ward3brighton.ca

Received a call from a member of the board of a charitable foundation that has applied for a grant from the city. He asked for my support, and I assured him he has it.

No, this is not where I accept bribes from crooked developers and cook up deals with corporate lobbyists, but you may occasionally catch a glimpse of me squeezing out onto Queen Street at the far end of this alley.

Ever since the city sold its parking lot for the construction of the new Ceridian building, which is well underway, I’ve been using one of three or four remaining city-owned parking spots behind Island Optical. The quickest way to the front door of city hall from there (since I always forget my security card which would get me in the back door) is to shuffle sideways through this narrow alley. I’ve gotten a few strange looks from people who’ve seen me clambering out of this sketchy spot.

How do you say ten things in one sentence? I don’t know, but I should learn. I’ve had a few — not exactly frustrating, maybe unsatisfactory is the word — incidents with the media lately. It could very well be that I’m just way too long-winded, but if I’m invited to give my views to a member of the media, I expect to be given the chance to express them in full, and “get the message out”, as they say. Maybe that’s unrealistic. I probably just need a crash course in media 101.

A good example would be my email to a Guardian reporter, posted below, about my dissenting vote on the tennis courts in Victoria Park. I was asked to explain myself so I did, at considerable length. I gave permission to quote me on anything in that email, but it disappeared into the vacuum of cyberspace (until I decided to post it here, which I suppose is exactly what this blog is for, but to be honest… very few people actually read it).

Then yesterday, I spent a good portion of my lunch break explaining my personal views to a reporter about the ongoing efforts to secure a major concert in Charlottetown next summer. The meat of the story, I quickly discovered, was the supposed bidding war between Charlottetown and Summerside. Now, there are a few things I’m just not able to discuss at the moment, but otherwise I was very forthcoming. My twenty minutes translated into a very brief morning news item, and the things I felt were important were again left on the cutting room floor.

Before I continue, I should say, I don’t blame the reporters involved. I know they always set out to tell a story and sometimes they have a narrative in mind that may not jibe with mine. Fair enough; I’m not the news editor.

So today, I was asked to give an interview on camera as a follow-up to the same concert story I did for the radio yesterday. I agreed, and duly reported to CBC headquarters at 5:00pm to record the interview. In this case, it wasn’t so much that the thrust of my message didn’t make the news, because I didn’t get a chance to “go there”. When the interview was interrupted several times with variations of “I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but let me ask the question again this way”, I knew I wasn’t going to get a chance to say the things I wanted to.

Now again, I don’t want to get blacklisted by three of the best reporters in Charlottetown. I’m not blaming them. In fact, they’ve taught this rookie a valuable lesson. And they’ve given me the opportunity to prove to myself, here on this blog, that yes, I am indeed LONG winded.

Coming soon: The things I wanted to say.

The leaves seem to have hung on to the trees a little longer this year. Received a call from a resident who didn’t get theirs raked and bagged at curbside until after Island Waste Management’s fall pickup ended. This is a provincial matter, but I’m making some phone calls.

Was just interviewed by CBC about a purported bidding war with Summerside for a major concert in summer ‘08. Short story, there is no bidding war. Charlottetown made its best offer, period.

A resident called to express his concern over excessive use of water, and to encourage the city to move toward water metering for residential customers.

At the November public meeting of council last night I was the lone vote against a Heritage Board resolution approving new tennis courts for Victoria Park. Today, Dave Stewart from the Guardian emailed and asked why I opposed. Here is my reply, some of which you may read verbatim in an upcoming edition of the newspaper:

Last night’s resolution on the tennis courts was a recommendation from Heritage Board (of which I’m a member). This recommendation was required because Victoria Park is now a designated Heritage resource. Heritage Board recommended approval of the tennis courts, but only by a bare majority — the board was almost evenly split. Also, while campaigning throughout my ward last year, and at recent public meetings on this issue, I heard from many residents who were opposed to any further development or construction in Victoria Park. I knew the resolution would pass easily, so I voted against the resolution because a 10-0 vote would not have been representative of public opinion on the matter. There are many divergent views on what Victoria Park should, and should not be and there was certainly opposition to the construction of these new courts.

I always use Point Pleasant Park in Halifax as a good example of what I’d like to see happen at Victoria Park. In 2005, Halifax held an International Design Competition for Point Pleasant Park. It was very comprehensive, with a jury, technical review team, public consultations, etc. The winning design took into consideration the three main components of the park; cultural history, natural history, and recreation. And it stressed the importance of design and long-term planning. The winning submissions from that competition are now being rolled into a larger Master Plan for Point Pleasant Park.

I think there is an appetite for this kind of process for Victoria Park. The recent Parks Master Plan was a high-level plan for all of our parks resources, but I think Victoria Park needs to be treated individually, since it’s our “crown jewel”. It could really be an incredible landmark for the city, but it falls just a bit short currently, in my opinion, mostly because of poor design and planning. Gary Schneider’s forest management plan was a great step forward ecologically, but that needs to be a part of a greater plan.

I have nothing against tennis. I used to be very good at it.

Received a call about an unsightly property that needs cleaning up.

While managing some of the thousands of comment spams that bombard this website, I inadvertently deleted some legitimate comments that were made on some recent posts. The anti-spam routine that normally identifies and sequesters machine-generated comments (mostly ads for prescription drugs) allowed a few illegitimate comments through, and when I was deleting them I accidentally deleted some real reader comments and even a couple of my own. I was able to recover most — if not all — the ones I trashed, but I’m not sure I got them all. So, if you happen to notice a comment you made on this website has mysteriously disappeared, it was not intentional. I’m sorry, it won’t happen again.

On this same topic, I’ve been meaning to mention The Guardian, and specifically their comment policy. It was a great move when they started allowing readers to comment on stories online; it’s an excellent way to gauge the public’s reaction to an issue and engage readers. But something that has always bothered me is their seemingly random and vaguely defined criteria for deleting comments. The comments are not always insightful nor necessarily coherent, but it’s a guilty pleasure of mine to read through them (even if they are criticising me and my fellow councillors). Quite often you will notice a reference by one commenter to another comment that obviously no longer exists. Otherwise, when the Guardian moderators delete a comment there is no way to know, and no explanation is given. It would be helpful if when a comment is removed it does not simply disappear into a black hole, but rather gets replaced by an explanation, such as “Comment #14 removed for excessive profanity and potentially libelous statements”, or whatever. There’s something that makes me uneasy about The Guardian’s comments feature because you have no way of knowing how many comments are deemed inappropriate and deleted, or why.

You’re welcome to comment here with as much libelous profanity as you please… to a certain extent.