1
The municipality’s in the weeds when it comes to grass cutting this summer. City editor Jacob Boon reports that “tens of thousands of dollars” in fines have been issued by HRM against its grass-cutting contractors over poor service this year. Back in May, Halifax tendered out several three-year contracts for grass cutting at a total price of roughly $3.5 million. Despite the poor performances and record number of calls for service, spokesperson Jennifer Stairs says cancelling any of those contracts is strictly a “last resort.”
2
Speaking of municipal government, today the Executive Standing Committee will discuss plans for campaign finance reform during municipal elections. Staff are recommending a bylaw which would establish new requirements for campaign contribution disclosures, as well as defining spending limits, maximum donations and contributor eligibility. Currently, candidates have to disclose to the public all contributions over $50, and no anonymous or third party contributions are permitted. Chris Bryant, senior advisor for the city on government relations and external affairs, highlights some blind spots worth addressing in today’s report. The new reforms potentially could include limiting contributions by corporations and trade unions, capping what candidates can spend during a campaign and regulating what candidates are allowed to do with surplus funds after the election. Any of these changes will first require the province to amend Halifax’s charter.
3
Also today at City Hall, should Halifax’s permanent residents to have the right to run for political office? Councillor Jennifer Watts wants a staff report looking into that very issue. The Peninsula North representative submitted a request for today’s Executive Standing Committee meeting asking staff for a report outlining “the implications of extending the right to nominate candidates or run for office in municipal elections to Permanent Residents.” The agenda item is “to respond to matters raised in correspondence from Minister Mark Furey” regarding Council’s proposal last December to work with the province in extending municipal voting rights to permanent residents (immigrants living and working in Canada who don’t hold citizenship). Granting someone the right to vote usually comes part and parcel with being able to run a campaign and be elected to office. But it appears the city, and the province, want to clarify those rules before moving forward.
4
Over at the Herald, Frances Willick takes part in 2015’s hottest trend: trying to decipher how Dalhousie University handles rape culture on campus. Willick used access to information laws to get a copy of investigation reports from both Dalhousie Security and Halifax police regarding the student-run “Dal Jungle” Instagram account that contained at least one sexually graphic image of a (possibly underage) student posted without her consent. The account was reported to Instagram in early November and deactivated shortly thereafter. Internal investigations by Dal led to “at least four students” being evicted from Howe Hall.
Dalhousie’s documents say that police received a verbal report on the case on November 13, and that security officer Jacob MacIsaac provided police with the names, dates of birth and contact information for the women on the page in case officers wanted to follow up. But the reports from HRP say the full names of the female students weren’t received until nearly six months later. By then, the women involved did not want police to investigate or for any charges to be laid.
“Dal spokeswoman Janet Bryson said. ‘It’s our understanding that HRP had confirmed there were no grounds for an investigation.’But not having the names of the women would have hindered any potential investigation by police.
’Yes, you’re kind of left with, “OK, well where can I go?”’ Perrin said. ‘If I can’t speak to the people that were possibly victimized, how can I investigate it any further?’”
Dalhousie states they “fully cooperated” and shared the students’ names with the police in November. The cops “agree to disagree” with that statement, but don’t believe Dal acted to deliberately prevent an investigation.
5
The Second Cup on Quinpool Road has closed. Halifax ReTales reports the coffee franchise shut down Friday after three years of operation. The location made headlines back in 2013 when three employees were fired following a vote to unionize. Franchise owner Kathy Attis told the Nova Scotia Labour Board she cut her employees’ hours and fired the three baristas because labour costs were too high and sales were down, but the Board didn’t buy it. The lazy interpretation here is that union wages closed down a small business and workers should never demand to be treated fairly or they’ll all be out of work. But sales appear to have been dropping at the Quinpool Road location soon after it opened, and the three-year-old Second Cup was unionized for a longer period than it wasn’t. In any case, caffeine addicts that we are, The Coast laments the loss of another Halifax coffee shop.
6
A woman sitting in front of the Town Clock on Citadel Hill was robbed Saturday night. Police say the woman was approached by a couple at 9:50pm when the man demanded her money. No word yet if this non-violent incident will have an impact on Halifax’s vital ghost walk industry.
7
In more pressing crime news, police and health authorities are worried about the use of fentanyl in Nova Scotia. The synthetic opioid has been linked to several recent deaths in British Columbia and Saskatchewan, and Global’s Julia Wong reports RCMP are worried it’s heading east. Fentanyl-related deaths in the province have averaged at two a year since 2007, but the cops say they’ve been seeing more of the drug in 2015. Some of the uptake, Wong says, is from oil sands workers developing an addiction while out west (where the drug is more common) before returning to Nova Scotia.
8
Everyone hates the summer construction season, but expect plenty of smiles as work finally begins today on the long, long-delayed Hollis Street bike lane. The project will paint a two-foot wide strip on one side of the road, and move all parking metres to the other. Work is expected to take four weeks to complete, and the city says no road closures are expected.
9
The loss of Camille Strickland-Murphy, who died last week while serving a sentence at the Nova Institution for Women in Truro, is “like losing a limb” says her twin brother. Keir Strickland-Murphy tells CTV his sister—who struggled with mental illness—described the prison as a “living hell.” Most damningly, Keir says it was only after his sister took her own life that the family was informed she had made several previous attempts to harm herself. “I don’t believe the prison system as it stands is equipped to deal with people with mental illness,” he tells CTV.
+1 Sure Thing
Tonight, $Rockin' 4 Dollar$ turns 10 and you bet your sweet bippy it’s going to be a blowout. Join the party at Reflections with performances from The Cathartics, Future Girls, Moon, Tev Bembly, The Age, Designosaur, Rex Splode, Vicious, Vulva Culture, Primenine and Like A Motorcycle. Like the kids these days say, this one’s going to be epic. Psych yourself up for this Grand Guignol of punk pomp history with Lewis Rendell’s cover story on $Rockin’ 4 Dollar$ decade of debauchery.
