2010 grade: D 2009 grade: C 2008 grade: D 2007 grade: D+ David Hendsbee is the Brindi the dog of Halifax council. Brindi, who is one of Hendsbee’s constituents, found and exploited a crack in the bylaws and inserted her unmuzzled snout into it, costing the city a bundle in lawyers’ fees, so maybe Hendsbee […]
Tim Bousquet
Posted inNews + Opinion
Jennifer Watts
2010 grade: A- 2009 grade: B Last year I gave Jennifer Watts an A-. It was the first time any councillor had entered A-land, and I’ve been feeling kind of weird about it ever since. So I was happy to bring her down a tad this year. Call it a social demotion. Watts remains an […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Lorelei Nicoll
2010 grade: C 2009 grade: C- Lorelei Nicoll is super-nice, means well and doesn’t break anything. So this is a solid C, a respectable if unremarkable grade. We could do a hell of a lot worse than Nicoll. She usually ends up on the right side of the issues and appears to have empathy for […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Gloria McCluskey
2010 grade: B+ 2009 grade: B- 2008 grade: B 2007 grade: C Gloria McCluskey is irreplaceable. With her long stints as mayor of the former city of Dartmouth and as an assessor, McCluskey brings history, perspective and knowledge to council discussions that literally no one else has. She was an invaluable resource, for example, in […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Debbie Hum
2010 grade: D- 2009 grade: D+ 2008 grade: C+ 2007 grade: C+ Last year, I was sincerely worried about Debbie Hum, who was sobbing at nearly every council meeting. Sure, council debates can get depressing, but outright crying because someone objects to the second bullet in subclause three in section 428 is a bit over […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Peter Kelly
2010 grade: C 2009 grade: C- 2008 grade: D 2007 grade: D In past years, I understood mayor Peter Kelly to be the likable bumbling fool. That version of Kelly was OK with me: the mayoralty is a mostly powerless position, so having a goofball in the office might be frustrating when you want somebody […]
Posted inArts + Music
Russell Walker
2010 grade: B 2009 grade: B- 2008 grade: C- 2001 grade: D Russell Walker “gets kudos for keeping ‘tax reform’ at bay,” I wrote last year, “but I don’t see him keeping these sort of grades into the future.” And sure enough, here he is, being dinged two letter grades. Walker’s most public presence comes […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Merch rep says Harold MacKay still owes $63,000 for Black Eyed Peas show
On Monday it was announced that Metallica will perform on Citadel Hill on July 14. The promoter is none other than Harold MacKay, whose Power Promotional Events company put on the failed Black Eyed Peas show at the heart of the city’s concert loan scandal. Power Promotional Events has since gone out of business; the […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Mystery deepens: Metallica to play Halifax, but Molson isn’t presenter
I just got off the phone with Brian Harriman, a vice president for Molson/Coors’ Atlantic division, and he tells me definitively that Molson is not putting on a Metallica show—or any other show for that matter—in Halifax. “Of course we’d like to sell beer there,” he says, “but we’re not a presenter.” This contradicts The […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Who at City Hall knew what when?
[image-1] There are lots of questions in the concert loan scandal that remain unanswered. Here are three: Who in City Hall knew of the abysmally low ticket sales numbers for the Common concerts, When did they know it, and Why, with that knowledge in hand, did they keep booking shows on the Common? Some background: Scott Ferguson, president at Trade Centre Limited, tells me that he fully informed city officials about ticket sales figures for all the Common concerts. I believe him. But here’s the city’s policy on concerts, as adopted by council on March 6, 2007 (pg. 7): [image-2]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Auditor general Larry Munroe says HRM is wasting $800,000 a year
[image-1] The city is wasting $800,000 a year administering grants to community organizations, says auditor general Larry Munroe, who is so alarmed that he wants council’s audit and finance committees to “immediately” find ways to cut the waste out of the annual budget council approved just last week. The $800,000 figure is Munroe’s back-of-the-envelope calculation of what a 15 percent reduction in the city’s total grants allocation would represent. “We didn’t have any trouble at all to support a 15 percent reduction,” he says. Munroe detailed the problems in a report released last week and in an interview with The
Posted inNews + Opinion
Introducing the Stop Idling Buses Project
[image-1] We’ve all seen them, and it’s extremely frustrating. I’m talking about idling buses, of course. Many of us ride the bus because we are worried about the environmental effects of our commute, so to then see buses idling makes us feel like our efforts are wasted. I’ve discussed this issue with Metro Transit management. Here’s the policy: Management asks drivers to turn off the buses if they are going to idle for more than three minutes. Unlike diesel engines decades ago, there is no mechanical reason to keep the buses running today, management assures me. But, the “no idling”
