A hot spring-day. I walk along the trail - green-on-green, except for deep logging-truck-gashes up the hill, next to the trail, just past the trestle-bridge (nobody talks about that!) - looking forward to the skunk-cabbage farther on, and long-green hair streaming around my legs in the cool creek.
There is talk that smoking skunk-cabbage root - while supposedly poisonous or possibly because of it - would get one high. I never try, neither does anyone I know. I do love the bitter smell from cupped-hands blossoms, the lacquered leaves!
Then across the highway to Cottonwood Lake. I can't deny: at its best with nobody else there. The still water a bit scary - stump-monsters below! - therefore - just in case - I stay close enough to the float. Stretching out on its warmth to doze after.
Never thinking about whose land this is - quite naturally mine while I am here - but vaguely aware that some unidentified part is privately owned.
Same trees, same water.
It has been public(ly available) info since Feb. 2018 that logging around all this is to happen - most likely sooner than later. While the automatic reflex may be wanting an immediate study on the (possible) environmental impact - nothing!
The EcoSociety?
In the meantime - in an attempt to leave my skunk-cabbage, my creek, my lake, my float as they are: there may! have been negotiations - initiated by the RDCK - when and how and reaching how far we are not told - for buying this area from the owner, who bought it specifically to log for the highest possible profit. Which he has a right to!
What we do know: neither Nelson nor Salmo - necessary participants in any such deal - are ready to participate financially. Regardless - the RDCK, Council and the City's CAO won't talk about more because of the "sensitivity" of the negotiations. What negotiations at this point after what we also are not told.
MLA Mungall has not responded to invites on the matter.
Go figure!
And while for nearly a year no public momentum has developed - not for the lack of news-reports: on Dec. 19 a sudden
"Emergency meeting energizes supporters of Cottonwood Lake recreation area" Nelson Daily, Dec. 20
and
"Meeting hears appeal for community group to buy Cottonwood Lake land" Nelson Star, Dec. 20
All this rather the faster they go - the behinder they get:
1.
Serious logging in/of the area supposedly will start around Mar. 2019. So what seems an "emergency" now didn't have to be if the public - or specifically interested individuals - had focused on this sooner.
The RDCK? Who knows.
2.
This meeting's organizer does not necessarily come from altruistic motives only: he lives nearby!
3.
There is no workable "community group" as yet. Just putting one together - acceptably structured - will take considerable time, energy and focus. Getting swept along in a righteous, feel-good meeting is one thing - longer-term commitment to minutiae quite another.
Sooo... Councillor Logtenberg claiming that such group would be "faster on its feet" with negotiations than the RDCK is not only a bit too chest-thumping but also possibly eyebrow-raising in these here Smallishtown politics.
4.
The RDCK and several Council members are present at the meeting: but they still won't divulge specifics on the(ir) non-deal, even though clearly a non-starter.
Curiouser and curiouser - supposedly negotiations between the RDCK/City Hall and the property-owner are still ongoing - why else the secrecy: yet this private bunch - comprising whomever and (some) councillors, run by whom? - is ready to create a parallel? reality of also wanting to buy the property?
Presenting but not representing. Neither fish nor fowl.
Or what!
5.
Would the owner even talk to such an impromptu group at this stage of his game?
6.
Yet Councillor Logtenberg also enthusiastically proposes "crowdfunding (such as a GoFundMe campaign) and at the same time apply(ing) for grants from all levels of government, the Columbia Basin Trust, other funding bodies, and private donors." (Star)
Dream on! Having little experience in such undertakings - even just City matters: he seems naive, seeing that there's absolutely nothing in place to support any funding-applications - while logging is to commence in earnest in a couple of months. Meaning - the very experienced owner is set on go!
With a solid business plan!
7.
While councillors know how much funding might be needed: if they don't talk about it to their (possible) group - why should anyone even consider contributing financially, with basic info deliberately withheld?
For overall transparent doability: launching another - funded somehow - plan now would first necessitate cancellation of the one originated by the RDCK/City Hall.
And they communicating accumulated info to the group as a whole.
Everybody's role clearly defined in whatever-this-is - don't hold your breath.
8.
Ultimately - collectively buying a piece of land in the neighborhood will have no impact on logging in the suburbs. It is an expensive, self-indulgent gesture.
This must be about province-wide legislation.
9.
What is it with these people?
While the large number of attendees at this "emergency meeting" attests to (a sudden) interest in the matter: how many have actually spent time regularly around the lake - if any - hiking-in quietly, instead of driving-in-and-out conveniently.
If more were hiking along the trail: the logging between bridge and highway could have received (more) attention/concern long ago.
Be honest now: what's more important - Cottonwood Lake or Xmas shopping?
As much as I want the area to remain untouched-by-human-hands, just to have it there there when I am ready to go infrequently - to paraphrase Councillor Logtenberg, when he sees no problem with accumulated parking-fines of 16 years flushed down the toilet:
"Sometimes you just have to suck it up and move on."
Nothing remains the same - even in Nelson.
Image Credits:
Bill Metcalfe
spoonflower.com
thecolorsofwater.com
amcaluminum.com
City Council
nelsoncouncil@nelson.ca
Ramona Faust, RDCK
rfaust@rdck.bc.ca
John Dooley, Mayor
jdooley@nelson.ca
Parking-Amnesty Approval
Council approves - without in-depth discovery of Staff's supporting material and meaningful discussion - the City's "parking-ticket amnesty" in the Regular Council Meeting, 3 Dec, 2018.
While councillors energetically participate in the discovery and development of an earlier environmental issue: they now are far less expressive. Standing-out though is dramatically self-promoting Councillor Logtenberg, here with a grand gesture of us sometimes just having to suck it up and move on.
Telling us what to do is not part of your job-description, Councillor! We won't suck it up, and many of us will probably find it difficult to move on past the long history of the whole damn thing - with its entrenched lack of professionalism: transparency and accountability!
More on this amnesty-as-such prior to approval can be found in the post below:
Parking-Ticket Amnesia
27 Nov, 2018
Now What?
How many of the out-standing 27.000 tickets - of which a vague half now (belatedly) appear to be non-retrievable outside the area - will be paid at $15 per - between
4 Dec, 2018 and 19 Jan, 2019 - we will know by the end of next month. Or not.
It will take longer to determine whether paying-up will have an impact on parking-attitudes, nurtured during 16 years of inconsistently paid fines and no result-focused supervision of process by those in charge at City Hall.
Amnesty-participation by many could be an indication of local drivers not only willing to mend their wicked parking-ways but also to atone for this behavior of old.
Acknowledging it as unbecoming of gluten-free tree-huggers.
Facebook subscribers paying (being warned to pay) amnesty-fines to the City online - for multiple tickets yet: may find at some point in the future that their credit-rating has been compromised. Seeing that Facebook gleans subscribers' data when emailing to/emailed from City Hall - also a subscriber - harvesting/selling them in bits. The same will apply to email traffic between possibly less subtle collection-agencies (more on them below) and hold-outs.
Off to the workhouse!
Paying in person may be the safer way to go.
Conversely - the fewer takers the amnesty attracts - the clearer the indication that tossing tickets will continue to be the way to go.
City Hall's negligent P.R. job with getting the many-layered significance of their old system>amnesty>new system to the public in tardy bits and pieces - only incidentally divulged over weeks by the CFO to local news-media - may keep I-do-because-I-can attitudes fixed.
Referring those not participating in the amnesty to a collection-agency - as now proposed by the City - seems like a colossally labor-intensive, colossally expensive job.
Is City Hall hiring?
Having such agency chase down someone for 50 bucks is bizarre. Costs of it would be much higher than the sum gone after.
So - who gains? After who pays for it?
Linking payment of fines to issuing new plates by the ICBC has not worked so far because it was really attempted by one municipality only - thus shrugged-off.
So - for the province-wide apathetic now it's: been tried, can't be done!
While actually this needs City Hall to seriously organize itself around the issue with a clearly developed vision, to be shared with all MLAs in a concerted effort, and all UBCM members united!
Looking for thoughtful practicable input from those who elected/hired you: the kind of issue you are paid very well to take-on!
Free Veterans'-Parking
What precedes the amnesty-approval in the same Council Meeting (its timing showing still more insensitivity to the public's current mood about parking-shenanigans in the street and at City Hall) is a request - 30 Oct, 2018 - for making parking free for those with a veteran's licence-plate.
"Dear Mr. Mayor Dooley
& Members of Nelson City Council
Re: Veteran's Parking
I was in Kamloops recently, and I was surprised and delighted to learn that, as a veteran, with veterans licence plates, I am entitled to park on any meter in the city or on any city parking lot, and that I am not required to pay.
Parking is free for veterans.
I understand that the gesture does not reduce revenues significantly because there are so few veterans. The merchants approve of the arrangement because it encourages veterans and their families to spend more time shopping. In Kamloops veterans are recognized as being special, having served in defence of their country. It is a generous and tangible way to say "thank you".
I would like to request that Nelson City Council give consideration to extending free parking to veterans with veterans licence plates, in recognition of their service.
Yours truly
Ieuan J. Gilmore"
This promptly initiates at City Hall the
"PROPOSAL: Provision of free parking to veterans
PROPOSED BY: Public"
"Council received a request from Ieuan Gilmore of Nelson requesting that Council consider providing free parking to vehicles that have veterans licence plates."
"People are eligible to apply for a veteran licence plate in British Columbia if they were honorably discharged from or are currently serving (author's emphasis)..."
1.
The request does not come from the "Public" but a single member of it.
2.
"Veteran licence plate" is a misnomer. Even current reservists fall under the vet-label here.
3.
No Canadian Armed Forces members - past/current - have ever "served in defence of their country". Considering Canada has never been attacked militarily.
4.
Yet his all-superseding come-on is "The merchants approve of the arrangement because it encourages veterans and their families to spend more time shopping."
While absurd reasoning - good P.R. for Chamber of Commerce reps at City Hall: wanting us all to shop local! For Xmas! No wonder this request was rushed through Council within a month!
Who approve this also unanimously and without discussion. Such as: will these "veterans" be allowed to park anywhere, for any length of time?
Presumably so - as restrictions are not part of the City PROPOSAL's approval.
Consequences
Meter-maids say "they see approximately 10 vehicles per day with veteran's plates". Conceivably having 10 more cars hog metered parking-stalls must have significant impact on right-now/right-here availability.
Seniors who are also vets will get vet-plates, thereby park anywhere forever. Giving-up their costly seniors' passes - and btw there goes that income for the City as well!
With Greyhound gone there will be more cars, ergo more parking needed. At this point allowing free-range parking - to an only vaguely defined group - is folly!
How long will tourists - the predominant force behind Nelson's economic health - put-up with ever decreasing parking?
For instance - the City gave-up almost 100 Nelson Commons parking-spaces, this requested in a Variance. Originally required by bylaw for a project of its size. This Variance had been worked on (for the Co-op) by the City long before even submitted to Council (by the Co-op).
Predictably, these spaces now missing have had a spiraling affect on the near neighborhood and from there into all of downtown.
City Hall looking after its own.
Smallishtown Politics!
With parking-attitudes as have been, no more parking to be squeezed into the streets, and old-parkade spaces rented to permanents: Council needs to stop giving away parking-stuff reactively and start to proactively think of creating parking: a new state-of-the-art, architecturally stunning, multi-function parkade (in Railtown) now!
Nothing else will do (it)!
Image Credits:
John Nordell
livabl
dezeen
flickriver.com
City Council
nelsoncouncil@nelson.ca
Pam Mierau, Mgr. - Development Services
pmierau@nelson.ca
John Dooley, Mayor
jdooley@nelson.ca
Kevin Cormack, CAO
kcormack@nelson.ca
