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.


                                                                                                           



                                                     

Someone else

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

                                                                               Oscar Wilde





.

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.

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.

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!

Immigration: No speak English!

Canada is contemplating a change in language-level requirements for prospective immigrants to Canada. Or not.

Once again - as has been common practice with the Canada Immigration Service (CIS) for years - they are unclear about how far whatever they are contemplating should take applicants or new arrivals. With decisions generally Ottawa-office-centered - instead of cultural-reality-out-there connected - an ability to use English or French sufficiently well to find a meaningful job - generally get a life here - has never been an issue.

Currently applicants are supposed to be able to make basic spoken statements and answer basic spoken questions - applying tenses of past, present and future! In a single, short impersonal personal interview - once all the paperwork has been checked and accepted! In the same interview they should also be able to deal with a written multiple-choice test - containing items like: how many provinces, and will you accept the queen as the mother of it all! I choose door No. 3!

And these interviews are run in the applicants' home-country - by usually non-native-English-or-French speaking employees hired there.

Even if the language-bar is raised somewhat - we'll get to that! - interviews will still be bureaucratic-generic; will still need to be short; interviewers will still be the same. And applicants will still know what interviews contain and how they are run - this through/for a highly evolved grapevine of past-present-future interviewees. It is common practice now for applicants to prepare for just passing the interview - the door to milk and money - as opposed to making it all work once they get here! Meaning - they may pass the pro forma interview - but not necessarily be well enough informed and speak enough English or French for what comes after they have passed it!

Today knowing - even before they come - that free ESL-classes and all sorts of governmental safety-nets are in place for them - also part of the grapevine - for many is frequently not conducive to taking responsibility for their lives here through in-depth preparation there!

A relatively simple way presents itself to make it possible for new immigrants to enter Canada's lifescape quickly - contributing to the economy by contributing to themselves.
Like this:
Applicants have at least 2 years between application and interview. Usually much longer - the backlog of applications has been overwhelming the  perpetually head-scratching and forever tinkering Ottawa for many years. For those expecting to enter the workforce here - this waiting-period ought to be a time of intensive preparation. A required part of the application process. Which it is not now!

This process needs to address applicants individually with incisive reality-based questions - and those supported by language/culture-specific instructions. Questions beyond the initial why Canada, what in Canada, where and how in Canada. Based on their answers, applicants then would join a particular group, receiving appropriate material and methodology for culture-sensitive language-immersion; professional upgrading and its officially recognized (there/here) certification; discipline-specific educational preparation.

This group-funneling structure is now used generally by the CIS - but it lacks specificity, even though awarding points for an applicant's higher background-value. A focused preparation strategy is not supplied.

Example in the economic categories - Married Couple:

She is the primary applicant because she speaks English better than her husband - he may not speak it at all! BUT! Because he has a PhD they will

get extra points which will put them ahead of others in the waiting-line - even if in reality these others are better positioned for work in Canada. Yet once they are in Canada - the PhD certainly will not find a job in his field and - with no other training - he may be unemployed for a long time or only get a poorly paid dead-end job.

That specifically and language-based cultural

adjustment-difficulties generally - guarantee a life

of hardship, which the government then - having furthered it! - has to deal with. Via the tax-payer! No economic contribution in that!

So the point-system - though reasonable as concept now - often fails applicants because it is too superficially applied and not coupled with a required substantive language-base.

Back to my vision:

Once determined that applicants suit certain desirable criteria, they eventually

would be thoroughly tested - based on their specific reality - during a personal interview. In English or French! A real-time dialogue! And if spoken and/or written communication of their future-life information - or the scope of the information in itself - is insufficient: they don't pass and should lose the substantial application-processing fee! With this very real possibility clearly announced at the beginning of the application-process. (And surely gaining a prominent place in the grapevine!)

Of course, there must be informational support-services available during the application-process there and after their arrival here. But prospective and new immigrants should not take for granted that Mother will automatically take care of them with wide-open generous arms!

Robert Dziekanski - a Polish immigrant - passed the CSI-requirements and got the stamp of approval in Poland, although he had no clearly marketable skills and spoke no English. His inability to communicate effectively - when he arrived at the Vancouver airport in October 2007 - led to his ever-escalating frustration there; he eventually was tasered 5 times and died. Much blame was placed - and rightly so - but one question never asked at the time and during the following inquiry was: How could he be accepted as a probable contributor to Canada's growth without even the most basic English-language skills? The CIS indirectly setting the stage for Mr. Dziekanski's tragic avoidable death never became an issue!

He entered the country with a family visa - issued to reunite close family members, if one member is living here legally already and sponsors the applicant. The sponsor should be well-assimilated and have sufficient financial wherewithal to support the applicant as long as necessary. Being totally responsible! Mr. Dziekanski - a working-age adult - actually did not really fit the description of an eligible family member; the sponsor - his mother - spoke only very basic English, and her job then was low-paying. She seemingly did not fit the profile of a sponsor either. Mr. Dziekanski was given the visa.

Trumpeted contemplated changes in language-requirements for prospective immigrants differ from the current ones only insofar as they will get a name - Canadian Language Benchmark Level 4. Level 4 is low: Where is the post-office, please? No more than memorizing an assortment of useless phrases!

An official explanation is that adoption of the change does not mean a necessary increase in language-facility for the applicant but simplification in judging it with "objective evidence of an applicant's language ability". Yet supplying this "evidence" in form of a Benchmark Level 4 Certificate - issued in a foreign country yet (are they even available?) - does not mean that the holder actually speaks/reads/writes English or French sufficiently well to get a Canadian life. It will simply allow an interviewer to make a decision based on a piece of paper - instead of actually having to converse fluently in one of these languages with an applicant.

Nothing is said about the weight carried by this certificate in relation to a personal interview.

The bottomline here is an attempt at addressing the lack of consistency in assessments by foreign nationals, running tests with/for visa-applying compatriots. The CIS admits this. No positive change for-thus-in applicants' language proficiency!

And because the CIS will continue not being able to monitor and/or double-check personal interviews and their results - many essentially unprepared applicants will continue to clog the system, pass interviews and enter Canada for life of difficulties - because the paper-pushing CIS is largely grounded in political expediency at home and Ottawa's unrealistic assumptions about abroad.                                   

                                              

Tinkering with hope!

 

Nelson - Speak-Up!

Speaking, talking, saying, mentioning, wingeing, contradicting, bragging, whispering, whining, discussing, hectoring, insisting, lecturing, shouting, arguing, grumbling, asking, persuading, uttering, denying

and speaking-up - defined in the dictionary as: speaking clearly and/or freely!

4:37am. Raising the blind for that first - crucial - look, I see foliage across the street move in a big way. Wind! A special morning, promising adventure - I love a good storm, but just some basic wind will be good too!

Poplars and aspens live for the wind - they become truly forceful in autumn, with their leaves now drying, and with that their sounds in the wind increasing from green-flirty flutter to grey-scratchy rattle. Waves, enormous waves - made up of thousands of these sounds - move through me. Speak to me.

White poplars - at the nursery-fence by the boat-house - are particularly convincing. Not only because of their imposing size but also because Peter, the tree-man, tells me that by those in the know they are also called weed-trees - growing fast and being messy. A rowdy bunch! Ents maybe! I tell him why I wanted their name: their wind-speak. Peter says: trembling.

There are peoples who have many different wind-languages.

Water sprinklers. Not sprinkling here - they hiss this morning, sometimes with a spiteful spitting stutter. The flower-beds at the park's entrance. Usually I walk along the grass strip behind the beds in my bare feet, but this morning I have to make a wide detour across the main grass area in front. Wet-glittering arches everywhere - back-lit - and in the centre John McKinnon's giant, holding a hawk and a cat in his arms - quicksilver streaming down his face and shoulders. Transforming him - he is otherworldly hard and frightening.

Meditating - I sit on a bench at the labyrinth, facing where they sun will rise. Maybe. Dry maple-leaves whisper-skitter across the circle.

Farther off a duck - in a duck's dream - quacks several times.

Crows begin to caw - and with that separate from the darkness. The crows' language is varied - juveniles remind me of teenagers; adults caw with blunt insistence. Crows speak-up! Clearly and distinctly! I feel close to them - their directness, self-sufficiency and lack of vanity. Crows don't preen! I wish I could speak to them in their language, let them know about me - but although their language seems simple, I would not presume to imitate it. So when they sometimes shriek at me I tell them to cool it - but gently - in human-speak. And keep going.

I find trying to imitate the while-feeding-on-grass-mutter of geese easier and usually do it when walking by/through them. Wanting to be accepted.

But more urgently wanting to be a crow in basic black and on the move!

Do birds gossip? Meeting the usual old-timers on their early-morning rounds - we talk about gloves and the end being near.

White bits of paper flung across the soft-ball field - gulls.

The lake speaks differently in different places this morning. At the beach it sounds expansive and steady; among the rocks more playful - a tease.

Park-speak.

It is light now; I pick my daily bag of rosehips, this morning behind the pump-house - three more to come. Leaving now ends the most satisfying part of my Nelson day - at about 7:30am.

On my way out I pass two larger rocks - both with a bronze plaque attached and about 2 meters apart. A young maple growing half-way in between. One plaque says: "City of Nelson - In memory of all the workers in our community who have lost their lives as a result of a workplace accident or occupational disease." And the other: "Workers' Memorial - In memory of those who have lost their lives as a result of a workplace accident or occupational disease."

As Joan Rivers used to say (still does?): Can we talk?

The town is waking-up - the uncouth language of motor-traffic across the bridge takes over most everything - but not the crows! Nelson gets ready to say much - which is not the same as speaking-up!

I tell my Chinese students - budding or practicing nurses and physicians - that clear and direct communication must be a given between the care-giver and patient. A big one: Chinese -in any situation - don't communicate directly, and much is said by not being said. I also tell them that in the West this is how people connect with each other. Clearly and freely! Not that I have any Western experience over my 14 years in China, but cultural differences seem to simply present: if it's not happening in China - it surely is happening in the West. Conditioned by the Net and Hollywood. But that realization hits later - after I come back to Canada; there they assume I know what I am talking about - as do I! About speaking-up! Over here!

I come back here, and all seems to be lovely. People smile a lot, are helpful and polite. Then I hear/read that many from other countries often describe Canadians as - polite. No examples of this politeness and nothing else, really - just polite! Well, after a few months the politeness wears kind of thin for me - Canadian politeness often appears to be a cover for apathy - lunch! There doesn't seem much else to recommend the Canadian experience; well, maybe polite beer (with a polite hangover) and polite hockey (with a polite concussion). Truly Canadian content - also cleverly called (the big) Can-con.

With me going: Yeah, yeah - simple is good!

Then the spiteful Harper rattles much of Canada and most of China (even getting the world's attention!), with his scheduling-conflicts not allowing him to attend the opening of the Beijing Olympics. That and his two not-to-be-interrupted potty-training sessions, while world-leaders are waiting for him, to be able to get on with the official group-photo. Just to make an entrance. Over time - the more infantile and bizarre he and the Canadian form of government come across - the more (a)pathetic Canada seems, for not speaking-up and putting the Harper and his gold-embossed functionaries on a leash!

With me - at this point - moving from simple is good to simplistic not so much and beginning to feel embarrassed as Canadian.

Meanwhile, I find myself in Nelson - still in culture-shock and by-and-by more and more in culture-similarities; but decidedly done with Buddhist-monastery hopping and patented spirituality - wanting to pare down and do it on integrity alone. The simple life. Speaking-up and listening to others speaking-up. As in speaking freely (communicating openly) and getting on with it! Thinking: if not here - where possibly? Because Nelson seems the place for it: good air; pleasant environment; organic mechanic; lots of coffee; lots of progressives - if not actually running it - at least influencing greatly how the place is run. By speaking-up. An overall conscious low-pressure construct - aware of and having learned from high-pressure environments. I think! For a Time!

Then I do my first radio-program - Chinese Feed - about my experiences in China, partly as personal transition and partly because there seems curiously little in-depth info on or positive in-depth interest in China, even among local progressives. This leads to the second phase of Chinese Feed - still available as podcasts on Kootenay Co-op Radio - about the Chinese experience in Nelson. Even though major historio-cultural fact - a side-show at best within official Nelson's vague construct of its own history! And a non-event for the Community Heritage Commission (CHC)!:

The Chinese Community Of Nelson-As-Was

and

How Did It Get Here?

How, indeed! I begin to realize in my process of digging that - despite Nelson's with-it appearance - it is very conservative, and progressive is largely a Mr. Dress-Up game.

I begin to speak-up in this radio-program.

Which takes me to organizing the Chinatown Plaque Project and Chinatown Week - these endeavors eventually bringing the Chinese consul-general to Nelson. On my way towards that City Hall tries to cut much of already agreed-on funding as frivolous - thereby trivializing Nelson's Chinese experience, thus its own historio-cultural base - cementing this with Councillor Stacey speaking-up with: a plaque attached to a building surely would be enough.

In my Plaque/Week proposals/presentations I enclose a page showing two large, centred  Chinese characters - the page is otherwise blank. During all the necessary months of City-Halling - including the Cultural Development Commission (CDC) - not one person asks me for the meaning of these characters. They mean - integrity! All this Chineseness - then and here - is not a single-focus issue but one of deeply cultural - period - dimensions.

Not acknowledged as such - even though this town already in a parallel universe - having no industrial tax-base - quite a while ago came-up with wanting to create income through - cultural tourism! Obviously - with Nelson culturally challenged - there is no cultural tourist! Lookin' good though, lookin' good!

Speaking-up is becoming a craving!

By now I see that smug Nelson is really very much like Brigadoon - its reality shrouded in dense fog all year, except for one day when the fog lifts and entering knowingly is possible. While those on the inside think (pretend) that it is (they are) open all the time.

Meaning - arty, spiritual yoga instructors keep flocking to Nelson, based on unrealistic assumptions. And the progressives here - feeling the cosmic urge to contribute - serve on all manner of boards of (to a great extent out-there) feel-good causes, because slugging it out over basic civic issues - or just process - with ingrown City Hall is not as glamorous, not as downtown! Not to forget - a biggie! - that in Royal Nelson's econo-political stew it's best to duck and be polite - with everybody - just in case. Unspoken frustration may be expressed in a good long sulk!

Leaving City Hall pretty much to its own - and the Chamber of Commerce's - devices. Rarely challenged, talking the talk but not necessarily walking it freely and clearly - largely disconnected from those who elected them.

The Harper thing: I am doing what you asked me to do by electing me!

Public input generally is not sought or heeded. In the Council Chamber - during commission-meetings, council meetings, Meetings of the Whole even - councillors, members chat with each other; there's little speaking-up clearly, even less freely - as in taking a personal stand with conviction and/or even just considering the attending Whole's need to be able to hear whatever is said. To each other. What microphone! This here is a microphone? Just for me? I didn't know that! Cool! 

The media - specifically the Nelson Star and its relationship with Councillor Macdonald. For the Star she seems to be the go-to person on anything Council. Consistently featuring her opinions prominently or at least as an exit-line in City-whatever write-ups. Even though her declarations sometimes clearly are unsupported/unsupportable. Why she - so predictably? Why not other councillors for a broader picture? Who seeks out who? Granted - she does have entertainment value - but what with the Star not usually strong on satire - entertainment probably is not the reason. Balanced reporting?

The Star runs the Council Column - a forum for councillors, taking turns, to express themselves on particular City-related issues - emphasis on issues. This - regularly and for some time - has been the only conduit in town for councillor-specific communication to the public. Thanks to the Star for that! It was Ubiquitous Donna's turn, in the Sep. 28 column Thinking in sets of threes - the threes blatantly and totally being ME, ME and RE-ELECT ME!

This is ethically troubling - not only because she used for personal gain a forum provided to all councillors for council-business, but also because the Nelson Star supported this by signing-off on it! Both sneaking-up on the reader - in thin disguise! Weren't all councillors out of town when this column appeared? If so - one wonders how many of the other re-elects got to see it!

One of the three accomplishments Macdonald shopped in this very free, very prominent and very large campaign-ad is her CDC involvement. So one would have expected to see her much-touted solo-flight with the heron swizzle-stick (pre-pre-election, with the Star's generous help of Culture Columns for days!) - to be part of that. Not so - never mentioned it!

Because!

Councillor Stacey - as an inside-aside, not a public announcement (and not picked-up by the media)-during the last Meeting of the Whole said: the City would definitely not be involved financially in getting the heron to fly. Well, I'll be...! I do not know whether or not that involves the transportation-costs and $6000 for the base-construction, supposedly a pre-condition for getting the post for Nelson. Here now? Splat!

In the meantime, Councillor Stacey had her turn with the Council Column, Oct. 5, which - though lacking substance - stuck to Council concerns. Personally I appreciate this - particularly as she had earlier announced that she would run again, while Ubiquitous Donna - in the same Star write-up - coily straddled the fence.

For many here the Star is still a credibility issue; it needs to make some ethics-based decisions - clearly communicated - to become accepted more fully and by more. Especially in view of the coming election.

I do not know if Ubiquitous Donna is City Hall's designated spokesperson. Regardless - with public perception often more deciding than fact - she is making Council as a whole appear increasingly inconsequential - even silly!

Nelson's administration speaking-up - freely, clearly, comprehensively, timely and believably - would (one more time!) automatically mean transparency and accountability. Would! But - of course - with everybody else concerned soon entering campaign-mode as well - we're in for an even bumpier ride!

Mind you, according to the City's website - at least minutes of meetings are available on-line. This - ostensibly - could be something to hold onto.

Yet the most recent minutes of meetings (if) available are:

Regular Council Meeting - Jun. 27, 2011

Committee of the Whole - May 30, 2011

CHC - Feb. 22, 2011

CDC - Aug. 3, 2011

Advisory Planning Commission - "No records on display"

Supposedly, hard-copies can be had for a fee. Which, when and for how much I don't know, and even just getting info on that may be difficult. City Hall's voice-mail - as of the time this is written - has been down for several days now!

 "Hello, City Hall!" I nudge the predictable.