Whether or not this year to add more Baker Street Xmas-hoopla to last year's takes-up more time/energy in the Regular Council Meeting, 7. July, than any other item in recent memory. The claws are out! An entertaining embarrassment! Finally - life in the Council Chamber!
Dimly Lit!
If someone were to raise the bottom-line question: what is the purpose of this particular kind of lighting, the silliness of the topic quickly could be established - that incidentally leaving councillors more time/energy to reflect on their here once again displayed habitual thoughtless disregard for the attending electorate in meetings. But - no reflection here!
Usually just talking to each other - often inaudible to the "audience" - or referring to topics which already had been addressed outside the Council Chamber - not necessarily in camera - thus often not cohesively explored in front of the interested/concerned. Being very inside - and very not!
While the effort of the recent Xmas-elves is to be commended - the result is predictable: predictable fake pine-garlands, predictable cardboard bows, predictable fake candy-canes, predictable electric twinkle: all adding-up to a
Festival of Lights!
Seriously!
Predictable holiday-cheer in a predictable smallish-thinking town.
Purpose? Xmas is when downtown/mall-merchants make more money than at any other time during the year - money then the name of the game: spending it and making it. This is the time when Xmas-addicts will indeed shop local and lots, without needing to be prompted with fake mall-cheer up-and-down trees.
As bizarre as can get: with a bit of the Spurway Fund in there but who knows - an ultimately again-and-again taxpayer-funded Xmas decor is really only to set the mood for the Nelson Business Association's (NBA) walk to the bank laughing, with the same taxpayers' irrationally spent money - what with the NBA only taking but never giving.
The Spurway Fund - a substantial privately donated amount, ostensibly to be used for Xmas-lighting-up Baker - sitting around somewhere at City Hall for ages, is not mentioned in depth anywhere. Not in Council, only superficially in The Nelson Daily/Nelson Star, not on Google, not on the City's website. Who knows? Colin McClure, CFO, knows, and he's on vacation. Close to the chest!
Back to irrational shopping - encouraged generously (any time!) with taxpayer-funding for the NBA's benefit only. More rationally - any Xmas decor should be initiated and paid-for only by the NBA, possibly supplemented by the mythical Spurway Fund.
There could be a competition among its members for the most original winter-wonderland shop-windows and building-facade displays. This would lure shoppers and their children directly into particular stores - sort of like Hansel and Gretel - and stop Nelson Hydro's clumsy spiking, screwing and nailing into trees, with sad-dusty Xmas-lights still up in July.
Blinded by the light!
(Councillor Adams - arguing for more twinkle with Councillor Kiss against in the above-mentioned RCM teacup-tempest - is so fanatic about Xmas that after my critique of this topic to the Committee of the Whole (COW), 21. July - above and below here - he sends me an e-mail during! the COW - 7:50pm - masquerading as his wife - Lynn Adams - with: It is my opinion that more residents are inspired by the Festival of Lights than not. Signed: Lynn. Who is not present at the COW.)
Spotlight!
Back at the RCM the plot thickens. Kevin Cormack, CAO - as a by-the-way tells Council of the need for considering general lighting - Xmas-lights possibly included - benches, banners and what-not in a Baker revamp and a consultant soon to be engaged for all this. Therefore the City holding-off on additional Xmas-lighting for now. Councillor Macdonald - the Cultural Development Committee's (COW) de facto hub - nods smiling agreement. This making the Adams/Kiss argument not only a waste of their energy and everybody's time but also pointless. With neither announcing nor moving on this idea Cormack's job - clearly all this was decided among "them" - whoever they are, seemingly not all of Council - prior and elsewhere.
The idea of doing something about Baker - for long stretches of the year a drab affair - is long overdue, but bringing in a consultant yet another sign of how little awareness there is at City Hall generally and the CDC specifically: still not having a naturally homegrown vision of Nelson and once again expecting an expensive, generic, outsider-generated study to provide it. This vision then promptly to be filed-away and forgotten - alongside others from before.
What with the Spurway Fund (also called Spurwood by Councillor Adams) not meant for a general overhaul but what do "we" know: here surely again comes the hapless taxpayer!
Unless!
Financing of the next-in-line consultant and this vaguely explained project-to-be is not divulged in this meeting - while surely on the(ir) table as a prerequisite - so one has to wonder whether the Spurway Fund's rules of application could be bent to allow for hiring pricey consultants ostensibly for a Xmas-lighting plan and - incidentally - buying Cormack's general lighting, benches, banners and what-not! I mean - who's to know?
In a Nelson Star survey the public overwhelmingly speaks out against hiring a consultant (for something barely explained yet).
Remember the ego-fueled/driven truck City Hall bought for Onagawa with funds publicly collected for immediate disaster-relief wherever most needed in Japan - after these funds had been left sitting around by City Hall for way over a year? And despite repeated loud protests in COWs - but nothing from Council?
Could this Baker Lite be deja voo all over again?
Exit-Light!
Seeing that the tenor of both - Council and the CDC - is bound to be significantly different after the election in November: decisions of this range had better be left to the next generation at City Hall - with the current lame ducks focusing on fixing the present rather than the future. And Cormack implementing directives from instead of originating them for Council.
The above - with the odd change/addition for clarity and depth here - is the material I present to the COW, 21. July, based on lights-or-not and consultant-for-sure, RCM, 7. July.
Let there be light!
Two dominant points here: City Hall's/CDC's lack of a vision, despite their all-overriding artsy/cultchuh/heritage-pretensions plus the City's unquestioning readiness to buy a vision off-the-rack.
Some years ago a consultant tells us about art and economics. Then we have one for the cultural tourist. Then there's Roger Brooks telling us pretty much what Cormack/Council/CDC want to be told again now. And the Downtown Etc. Master Plan. More recently - almost again Brooks - to label Nelson. Sooooo - is this to be more Brooks-shtick?
So far always at the taxpayers' expense - never real because never ours: never to be applied!
We don't need still more consultants: googling what's similar to our perceived needs - then tweaking that as theirs for a hefty fee. In this case particularly: Baker is well enough lit, and additional Xmas-hoopla benefits only the NBA and those actually involved in designing/installing it.
I will provide a reasonable Baker-plan - free of charge! - here now just like that totally doable. Not that I'm an expert consultant - I walk and simply pay attention with intention. I also actually care about Nelson - unfettered by a political, economic, social agenda.
Here goes!
Extra Lite!
It all starts with Heritage - rather only the anal-WASP kind our previous heritage watchdog - the CHC - formalizes and the CDC - its successor - still lives with in a snug box. Those WASPs aren't into color beyond the faded burgundy of tassled plush in the colonial drawing-room. While bright colors are lived (but frowned upon by the repressed masters) among Eastern-Europeans and Asians within the community - but then: they don't count tut-tut what can you expect from them!
When various paint-manufacturers more recently come-up with heritage-colors - a contrived concept to up their profits and cultural diversity/multi-culturalism only going so far I mean really! - their palettes predictably come from mud-puddles.
With Nelson today rather faux heritage and proud of it - still in the same snug box. Little life and only dim light to be found in there. No vision possible without the boundless exuberance of multicolored joy! With the City's so-called cultural development an insult to all cultures having made a contribution to Nelson with their own heritage of values - like hard work!
So much for heritage.
But surprise, surprise - a spark! - when pictures now are taken of Baker to showcase local vibrancy and what-not - even in tourist lit - the inevitably photographed buildings are the ones with the Dominion Cafe and Kootenay Exchange next door. Because they are colorful - even though somewhat shabby! A very recent further step: covering even heritage-stone - gasp! - with total totally irreverent bright paint - the former King's Restaurant!
Color does liven/lighten(!)-up the environment - thus the people inhabiting it, passing through it. Color-therapy! Ultimately - in a commercial setting - prompting them to spend more money. The reality of these dots yet to be acknowledged, then connected by the NBA, CDC and City Hall - all of the same pursed-lips lot.
Whether stone- or wood-buildings: painting them in different colors and/or subtly varying shades of one color brings out architectural detail, easily overlooked in monochrome treatment. Have a slow look at the old King's from across the street!
And then there's painting with light!
Victoria BC - heritage mother of them all - saw that along with cities all over the world and now has the candy-colored Old-Town strip at Johnson Street's harbour end showing the early colonial city isn't all about Earl Grey and crumpets. As in Westworld.
All pictures in this post are of LoJO - Lower Johnson - in Victoria.
Take it from there and find all the light(s) you need in post
Nelson in Living Colour
1. December, 2011
way below, along with over 20 posts in between dealing with aspects of Baker Street as-are/as-could-be. And their current/projected influence on Nelson's growth.
I can see the difficulty City Hall is facing with the Spurway Fund - all this money and nowhere to put it - but what to do with it must come before Council as a whole: clearly, comprehensively explored/explained in an open meeting. According to established rules - instead of (seemingly) being the agenda of one or a few.
The probable rationale - should anyone ask - that it's all part of the Downtown Etc. Master Plan, so Council is not needed for this (remember Cormack's Baker-amenities blitz?) wouldn't wash here: there should be no need for a consultant at this stage now - what with definitive plans for upper Hall established ages ago. So why not for Baker - the center of Nelson's universe - then as well! By the same consultants: the M&M&Ms from Kelowna.
The light fantastic!
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