Renwick's mantra - as candidate for City Councillor:
"When I look at how Baker Street has been allowed to deteriorate, with aggressive panhandling and open drug use and violence; when I hear tourists for the first time ever saying that they won't come back to Nelson; and when I hear residents say that they are scared to visit their own downtown, it's clear that new leadership is needed at council."
Cal Renwick
Star/Nelson Daily
28.08.18
Yours - I take it.
Listen Up, Cal!
How exactly has Baker been allowed by whom to deteriorate since when? Deteriorate as such or because of aggressive panhandling, open drug use and violence? Be specific!
Did you take pictures; submit letters to local papers; have interviews on local radio-stations; present plans to the Nelson & District Chamber of Commerce (NDCC); address Council in COWs; get all this on facebook?
How many incidents of aggressive panhandling have you personally witnessed, been subjected to (even just read about in local media) over what period of time where? Actually - how many cases of just plain panhandling - period?
Did you video them; call the police; talk to meter-maids; submit letters to local papers; have interviews on local radio-stations; address Council in COWs; get all this on facebook?
What kinds of open drug use have you witnessed how many times where?
Did you video them; alert the police; submit letters to local papers; have interviews on local radio-stations; address Council in COWs; get all this on facebook?
How many acts of violence - what specifically?! - did you witness, were subjected to how many times where?
Did you intervene; video them; 911 the police; submit letters to local papers; have interviews on local radio-stations; address Council in COWS; get all this on facebook?
When how many? tourists told you for the first time ever (you personally - or generally never before anyone?) that they won't be coming back to Nelson: did you ask them why not specifically?
Did you record them; connect with Nelson Tourism; submit letters to local papers; have interviews on local radio-stations; address Council in COWs; get all this on facebook?
How many residents - of what age? - told you personally how many times that they are scared to visit their own downtown?
Did you video and offer to accompany them; alert the police; submit letters to local papers; have interviews on local radio-stations; address Council in COWs; get all this on facebook?
No?
You are shamelessly fear-mongering, pandering to the most base Twitter instincts: Cal's fake news!
As you and your gang - one for all/all for one! - couldn't possibly have actually had (any of) these experiences you go on about - in Nelson???: this is your time to become informed like responsible adults and communicate substantiatable facts instead. Only!
I mean - wtf, Cal!
Clearly - neither you nor your co-runners and fellow-believers are - and will be in time for the coming election - as you see yourselves:
new-leadership material.
Retired - with too much time on your hands?
Your wife wants you out of the house?
Image Credit:
Dezeen
This connects with:
Market(ing)
7 Aug, 2017
The Cottonwood Bombshell - A Dud!
20 Jun, 2017
Is there a Market for this?
26 Oct, 2016
82.600 Dollars (So Far)
20 Apr, 2016
Downmarket
26 Mar, 2016
Altogether these posts have had 610 visitors by now - clearly there has been concern! And particularly should be as a send-off for this Council: what with their disregard for common-sense-accountability throughout the Market project.
And their unwillingness to openly question CAO Kevin Cormack's role in it.
This Council will be remembered for bobble-heading from one poor decision to the next with Hall St Phase 1 & 2 - but chiefly the Cottonwood Market fiasco.
Since
Nothing is left of the $122.600 approved by Council for a Cottonwood Market redo since Nov. '15.
Therefore - work on whatever - mostly behind closed doors and promised to the public only in bits of time and stuff by Cormack - the City's bottom-line - (for) now has come to a full stop.
With $82.600 of the total from Nelson taxpayers: it's time to be clearly informed by City Hall of what has and hasn't happened down there.
Mostly hasn't!
Low points along the path:
This rundown is meant to be as easily digestible as possible - more detail and chronological order can be found in the posts listed above.
1.
While dismantling the old Market structures is only contemplated - Cormack orders their sudden demolition. To everyone's surprise and dismay of many - including Council's.
2.
Council approves $12.600 for a general redo-pre-plan plan to be put together by Cover Architecture - chosen how?
An expensive elementary to-do list, really, as it turns out to be.
3.
Then they approve $30.000 for a design-or-something: sufficiently vague to give Council pause for thought. It doesn't though, nothing ever does from here on - during the new Market's evolution - to make them take a stand as a unit with
"No more of this foolishness!!!"
4.
Before any design actually materializes - Cormack initiates an infrastructure grid of spectacular disconnect to what? reality, placed in the general vicinity of a possible market-building or something somewhere.
The source of funding - and to whom? - is never made public; it ultimately comes out of the Council-approved market-pot-of-gold: to substantially contribute to the whole project later running out of money.
5.
Council allocates an obscene $40.000 to the Cottonwood Market project - almost 1/3 of the CBT's total grant-giving to Nelsonites' arts/culture for that year.
A project of dubious origin, vision and leadership.
The public finds-out about this only from the list of all grant-recipients in the Star - but not what this windfall is to buy.
Clearly - the CBT needs to narrow parameters for its funding-disbursement. Ideally now: in time for the new Council. Limiting the amount to be granted to a single applicant/organization: with that making more funding available to more across-the-spectrum deserving.
Strictly binding Council as conduit to CBT-determined rules!
6.
It is never communicated to the public who has been in charge of the Market's arrested development since David Reid - EcoSociety/Market poster-boy - unceremoniously quits running both.
Presumably it's been Kevin Cormack's divided attention since.
7.
A design for the new Market materializes. Cover Architecture talent doesn't identify with basic needs of vendors/customers: shelter for them, produce and general merchandise. Reasoning for this design - and defensive posturing against prompt criticism of it - is only self-serving.
8.
Eventually the design is quietly nixed at City Hall - when, why, how and by whom never made public.
Neither is the amount paid for it to Cover Architecture.
9.
Then - after a longish period of silence around the Market - comes a (second) band-shell nobody expects, nobody needs. After a first band-shell died ages ago as part of the general Market-design's rejection.
A non-specific-design design yet - asked for by whom? from - be still, poor heart!: Cover Architecture.
Non-specific-design design: because Council is asked to give approval to this new version on-spec! And does! The emperor's new clothes!
Once there actually is a complete design - again the architects don't identify basic needs: here acoustics + shelter. Their proposal is crippled, lopsided enough to make anyone's eyes - and music-lover's ears - bleed. There is little shelter for performers and equipment: with wind, dust, rain blowing right through it.
The rejected Market design and again this band-shell are vanity-projects: self-absorbed and unrealistic.
10.
A $40.000 request for it is up for approval-or-not before Council, July '17. Minutes before the decision is to be handed-down - Cover Architecture - now turning promoter - makes another sales-pitch - usually not allowed! so why here?: possible weddings in the band-shell, barbecues and all kinds of weekly performances forever.
In the dirt.
Council laps it up and promptly approves the funding unanimously, without any discussion whatsoever. Clearly - this is for/a show: the decision prompted already earlier in the backroom.
With the band-shell plan locked-in and its funding approved one year ago - this project is to be in place by summer '18 - now! - as is the new toilet promised - once again! - by Cormack: but still neither is and obviously won't be.
Absolutely nothing has been made public on the future of band-shell, toilet and Market as such since one year ago!
11.
So the question here - similar to that about every other Market-funding approval (or non!) - should be: what happened to the band-shell's $40.000?
Transparency!
Now
A probable explanation: Reid's departure proves crucial within this process - dragged-out over several years by now - because his ego on its own was to bring-in outside funding for the Market's redo. This approach not questioned by Council.
So - with reality kicking-in - it's been like paying one credit-card with another since.
122.600 bucks worth - thanks to our naively compliant Council.
A.
Strictly for Market funding received/spent on what when and to possibly verify the above figures - it's
Colin McClure, CFO
cmcclure@nelson.ca
B.
For detailed info on the current state of Cottonwood Market development - Council doesn't have a clue; Councillor Dailly even calling the above figures untrue, although approved by his Council - your go-to guy is
Kevin Cormack, CAO
kcormack@nelson.ca
The only one - but good luck with that!
C.
For info on how the Columbia Basin Trust (CBT) supervises - if at all - Council making annual grant-decisions:
Aimee Ambrosone, Director - Delivery of Benefits
aambrosone@cbt.org
D.
The EcoSociety's on-the-ground
Jesse Woodward, Markets & Events Director
jesse@ecosociety.ca
Saturday
There is no band-shell - just an oval concrete platform in front of where it had been intended, with a tree growing out of its largish bald-earth-center. The whole closed-off haphazardly with City-barricades.
So the Market - with its performance-space - is in its old place, just minus the wooden shelters.
And the toilet-facilities are as the toilet-facilities were.
There has been no landscaping: a dust-bowl, possibly unbearable on hot days as we had before the smoke. And surely a sea of mud when the rains return.
Inventory of what the redevelopment-process has created over almost 3 years:
An irrelevant concrete oval
An irrelevant infrastructure
The painted toilet-door
There seem to be fewer vendors, definitely fewer customers than in the past. Since this market clearly will never be more than it is now: why bother going - with the more easily, comfortably accessible Wednesday market selling the same stuff downtown.
So you may want to return your goodwill and ask for a refund!
Image Credit:
pluggedingolf.com
City Council
nelsoncouncil@nelson.ca
Deb Kozak, Mayor
dkozak@nelson.ca
Pam Mierau, Development Services
pmierau@nelson.ca
Cover Architecture
info@coverac.ca
A recent report in the Star offers the first graspable view of things to come at the - according to City Hall - "only direct access to the lake from downtown."
Also called Stores to Shores.
Go have a look!
There are steps in rows of varying heights - some dangerously high and indistinguishable as such from above: until you step down, way down.
Those in charge of designing the whole Hall thing love what they picked-up somewhere as "social steps". Somebody immediately fell off them right after the I.O.D.E Park's completion - so the City dumped some haphazard rocks there at the time, but they eventually were removed. And now you can freely fall-off again - while being social with/on whatever.
Anyway - once you make it down safely at the lake: you see to your right the wharf above and dock below, to your left boat-houses - and in between a bay - sheltered and usually placid - defined by them.
Immediately to your left of the here "foreshore steps" is a concrete structure - a "storm sewer outfall" - for discharging waste-water, collected far and wide during wet weather, emptied into the bay at your feet.
Part of the outfall is visible at the right of this picture, behind weeds/trees.
While expanding the discharge-system is a good idea in itself - see past flooding of Front/Hall - the outfall-location is stunningly brainless. Or else the step set-up's.
It is anticipated that enormous amounts of discharge can/will freely drain into the lake now/here - even more expected in the future, what with climate change and all.
Possibly flushing out all kinds of critters living comfortably in these commodious, safe and often dryish pipes - never totally dry, thus also a breeding-ground for problem-carriers - paddling for their lives or drowned in sudden flooding.
Can't you just see it: water - with whatever carried along in it - comes rushing out close to where you sit, and because it's waste-water it is dirty, and because it's probably much dirtier than lake-water it will form a clearly visible plume, spreading into the baylet, to be initially held within its confines.
Undoubtedly there will be stuff floating on the surface and settling on the bottom.
There will be basic sedimentation.
All bound to change the environmental interplay of this part of the lake and possibly beyond, depending on the amount of precipitation. Dispersal of any matter introduced to the bay here will be very slow.
The higher the lake-level - the less you'll see the very bumpy bottom! Best not step into this flush-murk: broken glass, dead rats, used condoms, somebody's oil-change - you name it! All exposed when the outfall is relatively dry.
Possibly smelly, too.
Just don't bring the kids!
While environmental data surely were provided to regulatory agencies: their criteria are anybody's guess. As in: how could this outfall be approved in such close proximity to anticipated recreational activities?!
City Hall has been in a theoretical compartmentalized computer-model-swoon with Hall St all along - there's no actual-human component in any of it.
While possible visuals presented here may seem somewhat over-the-top - nonetheless they are plausible. Stuff dropped, swept, poured, flushed by rain down storm-drains - plus whatever lives down there - will ultimately enter - and pollute - the lake through this outfall without a "scrubber" yet.
Rats? We have rats: I passed a freshly run-over one at the Front/Poplar (electronic mall-sign) crosswalk a few days ago. In daylight.
"The only direct access to the lake from downtown" for one hell of a lot - literally - more than tourists.
Image Credits:
Bill Metcalfe
tumblr_n860hymdxp1rfp1lho1_540
Colin Innes, Public Works
cinnes@nelson.ca
Kevin Cormack, CAO
kcormack@nelson.ca
Pam Mierau, Development Services
pmierau@nelson.ca
Natalie Andrijancic, Planner
aandrijancic@nelson.ca
Deb Kozak, Mayor
dkozak@nelson.ca
City Council
nelsoncouncil@nelson.ca
