Nelson: Kiss & Tell

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Quickly:
Tell me the names of three City-related Boards! ..... Time's up! Now tell me the names of four members of the CDC! ..... Time's up! What does APC mean? ..... Time's up! Who's the chair of the CHC? ..... Time's up! What is the function of the Treaty Advisory Committee? ..... Time's up! How many members does the Police Board have? ..... Time's up! How do you contact a Committee? ..... Time's up! What is the difference between a Commission and a Committee? ..... Time's up! What is an Alternate? .....Time's up!

I don't want to play anymore! I want to go home!

Don't winge - you can't go home: you are at home! Nelson IS your home!
No cookie for you!

In her first Council Column, Nelson Star, Jan. 11, 2012, Councillor Kiss announced that she will hold regular, informal, coffee-house-type discussions and that she will make her political calendar public. She needs to be commended for directly opening herself and her work to those who are/should be interested!

It is to be hoped that this will signal a trend to nudge the blissfully ignorant public towards becoming more directly involved: on a permanent basis, instead of with the occasional indignant, short-term jumping-up-and-down by a few only. There has not been nearly enough of that in the past. And although both sides need to take responsibility for the overall disconnect: City Hall has not reached out nearly enough to make the Nelson citizenry feel part of the decision-making process. An active part!

Although it is possible - through one City-webpage - to determine on which Boards, Committees, Commissions the mayor and councillors serve and to connect with them - through another webpage - by phone or e-mail: their function in these groups is not known to the general public. Neither are the real-time parameters nor composition of these groups: all ostensibly building-blocks within the City-construct - our home!

So - for the sake of openness, direct accessibility and ultimately accountability - it seems appropriate to have listed - on a connected webpage - all City-related Boards, Committees, Commissions and all their members, as well as their chairs; plus contact-information for the groups as units, as opposed to for just one - possibly random - member!
All preceded by a brief introduction to these groups in simple-speak.

To illustrate my point:
When the Funky Monkey's colours catch the public's attention for a brief but relatively intense period, with the Community Heritage Commission's (CHC) role becoming an issue in the discussion - letters to the local paper raise the question: Who are these CHC-people anyway? Not necessarily accusing but simply wanting to know! Because they don't!

Personal experience - same point:
Some months ago I want to connect with the CHC through its chair - this example is coincidental, the CHC per se is not the topic here. So I call the catch-all phone-number at City Hall to ask for the chair's name/contact info. The switchboard doesn't know and suggests I connect with the Mayor's Office. Giving me a phone-number for it. Calling there seems reasonable: the CHC holds its meetings in Council Chambers, and the Office is a major conduit. I call: they don't know either but promise to call me back with this info. But don't! Then I call someone very much in the loop with the Cultural Development Commission (CDC) - seeing that there is an umbilical-cord CHC/CDC-connect. But again - nothing!
Most would probably give-up at this stage.
I need this info and eventually could surely get it through someone else at City Hall, but I have found that the best approach in many a Nelson-situation is not necessarily one that needs a game-plan involving several calls - thus people - and confidentiality at the same time. Awkward!
So I end-up getting this very basic City Hall info on the outside!

Approaching a Board, Committee, Commission as a whole through the mayor or councillors seems indirect, inefficient - actually inappropriate - if they are not in a designated decision-making position - including that of spokesperson - within that particular group.

Councillor Kiss is about to open a new door to the wonderful world of City Hall. It is up to the mayor and the rest of Council to pull it open wider from within. And to a concerned citizenry to push it open farther from without! Then enter and get comfy!


Once inside and talking and listening:                                  

                                                                             

                    

Cookies for everybody!!!

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Dragon Flight - Jan. 23

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This is a true story.

There is this huge and ugly ogre - Nian (knee-ann) - who goes around gobbling-up people in a big way - usually in winter, usually on the same day. Bummer! By-and-by those left over get tired of this and organize behind one old revolutionary who is ready and willing to stand-up to the tyrant: they beat gongs, set-off fireworks - crash! boom! bang! - and the fearless leader flashes his red knickers at Nian - no kidding! - when he comes down from the mountains for the free lunch he feels entitled to.

Because I am bigger than you are!

But what with all this racket and the scary sight of those audacious knickers, plus all that being-chased-around and no food - Nian gets exhausted, is caught and agrees to go into exile across the waves in Switzerland, where he keeps a big stash of delicacies in a cave to which only he has the combination.

All seems well now - superficially anyway - but people don't trust the arrangement, particularly as the wise old man has wisely moved along, and pushing and pulling among potential successors has taken-on a life of its own - that life not necessarily including the greater whole which feels: no, we can't! So the many are tense - in a holding-pattern - and the few ostensibly aiming to protect them support this tension with gusto and God on our side, by suggesting preemptively leveling Switzerland to ease it. The tension.

But the many can remember Nian's red- and noise-phobias. So they keep decorating their houses with much red once a year - always on the same day. Like with strips of red paper on and around entrances, with hopes and wishes written on them; red posters and red paper-cuts on windows. And making much noise!!!
And those who just have to get to the mall for something they absolutely can't be without - on this day which has become the first day of the year - wear something red to be safe out there: a piece of clothing, a belt, their Louboutins, even just a red thread around a wrist.

Predictably, Nian hasn't returned. Well, who would: Switzerland, with all that free money, reasonably priced cheese and superior chocolate!

But told to never ever trust Nian, protective measures for the many have become a custom on this first day of the New Year - called Guo Nian - The Passing of Nian. And the weeklong festival following it is called Chun Jie - The Spring Festival, because according to the lunar calendar this is the beginning of spring. I know, I know! And this coming year - following the Chinese zodiac - will be the Year of the Dragon: a good guy! But that's another story.

Anyway - back to the beginning of it all. To stimulate the military-industrial complex: their cottage-industry noise-makers - invented by them - have become an export-smash, in great demand for frightening the natives into submission else-and-anywhere. Flashbangs! Beads no more! And importers in more civilized countries have refined these flashbangs by adding an actual kill-component! Applied by merely flicking a switch and watched on screens in the comfort of their rectitude. Bang - you're definitively dead! Just for the hell of it - literally! Death-gamers! How cool is that!

The Chinese word for year is nian as well. So when people today wish each other
Xin nian kuai le! - Happy New Year!
they - at the same time - keep their fingers crossed when remembering the huge and ugly ogre out there somewhere!

Nian wants to be your friend. 

Whatever, on January 23rd - the first day of the Year of the Dragon - it'll be best to wear a little something red!




Just in case!








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Nelson: A Maybe-Economy

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Recently the Star ran a story on the City being in a bit of a tizzy over the proliferation of sandwich-boards per se on Baker and possible safety issues because of them.

These boards are placed on sidewalks to attract customers - obviously crucial for all businesses advertising - particularly those off-Baker: they inform those who don't know and remind those who may have forgotten. Increasing business is good for business - thus the local economy. With the local economy being less than robust wink-wink, it would seem basic that the City encourages instead of discourages its growth. Maybe.

I have never felt threatened by sandwich-boards, nor have I stumbled over or even just had to walk around one. Including at crosswalks. And I have never seen this happen to anyone else. Or heard anyone complain about them. And - not being a driver - I walk in the downtown-area almost every day.
I often don't feel safe though - what about the seriously elderly and infirm? - and I have stumbled and slipped and made often tricky detours for years when in winter there is absolutely no enforcement downtown of the sidewalk-snow-shoveling bylaw. And I have seen others of various ages slip and heard them complain. It is (un)safe to say that at least a third of all businesses/buildings in the general downtown-area don't shovel or dispense salt. They don't because they don't have to.
Meaning: often deep snow turns into deep slush turns into bumpy ice, while bylaw-enforcement folk - when a visible presence - are busy with non-confrontational parking-meters or chatting with non-confrontational acquaintances.

It would be reasonable to formalize a rule to generally keep boards close to curbs, away from parking-meters and from obstructing crosswalks and entrances - all this already common practice anyway.
Specifically - there is no reason why street-level/store-front businesses on Baker should have a sandwich-board: if pedestrians can look to the left - they can look to the right. And vice versa. These boards should be disallowed to avoid overwhelming clutter. At the same time - 2nd/3rd-floor businesses and those below street-level on Baker need to make their presence known somehow - thus should be allowed to have a board.
Businesses in the 1st block of streets crossing Baker should be allowed a sandwich-board at 2 street-corners on their side. For them also: if in a street-level store no - if on 2nd/3rd floors or below street-level yes. They may draw potential customers - who otherwise might not go there - into those blocks.
And that should be it - common sense!

Most of these sandwich-boards are quite attractive, and all add a splash of colour, some life and even a bit of flair to an otherwise very dingy downtown Nelson - like most of the year! 

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Of course, but...

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         He who dares not offend cannot be honest.

                                                                                                       Thomas Paine

                                                                     1737 - 1809

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Bradley Who?

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http://www.bradleymanning.org/

After the current pre-trial? phase in Fort Meade Bradley will be back in Fort Leavenworth. Mail (preferably by air!) sent to him now at the address below will reach him!

Bradley Manning
                    89289
830 Sabalu Rd
Fort Leavenworth, KS 66027
USA




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Nelson (Star): Mayor Fletcher

Following is a Letter to the Editor, Nelson Star, sent Dec. 3, 2011

Re: Former mayor's grave marked at last
Nelson Star, Fri. Dec. 2, 2011

When the tomb-stone for Mayor Fletcher was contemplated by Don Tonsaker - according to the Nelson Express, about one year ago - researchers Ron Welwood, local historian, and Pat Rogers, Community Heritage Commission (CHC) and Touchstones Archive, supposedly couldn't find much information on the mayor.

Crucial information they seemingly hadn't found - even though readily accessible - was information which actually defines Mayor Fletcher's legacy. Unless they had unearthed it, and the Express just failed to mention it. Or something.

Bear with me: Local discrimination against the Chinese population of Nelson in those early years was of punching-bag status - with John "Truth" Houston right in there as loudly outspoken racist and the Nelson Weekly Miner advocating to arrange to kill off, if any legal way can be divined to accomplish that act, every mother's son of the almond-eyed pigtail wearers living at present in any country inhabited by white men. He is a filthy, immoral piece of human machinery, not a man in the sense in which the word is used by civilized peoples.
This despite the fact that these filthy, immoral piece(s) of human machinery at the time - while forced to live in the Lower Hill ghetto - were feeding Nelson with cheap, fresh produce, grown under extremely harsh Anglo-determined conditions; had been playing a major role in building area-railroads; did all dirty work for Upper Hill ladies; kept most everybody's clothes clean and mended.
Instrumental in putting Nelson on the map!

Here goes: At that time Chinese farmers asked Mayor Fletcher to lease Cottonwood-Basin land to them - they wanted to establish market-gardens there. Mayor Fletcher could not do this because the land had been given to Nelson by the CPR as park-land. But he did give them permission to work the land as squatters! This was a truly remarkable gesture of generosity at the time - with Chinese habitually used and abused. Taken from - but never given to! 
And then the licensing-fee fracas. Alderman Irving attempted to see a licensing-fee of $25 per year imposed on Chinese market-gardeners. This was a ploy devised by Anglo vegetable-farmers, trying to rid themselves of Chinese competition - even though the Chinese were the first to work Nelson's outskirts as market-gardeners. In fact: some of these Anglo farmers were growing crops on land which had been leased to and cleared and cultivated by Chinese. Meaning: the Chinese had paid money to landowners to be allowed to clear and cultivate their land! To then be told unceremoniously to leave - when the land appreciated in value because of it! Anyway, $25 was an impossible amount for the Chinese to come up with; Alderman Hamilton thought that $10 were sufficient. The issue had everybody jump up-and-down loudly for a while - until Mayor Fletcher put a decisive end to it, saying: the Chinese had been cultivating this land for the owners, and without them it would have remained wilderness! Council was deadlocked, and the issue was dropped!

In both cases Mayor Fletcher showed himself as a man of reason and objectivity - a leader - his own man, way ahead of his time.

Asking to have these two crucial facts published as a letter - I wrote to the Express, as soon as it published the article about the intended tomb-stone and supposed dearth of Fletcher-related facts.
The letter was never published.

I sent a copy of it to Don Tonsaker through Kim Charlesworth, then CHC member from Council.
This e-mail was never acknowledged.

And there is no mention here in the Star about these facts either: information more revealing of the man than anything else published about him in Nelson since his time in office.

Heritage selectively acknowledged - Nelson's heritage!

Claos Schunke
Nelson

End of letter to the Star.

I don't fault the writer of the article for not including this information; I want to bring to his (and anyone's) attention though that - no matter how convenient a conduit the Touchstone Archive may be - there are other excellent conduits with possibly more and/or different historical sources in the area: such as the Selkirk/Castlegar Reference Library.

Which, of course, has nothing to do with the Nelson Star not being interested - now, after it ran its story - in this additional Nelson-specific information of substance about Mayor Fletcher and his time - delivered to its door!
How convenient is that!

As of this date: my letter above to the Nelson Star - more than 3 issues ago - has not been published.







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Heronically Nelson

Choosing one of the three unimaginatively similar suggested locations for the heron-post may be difficult for many: nobody I asked knows the Heritage Inn Point - there are several points along the waterfront, parallel to the soccer fields. What here (and here alone) is called the Waterfront Amphitheatre seems to be the stretch of grassy slope across from the Nelson Rowing Club.

The mock-ups provide no visual context: leading to an uninformed choice only.

An added consideration - not mentioned anywhere - is the bronze osprey in a nest on a wooden post, in the bay next to the mall's parking lot. This by local sculptor Denis Kleine, within the osprey's natural environment. The osprey is iconic in this immediate area - the heron is not! Regardless - putting the heron that close to a bird on a post we already have makes no sense!

In the mock-ups this post appears to be about 10 feet high, meaning that the remaining 15 feet or so are sunk into the ground. The Nelson Post does not mention how high its sculptor envisions the heron above-ground.

So - aside from possibly not being able to tell exactly where, people also can't tell exactly how high. How real is that!

We do know though that the ground isn't particularly solid in this area - what with sand, landfill and rocks - so it would not be a simple matter of digging a 15-foot hole and sinking the post into it. On the other hand - the higher the post's section above-ground is - the more well-engineered support it will need: considering its weight of about one ton and strong winds common here! No matter how far above or below ground - the post not tapering towards the top, plus the heron business up there, do not make for the desirable centre of gravity. Top-heavy!

Proposed locations at the Heritage Inn Point and Waterfront Amphitheatre present particular (obviously unaddressed) challenges: the first being right at the top of a steepish, narrow slope into the lake and the second at the edge of a slope, where it drops several feet into the lake or on the beach - depending on lake-levels.
Safe installation at the shown Point-location would mean extensive preparation of a very large/deep hole for a foundation-box, possibly reaching into the lake as containment-wall. Three of its sides may have to be fenced. There are lake-level and erosion issues! There is the wind-factor! The commemorative Heritage Inn plaque - seemingly giving the Point its name and being its centre - would need to be moved. A reminder: the post is about 25' high and weighs about one ton! Placing the post closer to the path would mean a completely changed appearance of the Heritage Inn Point. What's in a name?
Challenges of installing this post at the Amphitheatre slope-drop are greater yet: a very large/deep gash would need to be carved out for a foundation strong enough to support this post of - one more time! - 25' in height and one ton in weight. Ground-volatility, erosion-containment and water-issues are a certainty. Added here is that frequently strong winds would hit the post  unimpeded: vibrations from the post into the foundation could eventually mean major disaster.

Of course, all this could be dealt with - but at what environmental, aesthetic and financial cost?

The three images shown in the Nelson Post - the heron just stuck into the ground - are simplistically and reprehensibly misleading: the CDC's attention possibly engaged elsewhere, while preparing for this presentation of no-choice choices for the public. With no engineers present. All this seems to be a rush-job, focused on getting a handle on the tax-receipt issue looming largish.

No matter where the post is eventually located - the City will be well-advised to figure-in a hefty all-purpose insurance policy ad infinitum.

Another angle: The City's agreement with the sculptor has him construct a decorative base he already designed - $6000 received? - which is only doable on flat ground, thus would call for considerable ground-modifications. If the post were to be erected in a way not at all suitable for this base: would the sculptor agree and still keep/get his $6000? The three mock-ups do not show his base or any kind of (necessary!) location-specific foundations.

When the Kelowna City Council came up with a minimum of $40.000 in installation costs, they seemed to know what they were talking about - they had done the math! With these locations here: Nelson can only guess! Even just a rough cost-estimate for various possible location-terrains has been deferred since the beginning, in July; and the CDC said in the Nelson Star, Nov. 16, 2011, that the most important/difficult thing now would be finding the location for the post. The rest - like money? - would be easy!
This approach has made me wonder all along how great a surprise the costs will be eventually.
Information made public about the heron has been sparse and often cheerfully vague. Particularly about money involved. No matter who hands it out for this venture - the source ultimately is the tax-payer! As the City - according to former Councillor Stacey - will definitely not pay for any of this, the public needs to be able to finally see more transparently in this matter. And regardless of how soothing the community-input idea for locations may be: this mock-up construct is superficial fun at best - but certainly not reality-based! How deeply is the community really (supposed to be) involved in this selection process - voting-response has been minimal thus far!

What if the popular location-choice presents significantly more installation problems - thus costs - than another location? But we wouldn't know, would we, if no engineering-based across-the-board estimates are done prior to the decision. What if costs of installing the post in any one of the three locations - one after the other - ultimately should prove prohibitive? Start over somewhere else: with the cart before the horse! Again! Non-existent money to burn!

Unless, of course, all this has been handled efficiently - step-by-well-reasoned-step - already, with the tax-receipt in place. And we just haven't been told!

Could it be that instead of catching a bird - we may just be laying an egg here.







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