The recent flap between 2 councillors in a Council Meeting (refreshing: Council partially alive!) over whether-or-not more generic Xmas-lighting on Baker - opens a very smudged, sticking window just a little to the possibility of imaginative movement on the 2nd Floor.
To afford (a) vision through this window in City Hall: it (the window, silly!) needs to be cleaned thoroughly first, then fixed to allow easy opening at will. Will being crucial.
The Star reports this meeting with gusto and great pictures of Councillors Kiss and Adams aroused.
3 sticking-points:
1.
The sluggish Council
2.
The unchallenged Cultural Development Committee (CDC)
3.
The ever-inflating Kevin Cormack, Chief Administrative Officer (CAO)
Council - while using growth, sustainability, Community Master Plan in mash-ups with ease - has no vision of/for Nelson's future, period. Periodically attempting to buy a partial one from outsiders for lots of money - so it must be good! - but promptly shelving it don't ask! Instead largely leaving it to the CDC to come-up with something anything "artistic" at random. Because we are ever so!
And oblige energetically - under de facto leader Councillor Macdonald, comfy in both worlds - spending loads of Council-provided funds on bits of arty manifestations by now seriously cluttering-up the place. And with more and more of this unconnected clutter - a cohesive whole less and less probable.
Still not clear on: a vision has to emerge from the local gestalt - can't be commissioned by a few artists manques for the whole as an arty attempt or urban-generic design-effort.
The CAO inserts himself with increasing frequency - and allowed to do so - in various "identity"-processes, without particular expertise and/or this as part of his job-description.
Sticky
As for this Council Meeting and an example of their interplay-or-not: the CAO announces desultorily a consultant to be engaged to look at lighting, benches and banners on Baker - so we'll hold-off on additional Xmas lights for now he decides; Councillor Macdonald nods (smiling in-the-know?) agreement; the other councillors just there - who knows what they know and think. They'll never tell! Nobody explains anything to anybody. The attending public might as well not be present.
All this certainly-not-cooperation! conceivably an example of what Councillor Kiss warns against: anyone putting pressure on department-heads directly instead of going through Council.
Non-stick
A plan for Nelson - the now automatically conveniently/superficially referred to Community Plan - should (but doesn't!) have the Baker-corridor as its pin-point focus, from which everything else radiates outward. With tourism now and always the name of the game - putting Hall before Baker is putting the cart before the horse.
For a sizable portion of ever-growing City-expenses to be met by income from tourism: instead of being a pleasant stop-over for some - Nelson must become a tourist-magnet for many. Not just water-and-mountains - a given across BC - but Nelson proper NOW a many-faceted environment in a water-and-mountains setting. And that sure ain't Hall!
The Community Plan at best has a few creatively negligible bits among its endless local stock-taking: listing what is - instead of must be!
With the CAO hardly the artistically daring type: his Baker-lighting-and-what-not consultant will probably be provided by the M&Ms, Kelowna - perpetrators of the Community Plan - and their basic bread-and-butter consciousness. For an example of this group's in-depth engagement with us - and our unfailing acceptance of it: go to pages 46 and 47 of the Plan.
This consultant du jour promises to be more of the same.
Ironically - truly imaginative lighting is no less than the medium of transformation for downtown. Light dramatically coloring the customary: it must be part of what will turn Nelson into a destination - where to wonder, marvel for a few days. Participatory public art! Paint for days - light for nights.
First step towards this: the CDC - concurrently in charge of a new version of the Community Heritage Commission (CHC) I mean really! - needs to wean itself of its don't-touch-me-there downtown-heritage fixation. After the CHC leads Baker (and Council) into catatonia - most obvious when not hidden in summer greenery: mid-autumn/winter/early spring - really most of the year. Ultimately a yesterday husk - instead of a today resurgence.
Bringing "heritage" into today with color - paint and light - has been done very successfully worldwide. There are a few tiny glimpses of this in Nelson with the Cartolina Building and most recent Hydro-box wrappings - more of the same to be encouraged enthusiastically!
The conscious aim must be: wrapping all of the core in a glow of color - to walk in, shop in, sit in, be entertained in, play in, dine in. Blocked to thru-traffic in evenings year-around: a gathering-place for tourists and locals alike.
Look at these pictures and imagine a nexus of: Hume, Court House, City Hall, Touchstones similarly lit! And all of Baker! Cross-streets, too! And trees!
Then look away to imagine a leaf/lifeless heritage downtown - soon and once again seemingly never-ending reality - with mall-generic Xmas predictability of the so-called Festival of Lights, and whatever a pricey consultant may add to that via the CAO and unchallenged.
Of course - after the initial shock - immediate reaction to the possibility of coloring the core here must be: We can't - too much and too soon and everything and even if we wanted to - there's not enough money!
Which is not how to get the job - any job - done. With the window to resurgence consciously opened: this idea whose time has come will enter, and the money will follow.
In the meantime: how about stopping smallish - ultimately beside the point - projects and saving money towards one big one instead!
For additional info see posts:
Nelson: Waterfront and Downtown Plan, Pages 46-47
7 March, 2012
Kevin Cormack's Identity Crisis
20 November, 2013
This post has several parts - the following progressively shorter on words.
Next:
Destination: Nelson (Part 2) - Festival of Lights
Images:
Recanati, Italy
Rijeka, Croatia
Paris, France
Montreal, Canada
Brisbane, Australia
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