“When you know that you can make a difference and that you can make that change happen, you have to follow your heart.”
Well, not really.
It’s really just a couple of councillors who have opted for hysterics over reason given the decision by Fortis to withdraw its proposed 15 storey high rise development in a heritage zone that had a four story height restriction.
Read that again, just to make sure you are clear.
A proposal that already violated the city building restrictions died before it got to a vote.
And some councillors are a wee bit miffed.
Like At Large councillor Tom Hann and mayor Doc O’Keefe (via CBC):
"Some of us were labelled gutless wonders, and spineless. So in the present atmosphere, why would anyone want to come here and be part of the city," said Hann.
"We slammed the door, your worship. We slammed the door in their face."
A disappointed Mayor Dennis O'Keefe agreed, saying the company had voiced similar concerns to him.
"They felt that they weren't getting a fair shake," said O'Keefe. "What they heard the loudest was the naysaying and the branding of being arrogant."
If Hann would stop with the foolishness for a moment, he’d realise that there are plenty of places in St. John’s, including in the downtown area, where a developer like Fortis can build high rise towers.
So if a developer like Fortis decides to submit a proposal for development that violates the area height restrictions, then it’s their own fault if the thing fails.
There was nothing stopping Fortis from submitting a proposal that fit within the rules and that incorporated a redevelopment of their existing 12 story property. That one would have been grandfathered through anyway.
But there isn’t a single developer who will refuse to come build in the city of St. john’s because - to use his own words - some people think councillors like Hann are “gutless wonders” and “spineless”.
Developers likely don’t care that much about Hann’s feelings.
As for Fortis, they did a pretty slick job early on of lobbying people like Hann and O’Keefe and putting them in the bag long before the residents of St. John’s even heard about the proposal. That’s the sort of old-fashioned crony politics that has left this city in a development mess there is. That’s the one where no one knows what the rules are. They don’t know what the rules are because there are a few councillors who can be persuaded to toss the rules out the window if the mood strikes them.
Ultimately Fortis lost this round because of a pretty effective lobby. Those opposed to the development just put the squeeze on the notoriously fickle councillors.
That’s the way things go in politics.
And if Hann wants to fix things - if he wants to show he has a spine - well he can start by bringing about some changes that open up city hall to greater public scrutiny. That way people wouldn’t be worried that developers can get their way around the rules.
Who knows? If the rules were suddenly clear and fairly and consistently applied there might be more people willing to invest.
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Retired at Taxpayer Expense that is.
If Gerry Colbert wants to retire after 25 years of working, then let him. No one would begrudge him a rest after his labours.
It’s one thing to hear the rumours that Colbert spent most if not all of the last municipal election in warmer climes, but Colbert’s got another thing coming if he thinks that time spent during council meetings is nothing more than “face time”. Let’s not even talk about the idea that for the rest of the week Colbert thinks he can just phone in the job from the Sunshine State.
Maybe Colbert ought to just give up council altogether.
The taxpayers of St. John’s shouldn’t have to pay him a nickel while he swans off to Florida and enjoys the condo life with the rest of the retired and soon-to-be-retired townies.
Better that than try and retire at taxpayer expense, as he currently is doing.
If Colbert won’t pack it in on his own, then maybe we - the poor sods who are foolishly paying people like Colbert to serve as city councillors - should reconsider the contents of their pay envelope.
After all, if being a city councillor is such a lightweight job that you can safely frig off out of the city for upwards of a third or more of the year, then taxpayers shouldn’t be forking over any payments to anyone elected to serve on city council.
Period.
After all, it’s not like Colbert is alone in being absent from council. There are others with dubious attendance records.
Maybe it’s time to end the gong show that is city council. What better way than by punting the biggest gong.
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The thrust of comments made on CBC Radio this morning by the guy responsible for clearing the snow:
** Yeah we buried the taxpayer’s driveway and then didn’t do anything about it for three days after the storm even after he called the right number and pointed out our mistake like we told him he should.
We showed up three days later by which time he’d dug himself out and the snow had melted a bit.
There was no real problem by then.
These things happen.
We have a gajillion miles of streets and if we responded to just one percent of the calls about driveways we’d never get anything done.
Now this driveway was hard to see, so maybe – and only maybe – if the taxpayer had taken it on himself at his own expense to mark the driveway somehow we might have avoided the problem. There’s no guarantee though because we keep shifting the drivers around and they don’t always know the neighbourhoods. **
Or words to that effect.
Absolutely amazing.
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Anyone hear any comments by the current St. John’s city councillors at how proud they were of the way the city looked in CBC’s Republic of Doyle?
Well, here’s what some of them told reporters, as presented in the Telegram:
“Republic of Doyle," a TV series that aired on CBC last week, received rave reviews from St. John's city councillors Monday.
"I didn't realize what a city I lived in, how beautiful it was," Coun. Gerry Colbert said. "When I look back on when I was a young fellow watching Magnum P. I., I used to say, 'God, I'd love to visit Hawaii, look at the shots of Hawaii, ' but I mean these shots, forget about the acting for a while, the shots that were taken were absolutely incredible."
Colbert said the show has gained popularity on the Internet and can be found on YouTube.
"We couldn't buy, in a million years, what that show gave us in one night," he said.
Mayor Dennis O'Keefe agreed that the city wouldn't be able to buy that kind of profile.
Coun. Debbie Hanlon and Coun. Sheilagh O'Leary also praised the show.
"It was fabulous, St. John's certainly looked gorgeous in it," Hanlon said.
"I was delighted," O'Leary said. "It was just fantastic."
Bet your last dollar that every single one of those councillors – except for Sheilagh O’Leary – is already sold on the idea of demolishing the downtown portion of St. John’s that provides much of the backdrop for the show.
You see every single city councillor – save O’Leary and maybe two others – is already on board with a plan by Fortis Properties to smash the existing municipal development plan and stick a 15 story high-rise on prime real estate on the waterfront.
It’s hard to imagine otherwise when you hear the mayor say absolutely asinine things like his line to local businessmen and women at a Rotary club that without development like Fortis is proposing, the city will have to rely on taxes to get its money.
And if you listen to other councillors, it’s hard to imagine any of them standing in the way either. There’ll be lots more talk about listening to the other side and about the need for development and progress.
That’s all just code for “I’ve already decided to vote for Fortis”.
The crew at City Hall and their backers know how to talk out the clock. They would like nothing better than an endless series of meetings and all sorts of hot air. At the end, they’ll just vote the way they know right now that they will vote: with Stan Marshall and his crowd.
Just remember what they did to people over the stadium, right down to the appeals farce.
Once the Fortis gig is done, then someone will file a proposal for the empty lot across Prescott Street from the current Fortis property. This time they won’t try and conform to the old by-law like they sort-of did last time. This time they’ll shoot for the stars.
And they’ll get that too.
Not long after there’ll be other plans. Other old buildings will be torn down because they are…well…old.
In place of these icky old things will rise the sort of architecture you see not in New York or Paris but in the true centres of modern civilization and culture.
Places like Mississauga or maybe Burlington.
Now this is not a lost cause by any stretch. St. John’s city councillors are notoriously a pretty weak-kneed bunch. That’s why a few guys with imaginations as limited as their pockets are deep can win them over so easily.
But it’s going to take way more than a conversation or two in order to stop this proposal in its tracks.
Public meetings and letter writing won’t work much on them either.
If people really don’t want to see the downtown turned into a carbon copy of a million other eyesores on the planet then they have to make it clear to each councillor that there is a huge political and maybe even a social or business price to be paid for what they are going to do.
You see that’s the sort of stuff that is helping persuade them to vote with Fortis. They are siding with their peeps.
So if you want them to shift positions, then sticking with their pals has to become painful.
Opponents of the plan need to consider some frank talk, some plain language.
Otherwise, kiss the whole of the downtown good bye and say hello to a cheap imitation of Scarborough.
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The draft paratransit report for the City of St. John’s proposes a series of new tax grabs to pay for the system.
And deputy mayor Ron Ellsworth – also running for mayor in this fall’s municipal election – wants the whole thing in place before voting takes places:
Deputy Mayor Ron Ellsworth said that, in some way, the report would be revised to incorporate the concerns, but acknowledged that everything needs to be done by mid-September, before the municipal elections.
The report proposes:
- a new 2.5 cent per litre tax on gasoline sold within the City of St. John’s which would produce an estimated $10 million annually,
- a new surcharge of motor vehicle registrations for residents of St. John’s that would bring in an estimated $500,000 annually,
- a new surcharge on both parking fees and parking fines that would bring in an additional $150,000 annually,
- a new surcharge on taxi licenses that would generate an estimated $180,000 annually.
Having the provincial government pay the full cost of health-related transfers – something Ellsworth was talking up last January - would bring in about $300,000 annually. There was no public talk back then about more “creative” ways of sucking cash from taxpayer’s pockets.
Now all this might be a set of good ideas but really, there’s something fishy about the unseemly haste being display by the current council.
After all, this is the same crew that last time around busily assured everyone before the election that the Wells-Coombs Memorial Money Pit was in the black – at last – and then let us all know after the voting was done and counted that the whole thing was drowning in red ink. The thing continues to flounder.
The paratransit system may need more money but there’s no reason to quickly and quietly grant the crowd running Tammany at Gower the right to suck an additional $10 million out the pockets of taxpayers in the city.
Let’s have way more information and discussion before this little idea gets anywhere near implemented.
Incidentally, there’s nothing about this issue on Ellsworth campaign website.
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Wags will no doubt make much more of the story at the government’s official news agency that Chinese officials are in town to learn how we do things government-wise in this neck of the woods.
The group is apparently visiting St. John’s and Mount Pearl to find out about things like land use planning. really, in the week we heard there’s a move a foot at Tammany at Gower to erect more duck crossing signs across the city, you just couldn’t make this stuff up.
For some reason AMEC exec Susan Sherk is offering comment on the Chinese trip.
Sherk says what they are mainly interested in is the fact that we engage the public so much in our decision making.
They must be surprised because unlike the land of Tiananmen, engaging citizens doesn’t involve machine guns.
Given the way things get done downtown, the gang at city hall can no doubt enlighten the Chinese on how to run over the citizenry without using tanks.
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The guy admits he knows nothing about the issue.
But that doesn’t stop him from renewing his efforts at trying to take political advantage of a tragedy.
Sadly, he wasn’t alone at the time this started.
Sadder still, he’s now got support from the rest of his political colleagues at Tammany on Gower.
And don’t forget that’s even though he admittedly knows nothing about the subject, and as it almost goes without saying, the rest of his council buddies know even less about the subject.
Of course, it has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that this is an election year at city hall.
Nothing whatsoever.
And Mile One will make money.
No sh** update: And lo and behold while that last sentence was written without benefit of having seen the print version of the Telegram, there in all it’s glory was a claim from last night’s council meeting that Mile One had actually made money last year without the benefit of a hockey team.
Of course, what council calls “profit” or “surplus” doesn’t take into account the multi-million dollar subsidy taxpayers funnel into the place.
Again.
If we took that into account, the place would be certainly hundreds of thousands if not millions in the red.
Again.
And none of this taxpayer funded bullsh** has anything to do with the fact it is an election year.
What’s the phrase for that?
Oh yeah.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
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St. John’s city council deferred further discussion of the search and rescue issue until a later time.
Following the council meeting, Coun. Keith Coombs said a delay would help in a couple of ways.
"The period of mourning will be two weeks older, but also will give an opportunity I'm sure for him and others to see what reports come out and what the actual facts of the matter are, because obviously there's a lot of emotion tied to this," said Coombs.
Good idea, especially when the guy pushing it hardest admitted he really doesn’t know anything about the subject.
Good idea too, from a council with a history of talking about things that are way outside their mandate and then making an ass of them in the process. The mayor built his career on things he clearly knows nothing about. One of his pet projects has cost taxpayers $65 million and counting.
Yes, Doc O’Keefe rose to prominence on the whole provincial government’s gas price fixing scheme.
The most recent example of this tendency to get involved with stuff council shouldn’t be involved with? The whole crowd all got taken for a ride by a guy peddling a hockey team to go in the Wells-Coombs Memorial Public Money Pit, a.k.a Mile One.
What is it about city councillors talking about anything but the stuff they get paid to look after (let alone know about)?
What is it about politics and hockey that makes for such an overwhelmingly bad mix for voters?
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right into the ground.
The City of St. John’s became the object of national attention again, but not for a good reason with the attack on Tim Hortons.
To make matters worse, Mayor Doc O’Keefe didn’t help make himself and the rest of council look smart when – a mere 24 hours after the attack started – he claimed that there was nothing new in the ban on drive throughs.
What a crock.
Now true to tradition, the crowd at Tammany at Gower cancelled the earlier attack motion – raised the white flag of defeat more like it – having discovered that there really isn’t much of a problem in the first place that isn’t being addressed already.
How many times did city council adopt a move and then vote the very next week to undo the move during the past 10 years? Anyone recall the silliness about the supermarket by the lake project.
It’s on.
Nope.
It’s off.
Hang on.
It’s on again.
Sheesh.
And it isn’t just Doc.
It’s the whole crowd – Hann, Ellsworth, Coombs, Puddister to name just four – who either carry on with silliness of their own or enable the goofier ones like Doc.
A pox on all their houses come the fall.
They will all likely face some serious challenges for their seats.
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St. John’s city council doesn’t have much better to do – evidently – than to impose a ban on drive through eating establishments, particularly the Tim Horton’s franchises.
Interestingly enough, one Timmies on the west end of Water Street that is almost complete renovations to improve parking and deal with the traffic problems caused by its drive-through, will likely be denied an occupancy permit.
You can tell this latest move is another of the ill-considered policies that come from Tammany on Gower since no consideration seems to have been given to the implications of the supposed cause of the ban. If a commercial establishment can have such business success that it causes some inconvenience - the mayor throws out the spectre of “tragedy” - and therefore attract action specifically by Council, then every other enterprise that causes traffic snarls can expect the same treatment.
The mayor’s rhetoric is extreme. These drive-throughs have been around for quite some time causing on occasion far worse problems than have been seen lately. If the fear of some unspecified “tragedy” is behind Doc O’Keefe’s sudden discovery of the Timmies crisis, one can only wonder what might happen if he walked along Brookfield Road instead of turning up Cowan Avenue during his daily constitutional.
Lester’s Farm might be toast, especially on some Saturday’s. Heck, the road itself can be treacherous at times. Doc might even notice the absence of sidewalks in an area that has been residential for over three decades and yet…for some unknown reason…the city has not seen fit to provide an ounce of sidewalk for pedestrians.
Doc might even wander into the neighbourhoods and find, for example, that city council crews often force residents to shovel six feet out into the street during the winter to find the one narrow lane left by council ploughs. We are not talking major snowstorms here and usually the crews do a decent job; it’s just that your humble e-scribbler found such a state - six feet from curb to road - in front of his own humble dwelling only this past weekend when the total snowfall was something on the order of 10 centimetres.
But wait.
That would be city council’s responsibility to keep the roads in good condition or install sidewalks and maintain them properly and keep them cleared of snow. Perhaps they’d even have to explain last fall’s auditor problems. Or figure out how to fund curb side recycling.
And if city council had to focus on the basics, then – by Keith Coombs’ beard – they wouldn’t get to pour money down the Mile One sinkhole or gallivant all over the globe at the taxpayers’ expense around trying to lure cruise ships to the city.
Not much has changed in St. John’s.
Incidentally, it’s an election year in the capital. If this Timmies attack is happening at the start of the year one can only imagine what sort of nonsense councillors will find to raise their ire come voting time.
Rest assured, though, as councillor Art Puddister told radio listeners this morning, it will occur – like the Tims attack - “on a go forward basis.”
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St. John's deputy mayor Ron Ellsworth is showing that talk is cheap.
In his case, that would be his own talk about greater openness in the city's budget process and his most recent campaign promise to get the city back to basics.
Ellsworth is a relative newbie to politics having been elected first in 2005 as a ward councilor, but so far his public comments have been more like a veteran of the uncommunication school. Take, for example, his comment on postponement of a curbside recycling program - about as basic as it gets these days - due to an apparent lack of cash:
"We have to make tough decisions on tough issues, and this is one example of that happening," Ellsworth said in an interview.
"I'm not very happy about what we've had to decide to do, but the reality is that we do have limitations and when we have budget constraints like this, the first thing we look at is new programs."
Ah yes. Tough decisions. On Friday when this story broke, he was pushing the "opportunity" offered by this delay. Now it's the tough decisions.
Then he played the empathy card, followed by the admonition to speak out:
"I understand the frustration and concern by those that are very close to environmental issues. ... They should make their voices known."
He understands the frustration - but with what he is not clear - but that, quite obviously, won't change his mind since these are tough decisions that have already been made.
And speaking out is all fine but sadly, Ellsworth - as chair of the city finance committee - has been way less than forthcoming with any concrete information about the city's finances. Oh yes, and the tough decision has already been made, in case you missed that.
Ellsworth gave absolute no information to CBC Radio on Friday morning past, even when the interviewer gifted him with a chance. He fell back on the "opportunities" crap. Then there were figures coming from somewhere about a seven million dollar shortfall and one million to implement the program. This evenings' news referred to three million for implementation.
It almost goes without saying that the numbers don't add up.
Ellsworth spent some time taking calls from residents on Monday on a CBC call-in show. They weren't happy. There's nothing for them to be happy about, especially considering that one of Ellsworth's lines has been that the public expect council to manage public money wisely.
Sure they do.
But what Ellsworth is missing is that voters in St. John's are increasingly unsatisfied with politicians who pay only lip service to ideas like openness and focusing on the basics. They expect action.
To voters, managing money wisely would not mean boosting the subsidy to something that isn't a core city service - i.e. Mile One - over the past two years by the amount Ellsworth has said the recycling program needs in start-up cash. Bond Papers readers will recall that these subsidies have been unpopular around these parts. To voters, basics would include recycling.
To voters openness means giving basic information and it goes along with the inclusiveness of asking voters for their views before making a decision about how to spend their money. They know Ellsworth's track record on openness isn't a good one.
While it would be tempting to just throw up ones hands in frustration, or to dismiss Ellsworth as a lost cause, he still has an opportunity to bring his words and his actions into line.
First, he can put the city's financial information in public. He has that ability as deputy mayor. He can give the public a real chance to review the city's plans and voice their concerns. If need be, council can reverse it's recycling decision.
After all, if the city's habit of overspending is as bad as Ellsworth claims, there simply won't be cash in two years to implement this basic recycling program. And if he has really been the voice of reason and fiscal responsibility then the voters will back him against his supposedly free-spending colleagues.
Second, city council needs to bring in the auditor general to review the books. He may well uncover some little secrets that need to be aired out if the city's finances are to be put on the right track. An audit by the province's financial watchdog will at the very least give everyone a common basis for discussion.
Now if none of that happens, Ellsworth and his colleagues run the risk that come next fall, voters won't be pleased. They'll be in a mood to throw the bums out, as the saying goes.
Ellsworth and his colleagues can change now or they can let the voters make the change next fall.
Actions do speak louder than words, and voters are judging Ellsworth and his colleagues by their actions.
As he heard to day, they've been measured and found sorely wanting.
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Conservative Doc O'Keefe, the St. John's mayor, wasn't trying to avoid politicizing a portion of the meeting at city hall on Monday night as your humble e-scribbler originally thought.
Turns out the loyal Connie and some of his fellow councilors - also long-time Connies of the federal and provincial variety - were trying to make a political attack on the Liberal Party's Green Shift.
They were doing so by pretending to be concerned about the cost of the Liberals' environmental policy to taxpayers on things like public transit.
Yes, the boys who helped bring you the Coombs-Wells Memorial Money Pit, a.k.a St. John's Sports and Entertainment and the Mile One Stadium, have developed a sudden, overwhelming concern for the taxpayer's bank balance.
Let's just take a second while you catch your breath and stop laughing.
Someone may have to get Nan a wee medicinal dram. The shock of finding out Keith Coombs, Art Puddister and Doc O'Keefe don't want to piss her pension cheque down the nearest toilet is likely to give her the vapours.
According to O'Keefe, city staff figure the Green Shift will cost the city an extra $800,000 in 2012.
To put that in perspective, the annual city budget is currently over $175 million. Over the past two years O'Keefe and his fellows at city hall boosted the subsidy to the Mile One money pit by more than double the extra 800K.
In making his nakedly partisan attack on the Green Shift, O'Keefe ignored the other aspects of the Liberal plan including federal cash for improvements to public infrastructure, public transit and energy efficiency for homes and buildings.
To really put this in perspective, O'Keefe is one of the crew that agitated for the government gasoline price fixing scheme currently screwing citizens of the province.
His sudden concern for taxpayers is a bit of a stretch.
Councilor Tom Hann - bless his heart - pointed that out to O'Keefe. The former provincial Liberal candidate went a little gaga by dragging in the Connie Family feud but on the Green Shift part, Hann was spot on.
"I don't think we need to get into the political posturizing [sic]. I'm trying to keep this non-political," O'Keefe said.
Pull the other one, it's got bells on, Doc.
The surest way to cut down greenhouse gases in this city would be to find a way to silence the likes of Coombs, O'Keefe, Puddister and some of the others at city hall.
Sadly, that isn't likely to happen any time soon, let alone soon enough.
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Courtesy of CBC's St. John's Morning Show:
1. Revanchism Redux. NL First candidate Greg Byrne - who has been known to back a certain revanchist provincial first minister sans doubt - expresses amazement to a CBC reporter that people follow a certain other first minister unquestioningly.
Bryne apparently has never looked in a mirror.
Byrne is pushing many completely foolish ideas about Equalization and Confederation as part of his campaign.
2. Meanwhile at Tammany on Gower.... Tom Hann, a St. John's city councilor who was once a federal Liberal riding president in St. John's South-Mount Pearl used a moment at St. John's city council to campaign for the Family Feud.
That's the Conservative family feud, for those who missed it.
Conservative mayor Doc O'Keefe attempted to cut Hann off with an admonition that council was trying to avoid the current federal campaign. Something about trying not to bring politics into things, something clearly not motivating Conservative O'Keefe whatsoever in his comments.
Hann denied he was campaigning.
Then Hann stated his support for the campaign.
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