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
The following connects with post
Why YOU shouldn't run for City Council
1 April, 2018
It's time for Nelson to give the coming election focused thought NOW - before it happens, rather than complain about it after - what with those to be elected getting 4 very long years in charge of it: us!
Yet with the election to be held in just a bit more than 2 months - there's next to no indication of it.
Why not?
The Ballot
Basics: Many are under the impression that all boxes on a ballot have to be checked, that they must vote-in all 6+1 regents.
So wrong! You should vote only for those who you think are suitable - and if you don't get up to 6+1: stop wherever - that's more honest than voting for someone to be voting for someone.
Re-Elect Me!
For totally nonconstructive reasons - Oh, Victoria! - incumbents needn't declare their intentions until - really! - a few weeks before election.
Why do I feel that Victoria considers municipal elections - all things municipal, actually! - as amateur-hour?
If incumbents want to be re-elected: how can that decision possibly be expressed convincingly within such narrow time-frame - except through insulting-to-voters election-blather.
And spare us the team-work talk - what Council has achieved over the last 4 years - a Pandora's Box to begin with, often a way of hiding within a crowd and nothing personal to say.
If they don't declare their intention to rerun until they absolutely have to: do you find that arrogant, disdainful, careless, suspicious or plain lazy?
Or don't you really care: like - you're gonna re-elect your neighbor anyway.
A simple test for re-electability is to quickly - without thinking! - recall 3 positive, decisively generated contributions of a specific rerunner.
You can't because nothing comes to mind (or you haven't really been paying close attention)?
Been to any Council meetings lately? Ever? Go and find out how they do what they do - if they do!
To be constructive for Nelson's sake: rerunners should declare and start kissing babies NOW.
Those done for good with it all should also declare NOW to allow breathing-space for newbies.
Doing one or the other NOW will have no appreciable impact on the public's perception of Council.
Elect Me!
Why? If you had the balls you'd be out there NOW, making it known that you are considering a run and explain why. Get into local news-media - they're starved for new stuff. Let us become familiar with you and your ways.
Surely you know by now that you want to run. If you still haven't made up your mind - don't bother (us): you lack vision.
It's too early? Too early for what?
You're worried you may run out of stuff to say if you start a whole long month early?
Be scrutinized too closely?
Going out there now could also be testing the (personal) waters: you find out if you are really up to the job. Better to find out now that you're not than later. Then be stuck with it - and us and we with you! - for 4 years.
Once you officially become a candidate: spending lots of money on placards with your face and/or some pat slogan all over the place among many others only shows that you have nothing much and special to offer.
Buying your way into City Hall.
Participating in earnest all-candidates' meetings - very high-school-assembly - is not enough to make you stand out over all other candidates - unless you have an outstanding personality. Seeing that these mini-competitions usually are much about the same issues - you could do something different, daring such as: dance the merengue or take off your clothes. Or both!
If you're boringly - and safely - predictable prior - you'll be a boringly predictable - and ineffectual - Councillor for sure!
Bring on Charles Jeanes!
Image Credit -
Anissa
Union of BC Municipalities
ubcm@ubcm.ca
Mayor Deb Kozak
dkozak@nelson.ca
City Council
nelsoncouncil@nelson.ca
This follows
Union of BC Municipalities: Its Point Being? (Part 1)
28 June, 2018
directly below this post.
Both are a look at 2 particularly egregious rules - rather undemocratically foisted on municipalities by BC government. This left unaddressed directly by the UBCM, the organization ostensibly supporting municipal well-being.
Items 1 and 2 are explored in Part 1 and Part 2 respectively:
1.
Extending municipal terms of office from 3 to 4 years - without prior consultation of the directly concerned yet.
2.
Having mayors - always uncomfortably - double as Chair of Police Boards - with Vancouver the largest municipality of them.
The Gap Between 2 Chairs
As per Victoria's justice system Mayor Kozak functions as Chair of the Nelson Police Board (NPB) as well.
Not by choice!
The order to have the mayor perform extra-duty not part of mayoring - with an often adversarial position towards her own office - is counterproductive.
And definitely whacko!
And mayors cower, have been cowering for ages. Why and since when - its history - to be looked at later in this post.
With the Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) nowhere in sight.
Wondering ...
Does Mayor Kozak (have to) compromise when she is one and the other at the same time?
Does she do her Chair prep at the cop-shop or the mayor's office - using mayor-time/resources? In either location.
Like - how much additional manpower from City Hall - at the taxpayers' expense - is necessary to have this thing sort-of done?
Is her legal staff as mayor the same as that of the NPB?
Does City Hall's non-disclosure rule apply to the mayor?
Does it apply to the NPB Chair?
Like - does whoever-she-is talk to herself?
As in at night over doing the dishes:
'Can we talk?'
'No, we can't - weeell we shouldn't.'
Does this drive her nuts?
Ridiculous?
Yes, it is!
All
coming down to separation of power - impartiality. Our judicial system
here ignoring this concept of fundamental importance in a spectacular
manner!
When previous Police Chief Holland attempts to get a zillion bucks through the NPB to keep imaginary hordes of barbarians from the gates, and his attempt is ultimately rejected by whom? at City Hall: where is the mayor positioned in all this? Steering this way-over-the-top NPB budget-proposal towards City Hall acceptance as NPB Chair to then promptly rejecting it as Mayor once delivered there?
Recusal from one or the other would/should have to apply to the whole very lengthy process. Leaving the NPB without its Chair. Or the City without its mayor.
When Holland ends-up complaining about the proposal's rejection to Victoria (surely blaming Kozak as mayor - yet in tandem with her as Chair?): how does Clayton Pecknold, Director of Police Services, objectively connect with Kozak as one and/or the other? Long-distance. At the same time. Or what!
Musical chairs - down the rabbit hole!
To make the/a mayor's, chief-constable's and police board's function more on-point - after ineffectual grumblings among BC police about this for years - both: the British Columbia Association of Chiefs of Police (BCACP) for its force and the UBCM for its municipalities need to make a joint decision towards resolving/dissolving this issue.
Separating work of the police(-board) from that of mayor - a gain for literally everybody:
Representing their members, they write 2 white papers with their particular perspective.
Keeping the news-media - thus public - informed throughout.
Then reps meet to ultimately combine these papers in one concise position. This position is fine-tuned by both memberships and - once accepted - brought before the BC Ministry of Justice, other relevant agencies and the news-media.
As for a PB Chair: engage an additional Director and choose one among the group to be Chair, possibly based on seniority or in rotation.
The bottom-line for this: the work of a mayor's Office and police department has been compromised - interfered with - for years by fusty colonial mindsets.
One seriously must wonder whether the current set-up could survive a court-challenge.
What History?!
2 letters to Michelle Mungall, Nelson-Creston MLA, on the Mayor/Chair topic - before 2 re-elections - elicit no response from anyone in her camp. Not surprised I let it go then. Not this time though, what with the municipal election for Council/Mayor coming-up- and that for a 4-year term. As in: who may want these jobs - seriously.
I connect with, attempt to connect with several individuals/groups in the thick of it all, asking a few very basic questions about the origin of this anomaly.
Not interested in exploring rights or wrongs with them but its history only, which hardly is participatory-democratic in its inception and application.
A
In what year was which mayor - for the first time - made to take on chairing his police-board?
B
What was the reasoning behind it?
C
Who instigated this?
D
Who/which agency instituted this?
When/if there are replies - they uniformly do not answer the questions:
1.
Mayor Kozak has no specific answers, neither has Frances Long, Admin Director.
2.
In several responses - not to the questions - I receive extensive material from the British Columbia Association of Police Boards (BCAPB) on policing and the Association's aims. Not interested in all that I ask again to just have my simple questions answered.
Nothing - except that Stacey Perri, BCAPB, volunteers:
"With regard to your question related to the mayor of a municipality being the Chair of the Police Board: the question of whether the mayor of a municipality should or should not Chair a Police Board has been in the public arena for many years; yet in British Columbia it appears there has not been a definitive resolution to the question."
This is interesting - while not related directly to my inquiry - but never mind "it appears there has not been a definitive resolution": she doesn't know?!
Basic historical information on the origins of Mayor + PB Chair seems elementary for them to have; Perri ducks and weaves, never acknowledging my questions-as-are.
3.
After several attempts at connecting with her, Shiloh Perkins, Exec Assistant - Nelson Police Dept/Board - following a confab with Perri - ?! - sends me the same immaterial material. Also ignoring my questions.
Unless both have problems with reading-comprehension: is there more to this? Whatever - it does not help inspire trust in police-boards in general and those who run them in particular.
I have yet to hear from:
4.
NPD Chief-Constable Paul Burkart
5.
The British Columbia Association of Police Chiefs (BCAPC)
6.
The same Clayton Pecknold who deals with Holland's attempt - together with PB Chair Kozak - to get his superbudget funded - despite Mayor Kozak.
7.
Wally Oppal - whose 1994 report The Independent Commission of Inquiry into Policing in British Columbia recommends scrapping a mayor chairing the municipal police-board. While the report leads to many reforms in policing - mayors chairing police-boards is not among them.
8.
JAG Policing & Security Branch
From 4. to 8. have had a reasonable amount of time to reply: what/who is preventing them from doing so?!
Scary in both scenarios - term-increase from 3 to 4 years and Mayor/PB Chair: the UBCM - ostensibly nurturing municipalities - is bowing to capricious authoritarian elements in Victoria.
Its upcoming gab-fest would be the appropriate environment for members as a unit to move both points forward decisively.
BUT!
Seeing that this is in September, also the time for incumbents to declare their next-term intentions: with 4-year burn-out attendance could be way down - see Part 1 - as many may not run again. Even if they do - there's no guarantee they'll be re-elected.
So - considering that municipalities - as in tax-payers - are paying for these freebies: why should they this year? At Whistler yet!
The timing for this convention is bizarre!
ITS POINT BEING?
End of original posting yesterday.
Right after putting this post online I finally receive a text-reply from Oppal
- over his phone and clearly on the run: getting my name totally wrong
for starters, clearly not remembering my message to him, not familiar
with this post, giving me info I didn't ask for - not answering my
questions.
Communication today! (Another story!)
Then - I find out that my idea all along and responsible for my insistence to get behind this: the Mayor/PB Chair construct may be colonial - is correct.
Literally!
By 1917 a mayor also is Commissioner/Chairman ex officio of the Board of Commissioners of the Police. Two other members are an alderman and an outsider.
Only British subjects can be on the police force.
The Mayor/Chairman arrangement is a simple - and for him probably rewarding - way of concentrating municipal power in one person.
As reported at the time: this is about "friends in high places".
While procedure and the Board name have been streamlined somewhat over generations - the Mayor/PB-Chair(man)-ex-officio construct as such has not.
But as for power ...
What I am thinking now: what with extensive information on the topic easily discovered by local historian Greg Nesteroff - everybody else I approach surely has access to the same. Knowing that colonialism - hush now, you hear: don't bite the hand that feeds you! - is alive and well in shame-on-you Victoria BC.
Image Credits:
Zundapp-Janus
A link to this post is sent to all individuals/organizations listed below:
Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM)
ubcm@ubcm.ca
Wally Oppal, QC
woppalqc@boughtonlaw.com
BC Association of Police Boards (BCAPB)
stacey.perri@gov.bc.ca
BC Association of Chiefs of Police
engagement@bcacp.ca
Clayton Pecknold, Dir. of Police Services
sgpcsb@gov.bc.ca
JAG Policing & Security Branch
sgpspb@gov.bc.ca
Deb Kozak, Mayor/PB Chair
dkozak@nelson.ca
Paul Burkart, Chief Constable - NPD
pburkart@nelsonpolice.ca
City Council
nelsoncouncil@nelson.ca
Shiloh Perkins, NPD/NPB - Exec Assistant
sperkins@nelsonpolice.ca
