Nelson's hapless shopkeepers - the Nelson Business Association (NBA) - against hordes of drug-crazed homeless, attempting to take over parts of Baker Avenue - the plazas. And Kevin Cormack - trumpets please! - the NBA's enforcer from the City stepping forth!
That's what it looks like for several reasons.
But Council generally doesn't do people - stuff is more comfy. From that woolly space at least passively aligning with the NBA's attitude against a lifestyle not based on consumerism: Not under this tree you don't!
But first - a brief history of how we got this way.
Baker Avenue
In Nelson, cultural development - in its fundamental sense - for several generations is based on conservative Anglo-Colonial values only.
A shift towards a younger, more open, generally less materialistic and more imaginative - above all more tolerant - mindscape eventually takes shape, with the combination of a university, an art college and dope grown, smoked in and exported from the area. A counter-culture. These 3 plus a steady influx of young people - generally referred to as hippies - and their intangible/tangible expressions then determine the local economy: a gold-mine - largely created by anti-establishment types!
Nelson becomes a hub again! And a people-magnet, because it acquires a youth-based reputation of creativity and progressive attitudes. This not necessarily approved of by the pressed-jeans business-owners - yet they love taking it to the bank!
By the mid-80s, flower-power - as a lifestyle - has lost much of its bloom; the university and saw-mill close; a shopping-mall opens away from downtown; and Baker business of selling non-essential stuff drops off dramatically. Thus Nelson is reinvented - largely by former counter-culture talent. With not much money to be made from the present - Nelson goes heritage, and shop-owners once again are ready for big money to be handed to them.
More recently - with business not quite so rich-making any longer - all Nelson feels it has to hang onto is its by now institutionalized, no longer fed reputation! To the point of Ian Mason - a single voice, during his re-election campaign for City councilor - cautioning: Nelson must stop relying on its good looks and reputation! But the ever-frustrated NBA wouldn't know how on its own!
Because of this memory of a reputation a steady trickle of young people keeps coming. With the now refined and widely popularized quality of dope grown around here a major incentive. The substantial economic reality of this commodity not copped to officially.
Nelson Kootenay Lake Tourism (NKLT) - in charge of selling Nelson - promotes it today with the slogan Far Out! For Real!, ostensibly to the main-stream tourist. Even though both expressions were coined by drug-crazed hippie-freaks way back when today's reputation-hype was a well-founded reputation - and now hardly anybody is using them any longer! With Nelson also not particularly far out these days - the basic tourist could be confused in his expectations.
While many of the newcomers here to stay have an agenda and establish themselves within the local economy; their work and out-of-the-box preferences - conscious lifestyle choices - again have a deciding impact on Nelson's economy and general mindscape. But - by choice and regrettably - not on matters civic. The progressives.
The Undesirable
Then there still come those who don't want to be part of money-driven Nelson as consumers - here because of the much-hyped Nelson vibe, its mythic reputation only! Still expecting it to be for real!
Positioned in back of beyond money-by-any-means conservatives and just within possible reach of the progressives, who like their salade with a sprinkle of Tibet and a dash of bank account.
Among these free spirits are local and area youths, whose looks and behavior are fashion-statements and Internet-beliefs. With tax-paying parents in Fairview! As well as - soon again! - college students, traveling on a shoe-string budget. Their traveling-mode and ideology not necessarily including just-so hair and mountain drag. But seeing that they - formerly called a bunch of hippies - all look alike, hang out in the same place and are not into retail-therapy: they're now conveniently lumped together as the homeless.
Their presence decided to be dangerous generally and bad for Baker business most specifically. While actually they could be just as confused as the basic tourist - by signals received before they got here. If they thought about it. After a shared toke or two of local bud. Altogether just too far out and too real for the NBA - although their fluctuating number on Baker Avenue usually doesn't seem to amount to more than about 5, 6, 7 in a bunch. But even 1 is 1 too many. Just look at those pants!
Because - unfortunately and getting down to it here - they have the same rights as NBA members - they can't just be disappeared. So the last resort is to NOW make it so uncomfortable for them that they will go away NOW: by having the City - what timing! - give the 2 amenities in the 400-Baker block a face-lift NOW. Spin, spin, spin!
The myopic logic here is the same as was with downtown dogs. The NBA wants those downtown - but does not want or can't have them in their businesses. In this case: these people are lured to Nelson by loud tom-toms, but once here their otherness and disinterest in participating on pursed-lips Nelson-terms make them a major irritant!
Another parallel: The downtown dogs wagged ahead of 6 other - previously more important - items on Council's table; this amenity-redo seems to have performed a similar trick.
And: the NBA expected to make tons of money with dogs downtown. In the same vein - it obviously expects to make tons of money as soon as the undesired are gone. Never mind where - just gone! The kids from Fairview, the Northshore and the Valley? Well, okay: maybe the Ward bus-stop for them. But with cameras!
If the City, the NBA, the NKLT were to consider that these people just may be desirable to their mothers, they would find: not all are homeless by necessity. Not all are without money. Not all are uneducated. Not all are drug-addicts. Not all smoke furiously in the amenities - like locals on their smoke-breaks - or drop garbage there - like locals who don't care. And not all have mental-health issues beyond those of - say - average NBA- or NKLT-members!
But as they spend little money - they are the generic homeless. While the Shambhala crowd - no matter how they dress and carry-on - are welcome on the Avenue: because they do spend! How plain can plain get?
The NBA
Its money-generating attempts are a one-way street. In neglectful-dinge buildings, with growth-covered awnings rotting - a Blade-Runner thing - not kept-up since the switch from present to heritage in the mid-80s. The literal money-at-all-costs approach negatively impacting on some groups, discriminating against others. Shop local means: gimme all your money!
The group - about 125 members "strong" - takes but predictably does not give back. Like - its donations collected from the public (customers!) in its Santa event - of $165 each for the Salvation Army, the Nelson Food Cupboard and Our Daily Bread - are an embarrassment! Particularly as - with a business perspective - helping people get on their feet potentially creates new customers!
The City Manager
Kevin Cormack's perfunctory announcement that the amenities-project didn't specifically come before Council but was part of the action approved by politicians to implement the Downtown Waterfront Plan - Nelson Star, March 6, 2013 - leaves unclear what specifically and part of the action approved by politicians mean. And unexplained why implementation of this surely expensive and not-vital-for-the-common-good part of the plan takes place now, so suddenly. What's quite clear though: he doesn't risk a confrontation with a predictably concerned - thus possibly pesky - public. Pro forma: in and out!
The Downtown Waterfront Plan is the above-mentioned Sustainable Waterfront and Downtown Master Plan, which shows on a computer-generated double-page spread - pages 46-47: City Hall; a children's playground in front of it; small children playing on the Front St. sidewalk; a young couple, with a baby in a stroller, just stepping off the curb to cross Front St. - by the City Hall steps, on a diagonal.
Makes you - no, me - wonder how much the author(s) of this Master Plan knew about Nelson alive, when preparing it with an admittedly extensive inventory but clearly limited vision. As far as I read and saw. What with this particular stretch traffic-wise the fastest, most complicated - thus dangerous - in Nelson! And Mr. Cormack's politicians not questioning this - thus the whole plan?
But that - for time to come - will be the City's how-to manual - its Bible - and because it was prepared by expensive out-of-town experts, it must be good! So it saves them from having to think, having to become creative.
For more on this, go to post
Nelson: Waterfront and Downtown Plan, Pages 46 - 47
Wednesday, 7 March, 2012
below
Continuing with the same Star article: The cost of the work Tuesday morning - Tuesday morning actually is only the start of the start of a process! - is considered an "opportunity cost" that does not show up as a budget line item. Thus there's no need for accountability! Far out! Like there was a bunch of spare-change lying around City Hall, and he took the opportunity to use it for a present to the NBA: getting rid of the undesirable? Which - according to one NBA-member - is what happened 100 per cent. The getting-rid part.
Speaking of presents to the NBA: There was that of the 2 only linden-trees in the world with an unbearable stench of baby-vomit, cut down at Mr. Cormack's orders and great public expense: just to please the owner of the Main Street Diner - on Baker Avenue also. After the charade of supposedly checking area sewage-pipes for this fictitious stench.
For more on that go to my first post ever
Nelson: The Unbearable Stench Of Baby-Vomit
Monday, 22 August, 2011
way below.
In politics perception is more powerful than fact, and no matter what more (justifications) may be run on this amenities-redo-ado: in terms of PR it so far has been a disaster. And ultimately Council will be blamed - this not necessarily raising the public's level of positive interest in matters civic. As in: why bother, they do what they want anyway!
The Amenities
All this opening-up/streamlining has created 2 large, bare deadzones - at least for about half of every year to come. The most appealing piece in the amenities-as-were - one exquisite magnolia - has been moved to Railtown. Supposedly - and there is way too much supposedly in all this! - a design for plant- and seating-arrangements is being worked on now. Which raises the question: why wasn't all that planning done before the walls were pulled down and the benches were removed?
In each amenity originally 3 niches were built into the walls, specifically for benches. So it is reasonable to have the benches - all in good shape - there at least for now. But no! Now nobody sits until whenever! More hmm!
There is talk of sculptures imported from Castlegar, organized musical events, exhibitions. Particularly live presentations there will create unavoidable bottle-neck situations for sidewalk-traffic - with the undesired in the thick of it all. Because I don't see them leave, in fact, with spring and summer coming....!
Nelson's base has been a combo of bigotry and greed since Day 1; its cultural development never really progressed past mud-puddle-colored Anglo-Colonial conservatism, although the multi-hued young again and again have been its economic driving-force.
Positive cultural development must be guided by strong individual voices from Council! Proactively engaging with all as equals - instead of reactively engaging with a select few only - each other, issue-presenters and staff - by necessity.
A how-not-to example: Councilor Macdonald writes in the Star's Council Column, March 20, 2013, about the public's tendency to react negatively - to automatically assume that the City, in this case, is doing something idiotic. It's sad that there isn't enough goodwill or trust such that people (sic) would seek out (sic) information before reacting.
Maybe the tendency to react negatively is based on the fact that the City rarely communicates in a timely, open and comprehensive manner - the news-media later conveniently blamed for any kind of fall-out - with the electorate often feeling disregarded at best and jerked around at worst. Leading it to wonder: what's really going on here?
The reason for the progressives' lack of interest in matters civic - alongside that of those who created the reputation - surely is to be found on the other side of the moat. This reputation now insincerely and undeservedly appropriated by Council, the NKLT and NBA.
What is really sad is that Council has infrequently shown enough interest in the people to connect with them. They shouldn't have to go to the City to get information of common concern - the City should take it to them! In this case: the people are presented with a negligently explained fait accompli, run by the Star after the fact.
This councilor - when not in tetchy lecturing-mode - may want to consider that people here react negatively not so much because of the change but the shenanigans around it!
Council culture! Not developing!
Personally, Councilor, I have the tendency to react negatively to being patronized. By an elected official yet!
Some images: Andy Warhol, Daniel Root
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