This week, for the first time in its 257-year history, the North Halifax Common is being handed over for the exclusive use of a private corporation—Montreal’s Donald K. Donald Productions, the firm producing and profiting from Saturday’s Rolling Stones concert.
So unless they can pony up the $116 entrance fee to the concert, the usual collection of walkers, joggers, ball-players, skateboarders, dog walkers and fountain watchers must find some other place to enjoy their pursuits.
“The Common is public space,” explains Sheila Fougere, one of just four city councillors to vote against using the Common for the Stones concert. “This is the first time that a for-profit event closed to the public has been held on our premier public space. And the public never got a chance to comment on that.”
But officials insist that the shutdown is temporary and well worth it—the eight-foot tall black fence separating the public from its land will come down soon after Saturday night’s concert and, they say, the Common will quickly be restored to its pre-concert condition. Moreover, after the Stones leave town, an estimated $10- to $15-million will be left circulating in the local economy.
“Technically, this does change the definition of the Common,” admits Scott Ferguson of Events Halifax, the government-funded tourism promotion agency responsible for landing the Stones deal. “But it’s for a very short period—a week, or one weekend for most of the Common. If it’s worth $10-million, you do it.”
Ferguson says Events Halifax began recruiting the Stones about a year ago, but the issue wasn’t brought to city council until the second week of August.
“I thought our ducks weren’t in a row, and this was an awful short time to approve this,” says Fougere, explaining her “no” vote.
Over the past six weeks, most of the council’s decision-making concerning the concert was made in secret. Both the decision to turn the Common over to DKD and the decision to allocate $100,000 in public funds for the concert were made behind closed doors.
There has yet to be a public accounting for how the money will be spent, and there is no public budget for the expenditure.
“It’s going to offset city expenses for the concert,” is the best Brad Anguish, the city’s point man for the concert, can explain it.
Certainly, public expenses will mount. The city will run special shuttle buses and extra ferries all day Saturday, an additional 100 police officers will be placed on duty Saturday night in and around the concert, and afterwards, city workers will be left to handle the mess in the blocks surrounding the Common.
Anguish says DKD is responsible for the clean-up and restoration of the Common itself. But according to Fougere, as recently as last week—after at least 30,000 Stones tickets had already been sold—there was still no signed contract between DKD, Events Halifax and the city.
Anguish says it doesn’t matter. “We’ve had agreement with Events Halifax for a while, but really, the signing of a contract is just a formality. We’ve told Events Halifax what we want, and they’re going to provide it.”
But he won’t disclose the contents of the contract. “Contractual matters are confidential,” he says.
All of which begs the question: Who else can get exclusive use of the Common, and will the city use taxpayer money to pay for it? Could a Halifax hip-hop band fence off the Common and charge admission to get in?
“If the council lets them,” answers Anguish. “People can make an application, and council considers it.”
That process rankles Fougere. “There are no guidelines for this, no policy,” she says. “Heck, I like the Rolling Stones as much as the next guy, but this is completely arbitrary.”
Whatever the process, Events Halifax intends to repeat it.
“Our goal is to establish Halifax as the country’s top events centre,” says Ferguson. “If we want to grow, we need an outdoor venue to put on these kinds of events.”
Events Halifax already is working with DKD and others to bring “several major attractions” to the Common next year, he says.
But should the public have a say in the use of the Common?
“Aldermen and councillors are hired to do a job,” he says. “They decide.”
This article appears in Sep 21-27, 2006.
This type of event cannot happen in the City of Halifax on OUR city common,ever again. I doubt if many Haligonians are opposed to commercial rock events being held in Halifax County, but only if a proper site was located in the Halifax County rural or suburban areas was provided. Not many Halifax taxpayers or residents believe that the HRM entity staff and redneck politicians are competent enough to make any municipal decision affecting the community, given their pattern of risky behaviours and their habit of catering to political ‘lobby groups’. You can’t expect the HRM entity politicians , largely redneck hicks, to have a thought to peace and order in the city of Halifax, on the Peninsula. These BOZO’s are too redneck to care.The commercial rock concert on my community’s common proved that the HRM entity have too many unthinking hicks on its’ council.Halifax city residents need to get out of this HRM failure, and become a legal city again.The Halifax City Common is not a good site. I think a provincial bureaucreat like this Ferguson character of ‘Events Halifax’ needs his ass kicked for suggesting another commercial event on the Halifax City Common. We live near the old Peninsular City Limit a few minutes from Dutch Village Road. We could see the lights and we were in the ‘sound cone’ of the directed speaker, as we could hear the music and clearly make out the lyrics. If I lived any where north, north west or north east in the Halifax peninsular city, the sound would have been like having a rude neighbour playing loud music.It must have confused many residents who did not expect the noise.These kind of downtown commercial events become dangerous and risky because of the traffic problems, property damage, personal safety issues, and street closures in the City of Halifax peninsular hospital emergency zone. How about that ‘festival seating’ a killer ‘floor plan’ at other rock events. What will it cost taxpayers to clean up the Commons???? How much did the police and emergency services cost????How much property damage was there????I doubt if property and vehicle insurers supported this HRM amd provincial bureaucrat led folly.There are vast numbers of peninsular Halifax and suburban Halifax homeowners, and voters, who would tell you that municipal government staff and politicians, and the ‘Events Halifax’ provincial staff ,ALL who have been bending over backwards to accommodate the rock event promoters, should not be risking public funds, and community safety, just so a rock concert promoter can make money off the community. There is little additional benefit for the Halifax Peninsular downtown due to this rock concert, as the downtown will be full up this weekend. That means police and emergency services would have been very busy this weekend even without the additional commercial rock event. We are called ‘Nay-sayers’ by bizarre, overpaid politicians, and IRRESPONSIBLE provincial civil servant’s , all who have perverted ‘visions’ , and all seemingly favouring commercial hack visions, and all at the expense of ordinary people?? We need more ‘nay-sayers’ to bring sanity back to the Halifax community and to provincially controlled civil servants, which I believe need to be removed.Sincerely,Peter Ewert, B.Sc., M.U.R.P.
Why does Peter Ewert use so many question marks???????