2010 grade: C
2009 grade: C-
2008 grade: D
2007 grade: D
You know what would be super cool? If we had a mayor who was busted for trying to smuggle a gun onto an airplane. Alas, we’ve only got a mayor who distractedly brings a forgotten bullet through security. But that’s Peter Kelly for you: all bullet, no gun.
I wish the bullet incident could be worked into some telling metaphor but, like Kelly’s leadership abilities, it’s just not there. We get what we get: governance by happenstance, the wind blows this way, the bullet bounces that way and whatever happens certainly wasn’t by design or plan. “I’m suitably embarrassed,” says Kelly, and we all shake our heads in agreement.
He took absolutely no public stand on the issues before they came time to vote, but in the end Kelly voted against “tax reform” and voted to make council appointments to citizen boards and commissions in public, and for that he gets a “meh,” and we order another round of drinks while we wait for the next unplanned bit of hilarity to strike our fair city.
This article appears in Jun 3-9, 2010.
If you think he was embarrassed by the bullet incident, imagine how we citizens feel having to acknowledge that he is our mayor. There’s no hope until he gets the boot.
I’m a come-from-away who has lived in Halifax for 30 years, and in that time I’ve seen the dowtown core go from a vibrant place, with cinemas, stores etc . turn into a dirty, run down place that “dies” once the office workers go home.
We need a new Mayor, not Kelly who is a career mayor and has settled into that position and any thoughts of progress seem to go over his head. There are so many embaressing issues tied to his name, but he is smart enough to know that if he can avoid the stench from the concerts for cash debacle, the lemmings will re-elect him next time around.
If I had a magic wand and my wishes were to be granted; I’d like to see Bill Black as Mayor and 13 0f the 23 councillors gone. I’d love to see SGR made traffic free, downtown business taxes slashed, developers let loose, and the heritage trust gang told to go away. City housing on Gottingen Street would be bulldozed and homes for taxpayers built there.
Halifax needs to stop trying to act like a city and to realise it’s essentially a town punching above it’s weight.