Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Duck Bylaw proposed and more Halifax council notes
Where are all the city hall reporters? Public hearings on HRM by Design, again. Smith, Younger and Hum to run for Liberals, Bousquet called a commie and yeah a duck bylaw is proposed.
Posted by Tim Bousquet on Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 1:37 PM
Still reeling from its recent layoffs, the Chronicle-Herald has yet to assign full-time reporters to City Hall, courts or school board beats. In the interim, reporters are evidently just sent out the door more or less randomly.
Every week at council meetings I run into a different reporter, each with no institutional memory or background knowledge of what’s happening before them. Some of the reporters don’t even know the councillors’ names.
Tuesday, $87 million in stimulus money got dumped on council’s lap unexpectedly. There were no reporters from the CBC, Metro or any of the radio or TV stations present---just me and a bewildered Herald reporter. I do the best I can, but this dearth of reporting cannot be good for the city.
HRM By Design
Halifax council has reserved three days for the public hearing on bylaw changes related to HRM By Design, the downtown planning initiative. The hearings start Tuesday and will run through Wednesday and next Thursday, if needed.
I’m pretty cynical about HRM By Design---I don’t believe we’ll see any changes at all downtown because of it. The folks at Heritage Trust, however, have stronger feelings about HRM By Design---they say it threatens much of what makes Halifax, well, Halifax. lt’s worth seeing what they have to say, at htns.ca, and as the hearing proceeds I’ll give a blow-by-blow at thecoast.ca and via The Coast’s new Twitter feed.
Smith, Younger, Hum
Three Halifax councillors---Jim Smith, Andrew Younger and Debbie Hum---are announced candidates in the all-but-certain upcoming provincial elections. Smith and Younger are running for the Liberals, Hum for the PCs. Fow what it’s worth, I give Smith zero chance of unseating Trevor Zinck, Hum a dark horse chance of besting Diana Whalen and Younger even odds of replacing Joan Massey.
But lost in the election hoopla is a question of basic governance: While they’re running intense campaigns for provincial office, how the hell are Smith, Younger and Hum going to represent their municipal constituency through the time-demanding and difficult politicking involved in May’s city budget debates?
Class warfare
At Tuesday’s council meeting, Councillor Sue Uteck called me a “Communist,” evidently referring to my comments in this space last week supporting an assessment-based tax system.
That’s some American right-wing nuttery spilling over the border: People who support traditional tax systems, in use since before Canada was a nation, are conducting class warfare; hence, in Uteck’s eyes I’m a Communist. But people who want to throw out the good work of two centuries’ worth of patriots and statesmen and instead institute a regressive tax that shifts the burden away from the property rich and onto the middle class are the new “fair.” Go figure.
Duck bylaw
Nope. I’m not kidding.
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Comments (10)
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Come on, Tim, we all know you're a hardcore Commie. You've got Marx on speed-dial. That duck by-law may be funny, but, sadly, people don't get it when they're not told to feed the ducks at the Public Gardens. For some reason, we need to legislate that. Ugh. That stimulus money is decent though, and much needed.
To be clear, Pam Berman, the CBC reporter, showed up late in the afternoon.
I don't fault Pam or the Chronicle-Herald reporters. They're fine reporters, just stretched too thin. I blame management.
Every now and then Sue goes a bit mental and engages her mouth while her brain is overloaded. Bit like a computer, it needs to be defragged at least once a week.
Wear the comment as a badge of honour or tell her you have been called worse names by better people.
I am far from a 'commie' but think tax reform is an oxymoron. The real intent is to break the tax system into little chunks that can be adjusted upwardly each year and leave the impression the 'tax rate' is steady.
I guess the 'communist' is the old guy down the S Shore that kept going on about being a pensioner and seeing the assessment skyrocket on his second home with a sea view all the while claiming to be just getting by on his pension. Only in Nova Scotia would someone complain that his net worth was increasing.
A CBC Radio reporter was on mainsteet talking about the daytime meeting so I assume she was there.
As for the Herald, it is rare for any reporter from that rag to have a handle on City Hall and it has been that way for over 20 years. If there is no conflict most news outlets ignore what is going on.
None of the three councillors have much chance unless, as 'Frank' is suggesting, the Libs & Tories have a deal to stay out of certaim races or field a very weak candidate at the last minute in order to increase the chance to boot a Dipper.
Duck by-law! Who knows what city council is going to do about that but we know what to expect from the Coast: Another column/feature by Lezlie Lowe about animals! Mark my words.
Fouge, that wouldn't explain the FIFTY locations where duck-feeding is now prohibited. Click the link in Tim's blurb and look at the last page of the PDF.
A little objective thought and it becomes fairly clear that the idea of ridding Sullivan's Pond of its duck population likely has a WHOLE LOT to do with the upcoming Canoe/Kayak Worlds to be held on Lake Banook.
You need to finish the duck bylaw article. May I suggest "Council embarrasses city again..."
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