
In the midst of selling our building??? As Joan Rivers used to say: Can we talk?!

Thus far running his NDCC/NAEDP-Botox act for 29 days out of 39 - between candidacy announcement and election. I say: thus far!

2.
Metcalfe:
Does this apply also to being on the board of the NAEDP?

Pelant:
No, because it is a partnership between the Chamber, the City and local businesses. I have talked to other members on the board and they said,"We still want you on (the board)." I will continue on that board whether I get elected or not, if they still want me.

  

 

If possible conflict of interest applies to the NDCC connection - it does even more so to this here Partnership! The NDCC - coaching local businesses - is funded by them and partly by the City. And Chamber Prez Pelant was appointed to the NAEDP-Board by the NDCC. Putting the NDCC in charge of the NAEDP. I am not aware of the NAEDP receiving any funding from the City - you following me so far? Deep breath: while Council candidate Pelant now is-or-not at the NDCC-top - he definitely is on the NAEDP-Board. Same shtick. With not a word from its City reps: Councillors Kiss and Kozak - the latter a candidate for Mayor. And John Dooley - current mayor and NDCC champion - wanting to be re-elected. Probably worried about that - so there's all-around urgency! Got it?
That other members on the board...still want you on (the board) - though cuddly - is seriously immaterial in this situation. If nothing else: a dinky preference over integrity.
Altogether not trust-building! For a Councillor-in-trying!

I don't know Pelant personally, and my problem is not with him but the NDCC: a moneyed old-boys' club of all-pervasive local influence, with the Nelson Star's direct backing and ideologically that of the current mayor. 

Ultimately Pelant is negligible as a viable presence in his own campaign: solely run as a means to get legitimate/permanent access to City Hall's 2nd Floor.

And while one would expect this backing to generate great star-power - it has left him colorless and hardly there there. Left! Because - to the great unwashed - his backers have been unable to seamlessly mesh his candidacy with their intentions: it's all blatantly about the NDCC - see its repetitious Star-coverage - with Pelant in a clumsy orbit, held sort-of in place by the group's gravitational forces only.   

Running for elective City office should mean: for the start-to-finish duration - officially, publicly severing all existing professional ties - and avoiding any reference to them for advantage - with the City!

Not done here - in a watered-down version of American politics! 

VOTE INTEGRITY!

Both questions/answers are direct quotes/copies.

Justin Pelant: Neither here nor there!

I think Nelson is a brilliant place to raise kids and have a family.
                                          Justin Pelant
                                                Nelson Star, 8 Oct.


The Councillor-candidates list shows his local address as that of his business on Baker. Where he does not live. Neither does his 5-year old son with his wife. In fact - they don't live in Nelson at all!
But in Bonnington.


Justin Pelant - brilliant!

Vote Integrity!
 

NDCC: For YOU Cheap!

Continuing the post immediately below.


You just can't have everything you want! I mean - where would you put it?
                                                                          The Llama Parlour
                                                                                       Kathy Lette


Business - simply - is an exchange. An exchange of goods/services of one group for the money of another. One group supplies - the other consumes. Because of their interdependence the assumption that they would work hand-in-hand is reasonable. An understanding based on mutual respect and benefit. Ideally!

Money!
But with money the great motivator: inevitably greed kicks-in on the supply-side, and to find ways to satisfy this greed suppliers congregate in their local Chamber of Commerce (CC) to scheme for more. This expert association systematically guiding members in the pursuit.
Not to be too obviously one-note about this: it often cloaks its schemes in righteous community-this-and-that efforts - while the fixed goal behind it all without fail remains more profit for its members.

Just as inevitably - a CC sooner rather than later will attempt to control the whole local show nudge-nudge wink-wink. And - all branches jointly - the provincial and national.

There are over 450 CCs/Boards of Trade across relatively sparsely populated Canada. Then there are Canadian CCs (CCC) in foreign countries. All feeding at the same trough.
If you - for instance - are concerned with bad-bad-bad China flooding the Canadian market with cheap goods - thus eliminating jobs by killing production and what-not nationally: your concern is misdirected. Because the CCC in China - a huge affair in several cities - is making all arrangements necessary for this to happen as expeditiously as possible. Chinese don't manufacture on spec - they're getting orders for stuff from Canada, with the trans-Pacific toing-and-froing facilitated by CCs there/here - all interconnected by following the same manual. Often merchants of misery - literally. 
The more money is involved - the less morals are an issue.

Local money!
The Nelson & District Chamber of Commerce (NDCC) is a small part of that - a part nonetheless. The modus operandi is the same.
Business in Nelson superficially means Baker Street - as does Shop Local! - and when we are consistently told by the NDCC and (current) Mayor Dooley - its champion - that supporting this (small) area by all/any means will automatically have significantly more tax-revenue gush in and create significantly more jobs: all hogwash!
If services/goods offered in Nelson - period - are filling needs of a large enough group, are of good quality and reasonably price - there will be profit and employment. Empty store-fronts on Baker only signify poor business acumen, a diluted/changing market or the proprietor moving on! They are not indicative of a sluggish local economy, needing to be nursed on Baker (only) by City Hall, on taxpayers' time and money. But made to look that way by the NDCC - to get more tentacled concessions out of the City! 
With all that disproportionate attention - the downtown business group has developed an attitude of entitlement. Only taking - never giving.

Very local money!
The coming election is an opportunity for the NDCC - a wealthy old-boys club - to solidify its place at the local feeding-trough by - this time - semi-transparently attempting to insert its man into City Council.
Oct. 8
Justin Pelant, NDCC Prez, also Board-member of the Economic Partnership - flaunts these jobs as qualifications in his candidacy announcement. A connection thought rather too chummy for the comfort of many non-business locals - particularly what with financial arrangements between Chamber and City. Possibly leading to the appearance of City-provided funds indirectly/in part used by the NDCC to get Pelant elected. 

Surely a conflicting moral issue at least - but moral whatever!

 

Oct.21
And despite Tom Thomson - the NDCC's enabler - announcing once to me and Frances Long, City Hall - only, never publicly! - that Pelant took a leave of absence from the Chamber for the duration of his campaign - according to Pelant himself: he didn't!
Oct. 22
Seeing that the same Pelant is the very present center-fold in an onslaught of Nelson Star coverage, in praise of the NDCC's and Economic Partnership's come-on. Four whole pages impossible to get through. And live to tell.
Oct. 29
And the very same Pelant - in the Star's Q & A with Nelson's council candidates - still/again posturing with I have served on the Chamber of Commerce Board for six years, as well as Nelson's Nelson and Area Economic Development Partnership...

  

On the money!

Clearly - somebody at the NDCC is untruthful: is he or is he not actively involved in the Chamber during his campaign? This is raising questions about motivation and means-to-an-end in all the NDCC wonderfulness paraded by the Star - ever so generously facilitated by Chuck Bennett, publisher and recent president of the Chamber.

Could it be that this never-before push into City Hall (legitimately!) is furthered by the worry: what if Dooley isn't re-elected?! Could it be that Pelant is positioned from within the Chamber as a Doug Ford - with the real candidate being the NDCC and Thomson its mouthpiece?!

A penny for your thoughts!

Oct. 31

The Star - front-page/above the fold - below Election 2014, where else - runs Businesses support fiscal responsibility. Another lengthy NDCC campaign item - thus more accurately Business supports...

Oct. 29

The very same article is already brazenly run online in the Election 2014 section.

Oct. 31

Then it is moved from there into News (more accessible - while not quite so campaigny!) under Business community champions planned, sustainable growth. 

And to the front-page under the heading above above!

Different place, time, heading - but all the same and surely not done by the Star on its own. But in a huddle to accommodate! With/through/by/about Tom Thomson (of course) instead of Justin Pelant (of course). Thomson and Pelant seemingly out-of-sync with each other on basic who-is-what: this can't help either one - thus their cause.

Thomson here essentially repeating positions floated locally on current issues off and on. With all this finagling trying to play it safe towards the center - votes for the Chamber, don't you know! Nothing new - and any concerns he mentions now could/should have been addressed by him/them over time - but weren't, are props only. Campaign blather!

Seeing there are several more Stars to shine before election - we have more of the Chamber's adjustable-to-fit-any-situation mantra to look forward to - but don't.

                                                                     

Nov. 12

Three days! before election - the NDCC will run a debate with the three candidates for mayor, at the Prestige Inn.

According to the Star The questions posed will be prepared by the chamber and local media, including the Star.

Right!

Tom Thomson - NDCC; John Dooley - City Hall; Chuck Bennett - Nelson Star. 

All for one - one for all!

VOTE INTEGRITY!