Following is material originally presented to the Committee of the Whole (COW), 20/03/17. With more detail, partly based on reactions from Colin McClure, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and Robin Cherbo, Acting Mayor/Chair.
Absent are Mayor Kozak, Councillor Dailly, Councillor Purcell and Kevin Cormack, Chief Administrative Officer (CAO).
COW LIGHT!
Presentation:
"According to Council's approval and the CFO's announcement respectively: funding necessary for road-repairs is to be generated through cost-increases in seniors' bus-passes and meter-parking.
Once funding is in place - done this way surely a very long process - its appropriate use must be ensured: what with Public Works - at wasteful expense - superficially refilling old-familiar potholes for ages. Or not - thus dangerous for drivers and pedestrians! Not to forget - literally and please! - tectonic cracks in sidewalks.
These rate-increases are a simplistic solution, while - with linear foresight - such funds could reasonably be collected from about 40 parking-meters on Hall, between Herridge and Vernon.
It seems bizarre that drivers now may find free downtown-parking on Hall, while - if not so lucky - they not only pay for it just around the corner on Baker or Vernon, but on top of that with a rate-increase.
Substantial revenue from Hall meters - collected during almost a whole year, since completion of that part of Stores-to-Shores Phase 1 - could have been steadily fed into funds sought now.
Colin Innes of Public Works recently talks about replacing old meters with high-tech ones in a year or two - but then only the odd one when falling apart. So - it's actually not all new ones soon. We are vaguely looking at years!
And a good thing too, because - also according to Mr. Innes: we may be too squeamish about an across-the-board change. Therefore, installing these new meters in dribbles will be easier on our fragile collective psyche.
Actually - these newfangled ones - for some time already used effectively and comfortably in other communities - could have been installed a year ago on Hall: their testing-ground, if you will. Seamlessly logical and fiscally responsible.
My direct question to Council here/now: Why are there no parking-meters - old or new - on these 2 blocks of Hall?"
End of COW presentation
I ask Council specifically "here/now", because I want to know how far they are involved. And if they aren't - who is, what with Stores-to-Shores Phase 1 as a whole turning out to be such a clunker.
Robin Cherbo - as Acting Mayor/Chair - promptly turns to the CFO for the answer, an explanation. An answer in itself - so there goes Council's involvement!
About Parking-Meters:
Mr. McClure clearly is unprepared for this particular question, even though he - as the City's CFO - introduced the higher parking-meter rates for Nelson, thus might have considered strong-revenue-generating meters for this virgin-stretch of Hall.
His impromptu reasons are unconnected and non-linear. They come down to this-and-that still in a planning-stage for the Hall Street Plaza, while in my expressed opinion: all planning should have been figured-in, funded and actualized within the overall completion of Stores-to-Shores Phase 1, a year ago. Done - as of! And not still dithered over a year and possibly much more later!
In reality - this was not just a phase but seemingly can go on indefinitely: money for years!
While he says in all seriousness and his own words: parking-meters wouldn't look nice in the wonderfulness of the Hall Street Plaza - I have never known this so-called plaza to be anything but a parking-lot for 20 cars.
He has nothing to say about metered parking for another 20 cars between Baker and Vernon. Neither is he prepared for how meter-maids can enforce the 2-hour non-metered parking-limit along the 2 blocks between Herridge and Vernon. This essentially meaning: business-people in the area can park there all day without paying anything!
About Road-Work:
Just one example of institutional potholes is the series - for at least 8 years - covering much of the north-side crosswalk of Ward/Victoria. Bad in dry weather - absolutely treacherous in rain, snow, ice, slush. Think people who walk: particularly those with mobility-issues. Wheelchairs, strollers.
Just one example of over years periodically refilled potholes is the one on Edgewood, between High and Vernon. Particularly dangerous because cars and bikes love zooming along there.
The US Federal Highway Administration Manual "cites the throw-and-roll method (used to refill and refill this particular pothole and many more in Nelson) as the most basic method but notes that the failure rate of expedient repairs (such as this type) is high, and that they can cost much more than properly done repairs."
While Acting Mayor/Chair Cherbo cites the top-part of Stanley as an example of good road-work being done now. Why there is a head-scratcher, with minimal vehicular traffic - even counting fire-engines - in the area. Keeping streets most traveled - leading to/from downtown - in good repair would be more to the point.
While at least some road-work - no matter of what quality - has been done over time: sidewalks have been ignored.
No amount of additional funding for road-repairs will be of public benefit, unless a comprehensive, outward-from-the-
core vision is locked-in - and well-supervised while implemented.
Bringing the Cop Shop into this would help greatly: they know about the dangers of potholes - and where to find them for Public Works.
After I - several times - bring-up poor planning and the lack of fiscal responsibility - in connection with road-repairs and the theoretical loss of substantial revenue from 40 parking-meters - without receiving an adequate response: Acting Mayor/Chair Cherbo tells me that I am repeating myself.
God knows - I try!
About Decisions:
City Hall floats vaguely connected in-house ideas in-house - but there is no vision of Nelson as an ever-evolving whole with all-interrelating components.
Committee of the Whole sounds good - but it's really a catchy name for a Council Meeting only.
Nobody is referring to Stores-to-Shores any more: it's just Hall Street. Kevin Cormack, CAO, made that quite clear the other day when he emphasized it was all about infrastructure. In other - not his - words: we are not to expect the leisurely green tourist-friendly/luring walk to the lake any longer, we were promised initially.
Silly us have been waiting and waiting for.
Throw-and-Roll;
Throw-and-Roll!
680news.com
Huffington Post Canada
lapotholes.com
cbc.ca
dcrazed.com
Claus
Colin McClure, CFO
cmcclure@nelson.ca
Colin Innes, Public Works
cinnnes@nelson.ca
City Council
nelsoncouncil@nelson.ca
Pam Mierau, Development Services Mgr.
pmierau@nelson.ca
Megan Squires, Sr. Planner
msquires@nelson.ca
Cybering
The range of 8,760 documents leaked from within the CIA Center of Cyber Intelligence - recently made public by Wikileaks - rather substantiates that the American hoopla around much of what Russia may have done hackingwise to destabilize whatever in the US: is more of the habitual detraction by the proverbial people throwing rocks while living in a glass house. To keep in mind - no matter who is president: destabilizing foreign governments is the CIA's bread & butter.
Blessed (should) be the leakers and whistleblowers for telling that "cyber warfare" with "cyber weapons" has been run by many gamers, for some time and all over the only Internet there is: mostly by Americans though and not only on foreign soil. Operating within the US ostensibly a no-no for the CIA.
Ostensibly - as soon you may find that possibility uncomfortably close to home - literally - with even worshiping at your TV not safe any longer. It (THEY!) could be listening to you carrying on! Also - using your smartish phone is not necessarily all that smart any longer.
You may think: I'm sorry - none of this could happen here - we're nice Canadians. Again: there's only one Internet, period! So - of course it could!
"I know who you are, and I'm coming to get you!" soon, and there's nothing you can do about it.
UNLESS!
Facebook
Unless you get with the program(ming) of Mark Zuckerberg's also recent "Building Global Community": 5,700 words on his Facebook page, along the lines of
"To our community,
In times like these, the most important thing we at Facebook can do is develop the social infrastructure to give people the power to build a global community that works for all of us."
Interestingly - this is addressed to "our community", and "we at Facebook" decide what "works for all of us". A new world-order according to Brother Mark. With lots of fuzzy-comfy "Friends, Likes, Shares".
Scientology deja voo all over again!
So far this sermon from the Sugar Mount (Zuckerberg in translation) has generated
5,842 Facebook "Comments"
11,662 Facebook "Shares"
87,838 Facebook "Likes" (as does Martha Stewart, so it is written).
Federico Solmi
Coming from his finally openly declared role as savior of all and everything - this may seem a tad '70s and longwinded. How many will actually make it their own objectively, what with Zuck (as "we at Facebook" call him affectionately) conceding earlier that Facebook has dumbed you down of late. Fake-news and all.
You dumb enough yet?
So - for now - here clicking on Like is the safe way to go for most. Maybe-followers. What with no Don't Like option presented - there's no need for personal decisions: sigh of relief!
Superficially - Brother Mark here presents himself as one of the angels - with Trumping, cybering and what-not on the other - the dark - side.
But while he has kept everybody busy looking at each other's baby pictures: his bigger plan has actually been rolling out for some time.
Even in little-bitty Nelson.
Facebook/Nelson Star
With Facebook by now known for having become very proficient at helping sift through personal (largely emotion-based) dross, it has been contracted for profit to do this kind of work within specific contexts - like newspaper-readership manipulation.
For some time the flow of readers' Comments at the Nelson Star/Black Hole, the rest of the Black Press chain, as well as other-owned papers - has been independently run by Facebook. At the bottom of each Star web-page - under "Commenting FAQ" - the exhaustive "Facebook Comments: Frequently Asked Questions" lays out not necessarily reality-based terms for reader-engagement.
Facebook taking on an arguably basic editorial function. The implications are scary: for now and - even more so - the future.
While in the past one could post/read comments directly to/on the Star's website - this is now possible only for Facebook subscribers. The same applies to emailing articles.
What should concern all readers - however - is that as soon as you click on a particular webpage-heading (HOME, NEWS, OPINION...) you are automatically identified as either Facebookers or heretics.
One - seemingly neutral - click!
As soon as!
Facebookers - clicking on the Comments number indicated above individual write-ups - will be taken to them directly.
Non-believers may! initially see the Comments number indicated, but clicking on that will automatically turn all numbers on all pages to 0.
Yet if they sign on the dotted line - voila! - they not only can read and post comments: they also become members of "our community".
Actually - in reverse order!
While all this raises major questions about bias at Facebook and integrity at the Star and other papers, it demonstrates the exclusivity - by now entitlement! - of "our community"!
Yet this single click - theoretically so far, as far as we (don't) know - soon may also lead those in control directly totally into the murkiest depths of the "community's" most personal dross and its manifestations. Who knows? Zuck knows! Not that the adoring "community" cares.
Equally scary is/should be that a non-believer's single click - leading nowhere specifically revealing - could raise a red flag!
Hiding something?
Sooo - ultimately/actually - how different could "our community" be(come) from the dark side?
"Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean it's not happening."
Like
The comfort-level of the flock's collective/collected banality - by design - is demonstrated in the use of "Like".
"Nelson passes cannabis bylaw"
Star, Mar 7, 2017
indicates 17 "Comments" and 141 "Likes".
More specific interest is possibly expressed in these 17 "Comments".
141 believers clicking on "Like" means what: aside from mental sluggishness and a vague desire to belong to something more important than oneself. Like - what exactly is to "Like" here? Reporter, councillors, cannabis, bylaw, dispensaries, zoning, fee - lunch?
"Heartbeats have no sound on Facebook."
Growing Home
Lee Reid
David Black, Chairman
dblack@blackpress.ca
Rick O'Connor, President
ricko@blackpress.ca
Eric Lawson, Publisher - Nelson Star
eric.lawson@blackpress.ca
Bill Metcalfe, Editor - Nelson Star
editor@nelsonstar.com
PSST!
Looking for free parking: now that meters are to be $1.25, and seniors' passes are upped as well?
You've got 78 options.
Downtown!
1.
Always check Hall first - between Herridge and Vernon:
2 hrs, 41 spaces. No meters - as in free parking! - while just around the corner on Baker you pay whatever meter-rates.
Go figure!
2.
Co-op parking: 2 hrs, 37 spaces - ostensibly for shopping members. Shopping really won't take anyone more than 30 minutes, leaving another 90 for downtown chores plus coffee. Or you forget about the shopping and just park.
Seeing that the previous Council approved a Co-op parking-variance, allowing them to ridiculously actually cut required parking by half: they owe us!
It could be that the City is now adding to/compensating for this doozy it created by giving free parking to the Co-op along the stretch of Hall behind it. With said 41 spaces and from them most convenient access to the Co-op through the lane at DeVito's.
Either would be weird, but then - the City/Co-op relationship has always been tight, even more so with Nelson Commons.
Maybe (maybe!) there's something to City Hall now needing more funds for road-repair - potholes in roads and cracks in sidewalks ever deepening/widening for some time! - but conditions would be less drastic with continual (less pricey!) proper! maintenance over time, than an often again-and-again-same-hole band-aid approach by Public Works under Colin Innes - if any approach at all!
I remember a Star reader quite some time ago knowledgeably and in detail explaining how to fill potholes properly for good. Instead of!
Attempting to make funding happen through pass/meter rate-increases would only be reasonable if City Hall had already exhausted all other possibilities: with - for instance - 41 additional parking-meters on Hall (and where else?) 11 months ago!
Who is in charge of this down the rabbit-hole?
I mean.... seriously?
Also see post
Seniors' Parking Pass Increase
21 Feb, 2017
2nd below
Credits:
Avalisa
Martine Bedin
Colin McClure, Chief Financial Officer
cmcclure@nelson.ca
City Council
nelsoncouncil@nelson.ca
Pam Mierau, Manager - Development Services
pmierau@nelson.ca
Colin Innes, Director - Public Works
cinnes@nelson.ca
