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Council said the corporate name(s) will be revealed at the grand opening of The Oval, which is now under construction. Left unsaid was that the grand opening is a moving target.

Construction tender documents call for a “mid-December” end to construction, a date that is repeated by Skate HRM, the city department responsible for Oval operations. “Construction of the Oval venue should be substantially complete by December 15, 2011,” states the FAQ distributed by Skate HRM. “We all should be skating mid-December 2011,” it said via its Twitter account, @SkateHRM. Not a hard and fast date, but still leaves some wiggle room. The Oval’s website and Facebook page have been more vague, giving a broad opening date of December 2011.

John Henry, Skate HRM’s Oval manager, pushes the opening back a bit, saying it’s probably closer to “late-December,” and he’s hoping the permanent Oval might be open for a holiday skate---“if all goes according to plan.” But, warns Henry, “construction could be delayed should we have inclement weather, and of course there are always the unknowns on a project of this size and magnitude.”

Whatever the date, council’s secret naming strategy will serve to to place grand opening attention more on corporation(s), and less on people enjoying the ice.

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Neither scenario is perfect, but if I had to choose between the two I'd choose Scenario 2, and ask for some small tweaks, especially in the Preston and Sambro areas. What I'd really like to see, however, is a Scenario 3 and 4, and more population information given in a format that would be easy for the public to play around with possible boundary lines.

Anyway, my thoughts follow. I've also made note of where the sitting councillors live---I don't think that should enter the consideration at all, and candidates aren't required to live in their districts in any event, but so many people have mentioned this that I thought I should at least let you know.

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Later today, city auditor general Larry Munroe will release a scathing report detailing problems with the councillors' District Capital Funds. I'll post that report here as soon as I get it, but it's worth previewing the issue.

Officially titled the District Capital and Building Communities Fund, commonly referred to as "district funds" and, often, by individual councillors as "my money," the district funds are the $65,000 that each councillor has discretionary spending authority over. As Munroe explained in a January reort:

...staff in the Councillors’ Support Office and Finance Business Unit assist in the administration of two separate funding streams - Councillor’s District Activity Fund and District Capital & Building Communities Fund. As noted previously, the primary focus of these two programs is to provide small one-time only “donations” at the individual or community level and to augment capital related purchases undertaken by HRM through the Capital Budget. Each electoral district is allotted an annual fixed amount of $68,000 between the two programs. The particulars of these two programs are the subject of a separate review being undertaken by the Office of the Auditor General. For the purposes of this particular review, our focus was on confirming best value rather than compliance to policies and business practices.

The District Activity Fund is $3,000 for each councillor, which is to be used "for supporting local recreational and educational activities. Donations are made to not-for-profit groups, not individuals." The District Capital & Building Communities Fund is $65,000 each and "provides partial or full funding to HRM capital projects or community non-profit groups at the discretion of the District Councillor and in accordance with Council Policy. This fund is for physical amenities including but not limited to playgrounds, parks and community beautification."

Although Munroe was mainly focused on other city grant programs in January, he broadly hinted he had misgivings about the district funds:

In keeping with the requirements of the District Activity Fund Policy, Section (8.1), HRM Administration should conduct and report on the results of a review of the policy to “evaluate its scope, relevance, and effectiveness.”

[...]

HRM Regional Council through Administration should develop and adopt a defined practice - including measurable outcomes - in choosing a charitable organization(s) to receive corporate funds, in-kind services or staff involvement in keeping with corporate strategic direction. Rotating eligible recipients would provide equitable access to the opportunity. Conversely, HRM could choose to discontinue the practice entirely and formally adopt the current charity as the only charitable organization HRM would support.

Councillors say that they are personally best placed for quickly reacting to needs in their districts, and can provide needed money in a targeted way for projects without going through a lengthy bureaucratic evaluation, but the district fund program is problematic on its face: the donations can be given in response to political pressure or, worse, to curry political favour. And some groups providing needed services might get locked out of the donation queue because of a personality or political conflict with the councillor.

Readers might be interested in how councillors have spent the money in the past. A detailed accounting of last year's district funds can be found here.

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I've been opposed to the idea of a smaller council for years. You can read my views on it here, here, here and here.

The city could theoretically bring the issue to the courts, but I don't see that happening; the UARB decision is final. But I've been asked a lot of questions about this, so I'll try to answer most of those here.

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• Council has declined to declare war on this menace.

One of the first in Canada, the pesticide bylaw was adopted in the late 1990s. It bans pesticides generally, except for a prescribed list of allowable eco-friendly applications, and except by permit. But while admirable, the bylaw was easily ignored, as all the banned products were for sale at local garden supply stores.

Last year, however, the provincial government banned the sale of most pesticides; suddenly the city bylaw wasn’t so easily ignored. But the provincial ban didn’t exactly match up with the city bylaw: the province allows the sale of a relatively new pesticide called FeHEDTA, while the city bans it.

FeHEDTA is an iron-based product that attacks broad-leafed weeds like dandelions. Supporters say it is not directly toxic to humans, as are traditional pesticides; detractors point out that increased levels of lead in the watershed threatens the ecosystem generally. Saying that the purpose of the bylaw was to protect human health, city staff recommended weakening the bylaw to allow the use of FeHEDTA, which would put the city and provincial bans in synch.

But council rejected that argument, and FeHEDTA remains banned. Still, like traditional pesticides in previous years, FeHEDTA will presumably remain for sale in garden stores, and scofflaws will continue to use it.

On the recycling front, the city’s once-celebrated waste diversion program has been surpassed by more inclusive programs in other cities, famously even by Yarmouth, which recycles more kinds of plastic than does Halifax. But council voted to extend the Halifax program to all kinds of plastic except styrofoam. The expanded collection system will start in September.

Adams: Yes
Barkhouse: No
Blumenthal: No
Dalrymple: No
Fisher: Yes
Harvey: No
Hendsbee: No
Hum: Absent
johns: No
Karsten: No
Kelly: Yes
Lund: No
McCluskey: Yes
Mosher: Yes
Nicoll: Yes
Outhit: No
Rankin: Absent
Sloane: Yes
Smith: Yes
Streatch: No
Uteck: Absent
Walker: No
Watts: Yes
Wile: No

Final vote:
Yes- 9
No- 12
Motion fails