2:33 am. I can't see the window from my work-corner, so I need to get up to look out. Frequently. Because The Weather Network promised between 10 and 15 cm of snow for tonight - the first this season to make winter real. I hold them to that promise: not driving and living close to downtown and Lakeside Park , I say: (S)NOW!
Nothing yet; a light across the street, against roiling waves of stormy-green ocean - still dense-leafy trees. Reminding me of others - these bamboo. And I see myself on my warmsmooth rock - in Xia Ming Yuan - eyes closed, listening to the swoosh, swoosh.
Still nothing: time to get on with it - last evening's Committee of the Whole at City Hall. Usually a somewhat frustrating affair - this one more so.
Committee of the Whole (COW)
The name COW - a once-a-month event in Council Chambers and essentially a Council Meeting - is somewhat misleading. It promises open connection with Council and the mayor, an opportunity for give-and-take with those we elected to do good by us. But unless officially vetted as a group of something by the Mayor's Office - thus given a slot on the agenda - only 15 minutes altogether are allotted to strays - nonvetted singles' voices. Those - ideally - may get 5 minutes each - if there are 3; 1 minute each, theoretically - if there were 15. If there's only 1 - still only 5 minutes, the other 10 go to more important things. Like stuff. An indication of better things. Strays are run - often clocked sharply - by the Chair. This may force one to pare-down, condense - essentially a good thing - but there always is the possibility of being cut-off unceremoniously somewhere along one's thought. Somewhere crucial.
And when finished-or-not - usually blank-faced Council usually not engaging, commenting - one may walk away still hungry, and what's the point? Favorites in both presenting groups may have an easier time. I always have two primary concerns: Are they really listening? And: Will I make it? Hurrying to squeeze in as much info as possible does not work, because those sitting "up there" can hear and understand only what they are ready to at a very limited given never-enough time. No time for contemplative presentation/reception. No time for exchange within the Whole. Which it really is not. In and out! Next!
It is baffling that clearly uncomfortable Council has not looked at a change of format - a Committee on the Whole may be a start, to find a way of encouraging and welcoming more input from those who give City Hall meaning. Making it meaningful for both sides. To form a whole Whole.
My Position
What follows here - with minor alterations for clarity - is the complete text of what I intended to present in last evening's COW, Oct. 22: my ongoing concerns over the way Japanese disaster-relief has been handled-or-not and seemingly will be handled with even closer involvement of City Hall - this posing questions concerning appropriateness on the 2nd floor.
The bottomline for me here is - as was in the previous COW, Sep. 17: the Nelson public gives so much and so quickly because it empathizes with those who lost loved ones/property during the earthquake/tsunami of for us unimaginable magnitude. Nelson is ready to help NOW! But someone - WHO? - changes the focus from relief in the general disaster-area to that in Onagawa specifically. My position on that is: collected funds have to go - what with them still sitting in a Nelson bank - to the Japanese Red Cross for distribution as/where seen necessary. It is unreasonable to assume that Nelson would give so much so quickly, if it knew that the goal is changed to buying some undefined stuff at some undefined future-point for Onagawa. No rush with that for sure!?
The group ostensibly in charge here - WHO? - has not communicated with the Nelson public in more than a year, and whatever sparse info has consistently come our way from Mayor Dooley. WHY the mayor and in WHAT capacity?
My presentation is stopped about two-thirds through, and when the Chair and City Manager chide me for their buttons being pushed along the way - this is where they hear what they want to hear - the Chair insists on not allowing me to respond! Power of the gavel banged! Not a conciliatory attitude - and suddenly there's elecricity in the air! Something not usually the case in these hallowed halls.
The Text
When Nelson collects funds spontaneously and generously - as part of the international humanitarian-relief effort for victims of the earthquake and resulting tsunami at the north-east coast of Japan, Mar. 2011, the initial idea is to send these funds to the Japanese Red Cross. As do Castlegar and British Columbia. One major fundraising-event here is called To Japan With Love.
This really is the only viable means to get funds to where they can do the most good, with the least delay and skimming off the top. The Red Cross has extensive experience in disaster-management on all levels; it is extremely well-organized, knowlegeable - therefore knows how to deal with red tape effectively; it is usually automatically given access at ground zero of any kind. Being non-partisan, the Red Cross is trusted. All this well in line with the urgency Nelson's public feels - wanting to help NOW those who are suffering NOW!
This similarly being the case in the affected north-east-coast area as a whole - the Red Cross is uniquely qualified to assess and deal with most pressing needs across the board.
While - according to Mayor Dooley, The Nelson Daily, Oct. 18, 2012: (In Onagawa) They literally had nobody able to receive money from us.
Regardless, Onagawa it has to be, and Nelson's spontaneous relief-effort to help those suffering NOW becomes a politically charged photo-op in Council Chambers - WHENEVER! From heartfelt, unconditional compassion - to reward-based calculation. And Council - bless its collective heart - falls in line by approving a $10.000 scholarship for Onagawa - coming out of the taxpayers' pockets - with the scholarship's nature to this day unexplained. WHY?
The in the Star previously called volunteer-group and now - by Mayor Dooley - a more official-sounding committee clearly has an undoable job, and after over a year of attempting to give away the funds: Somebody take our money, please! - I have a revealing phone-chat with one of this group's members, Wendy LaCroix, at the end of August.
She tells me about being tired, frustrated; finding herself in the leadership-position neither she nor anyone else wants; that the group has not met in some time; and that maybe the funds should just be turned into more scholarships to be done with it all. Surprisingly - she seems surprised to be told that major fundraisers - like the Fire Dept. and Jude Davison - have been completely uninformed of her group's activities.
As - incidentally - has been the general public throughout. WHY?
When I remind her of immediate need having been the fulcrum for the Nelson collecting-effort, and that her group's work is totally divorced from that intent, she sees my point and brings-up that there still are single seniors, without adequate shelter - without a support-system, period! I have known about this, and we get excited about it as a possible target. She says she will call a meeting of the group, although she doesn't know whether all members are in town, as there hasn't been much contact for some time. She will call me to come to the meeting once it has been arranged.
But - even though clearly energized and interested during our talk - she doesn't call, neither does she respond to an e-mail: reminding her that - with winter coming soon - a decision has to be made quickly.
Which - to me - raises the question: Who told her not to connect with me further? Surely not her on-again/off-again group: they might have seen this as the way to finally finish what they clearly are not interested in any longer.
The day after my presentation of all this to the COW, Sep. 17, several Council-members favor sending the collected funds to the Red Cross asap - presumably between $30.000 and $40.000, but WHO KNOWS?
Councilor Cherbo - having attended some meetings of said group - expresses his impressions of it, similar to mine.
Mayor Dooley says that he will give an update at our next meeting.
This raises two red flags for me:
1.
Our next meeting means a month later: one more month, more time wasted - what with winters at the north-east coast of Japan being particularly harsh.
2.
How can Mayor Dooley be informed of connected goings-on, if neither the donating public nor Council is? WHERE and HOW is he placed in this?
He subsequently does not update in the following Council Meeting, Oct. 9; neither is an update on today's agenda, Oct. 22.
But miracles will happen! After I have strongly expressed the absolute must for the Red Cross to receive the donated funds NOW, this supported by several Council-members -according to The Nelson Daily, Oct. 18: the group claims to have become re-energized by my push (even though none have talked to me and presumably had not been at the previous COW, Sep. 17) and came-up with: Onagawa wants a truck! Just like that!
What has not been possible in over a year now happens in a flash - coincidentally and fortuitously for them - but undoubtedly because suddenly the strong possibility of these funds actually going to the Red Cross instead of Onagawa presents a threat to the group's aim.
I totally agree with Mayor Dooley when he muses in the same Nelson Daily article How do you do that? How do you go about buying a truck in Japan, and how do you get it to Onagawa?
How, indeed! This truck could be convenience for some but hardly is humanitarian-disaster relief - and that 19 months after the disaster! Never mind how the miracle miracled - but what I absolutely must know: If there really, really will be a truck, wo gets to pick the color?
None of this latest chapter is made public voluntarily - well in keeping with the group's activities-or-not all along. WHY? Only a limited number of Nelsonites have found out about it through reading the Nelson Daily, Oct. 18 - that article prompted by my post Onagawhat Now?, Sep. 6, farther below, and subsequent presentation to the COW, Sep. 17 - and now through this post.
I see a problem with Mayor Dooley stating in the Daily that the committee - hitherto so inept, disinterested and poorly attending/attended - and the City - which has absolutely no business in this! - now need to work out details of the truck purchase. One hopes that the City Manager will clarify this.
Mayor Dooley says he is not sure to whom these funds belong legally. They belong to those members of the public who donated them and will be theirs until said funds have been transparently and accountably applied to the purpose for which they were donated - not Onagawa's convenience.
With perception in politics often kick-starting live-or-die consequences: To some out there - this whole situation may have the apearance of collusion to misappropriate funds, entrusted to the City for temporary safe-keeping only. For some out there - this whole situation may have the appearance of misuse of the authority of the mayor's office.
As a taxpayer and member of the hitherto uninformed donating public - I anticipate clear and full accounting of this issue to myself, all taxpayers and donors here, now!
End of text.
Additional Positional
I do not see the committee and the City making arrangements together to buy and move this truck - in Japan! The committee has not proven particularly resourceful and energetic - thus most of the surely monumental logistics would be left to the City by necessity. Phoning it in to a complete unknown: a foreign language in a foreign culture in a foreign country. I can see this only at great expenditure of time, energy and money to the City. And I don't think it would be appropriate to involve taxpayers' money and/or the donated funds to pay for it.
There have been rumors going around town about this fundraising effort - fuelled partly by how long it's been going on unsettled and partly because there has been no information about any progress.
For everybody's benefit: I urge Mayor Dooley to fully inform the public on all there has been and is to this, starting with who initiated the change from Japan to Onagawa.
Still no snow!
See also:
Nelson Citizens' Tsunami Relief Donations Still In Local Bank Account
http://thenelsondaily.com
Oct. 18, 2012
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