Financial thriller

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“Councillor Walker has both my interest and my sympathy now,” —Barry Dalrymple, on Walker’s Canada Games Centre woes.

“If council agreed with every petition they got, there’d be no convention centre,” —Steve Adams, on the thousands of people against the development on Wellington.

“Bring this out in the open.” —Reg Rankin, about the Blue Mountain Birch Cove Lakes discussions, but really about so much more.

THE WATCHERS

Council hadn’t even started yesterday and things outside City Hall were already interesting. Nearly 100 firefighters, police officers and transit workers showed up for a reason even they weren’t clear on.

See, last week, Regional Council held a meeting in camera to discuss Halifax’s public pension plan. The unions representing the nearly 10,000 active and retired employees those changes could affect aren’t thrilled they weren’t invited.

Scott MacDonald, member of the Halifax Regional Police Association and co-chair of HRM’s pension committee, says it’s an unprecedented move not to be included in any discussions. Hence the informal protest at City Hall to let the mayor know the unions are watching.

It’s unlikely the city plans to increase HRM’s pension offerings. That said, they’d need votes from the five representative unions to make any changes. It’s also possible last week’s discussion was some minor matter, but we don’t know because it was all done in secret.

By the time council got around to approving last week’s in camera minutes, most of the union folks had already left.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO PLAY A GAME?

Once things officially got underway, several small items were approved before a lengthy discussion on extending the interim agreement for the operation of the Canada Games Centre. Halifax is still compiling a multi-district facility report which will look at how to manage all the city’s facilities, so until that’s in place the CGC is being run as is by the Canada Games Society.

The debate yesterday centered on one part of the motion, which would have applied a $300,000 budget operating grant against the CGC’s $2 million community fundraising commitment. As of now, CGC hasn’t raised any of that money.

“Either the funds go into just generally supporting the Canada Games Centre, or greater access,” said Jennifer Watts. “As opposed to saying this is a community fundraising effort. This is an operational grant.”

The CGC is funded through a cost-sharing agreement between HRM, the province and the federal government. It includes said $2 million fundraising commitment, which forces HRM to cover any cost difference in a shortfall “through the implementation of a general local tax.”

Last year, the CGS told the city they were rightfully worried about reaching that goal. The Canada Games Centre actually showed a surplus this year, which is why staff says they don’t need the operational money any more. But putting that grant towards paying down a debt is misleading, as Gloria McCluskey pointed out.

“Operations grants should be used to make the Centre more affordable,” McCluskey said. “I hear that all the time. People can not afford to go to the Canada Games Centre.”

“It’s not a question of whether they should get the money,” Jennifer Watts added. “If there’s need, give them the money. The issue I have is it going towards the fundraising goal.”

Russell Walker told council the CGC is already at capacity with some 9,000 members, so lowering membership costs won’t help. One “obvious way” to meet that fundraising goal (according to Steve Adams) will be through selling off the CGC’s naming rights. Weirdly, based on whatever deal was originally signed the words “Canada Games” have to remain in the building’s title even if the rest is corporatized. Now that the “flagship facility” of the Scotia Centre is out of the way, staff says every public facility will be looked at for corporate branding.

“I wish the board hadn’t even operated in a surplus,” Walker opined. “We wouldn’t even be here.”

Ultimately, all four parts of the motion passed.

NIGHTMARE ON WELLINGTON STREET

A couple weeks back, Halifax and West Community Council took the interesting step of approving a development on Wellington Street that hundreds of nearby residents, the local planning district and their own staff opposed. Dino Capital wants to throw eight and 10 storey towers on the west side of Wellington Street, covering about 75 percent of the site.

“If buildings are constructed which are overly dense and/or poorly designed, this could result in the development of a less livable Regional Centre,” the staff report points out.

“A careful balance must be struck between adding density to existing communities and not disturbing the elements of the community which make it livable and desirable for residents.”

Waye Mason wanted council to vote against the motion for those reasons. Hundreds of people and thousands of signatures and our own highly-paid staff say don’t do this, Mason said, so why are we approving this?

“We have hundreds of developments happening in the core right now. We don’t need this.”

Steve Craig was curious why this was approved by community council in the first place.
Linda Mosher took issue with that, saying her community council doesn’t have to justify the decisions it makes to the likes of Regional Council. She also made, in my opinion, a bizarre argument that since years ago council approved an ugly ten-storey building that everyone hates on Wellington we’re entitled to approve all ugly ten-storey buildings that are proposed in the future.

Mason shot back that council was worrying too much about the critical voices and not about the problems with Dino’s “unprecedented design that we wouldn’t allow downtown.”

“We shouldn’t accept this anywhere,” he said. “Save staff time and money so they can focus on projects that need the work.”

One of Dino’s representatives in the audience at one point tried to interrupt proceedings, and got a yellow card and hefty boos for that violation of the rules.

The motion eventually passed, 10 to seven, and a public hearing will take place in coming weeks.

IT’S A GOOD LIFE

Picture if you will, a routine municipal matter. The kind often approved of without much thought. You may recognize it as an increase in funding for We Day. A pleasant event, the kind of Free The Children-created, celebrity-filled annual happening put on in cities and towns just like this one. Here, Halifax staff recommends increasing funding from $50,000 to $70,000. But something is not quite right. The idea brings up too many questions for the good men and women elected to our city. Paranoia begins to tear all civility apart. They haven’t the time to properly consider these choices.


“This is not an on-the-fly decision,” the mayor tells his councillor.

“Right, it went to Audit and Finance two weeks ago,” Matt Whitman rebuts, with tones of sarcasm.

“As did everything else you just voted for,” Savage says.

The votes are made, and the kids get their money, but the procedural vortex is still spinning. They’re still in those chambers, arguing the unfortunateness of how this all came to be. A polite council, torn asunder by $20,000 and the very rules they’ve agreed upon. The leaders of a bold seaside city in the Twilight Zone.

VAMPIRE BITES

Reg Rankin would like a staff report looking into the naming of HRM assets after the still-living. About a month ago, council altered the naming rules to so both living and dead could get their names on gazebos or whatever. But that required the subject to have completed their work in the field we were honouring them for. Rankin would like it so that as long as you have 25 years of volunteer experience, you’re eligible.

“It’s not the most serious motion of the year,” he admitted.

Matt Whitman wanted drop the threshold dropped to five years, which, with respect, is wacky.

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Reg Rankin also brought discussions on the Blue Mountain Birch Cove Lakes wilderness area out of in camera and before the public. Though the still sorta classified nature of the talk meant debate was incredibly vague. Staff had wanted to “end the facilitated negotiation process with the developer’s representatives” of the land HRM wants to buy. Rankin got council to vote down that motion, and approve his new idea of going back to the table with the landowners. The province has already committed to protecting the vast wilderness area behind Bayers Lake, but HRM has been dragging their heels on this one for years.

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Lorelei Nicoll was elected as Halifax’s next deputy mayor. Fellow councillor Barry Dalrymple pronounced Nicoll’s name wrong while nominating her for the job. Nicoll noted the job of deputy mayor takes “courage.” She won the secret ballot, beating deputy challenger Linda Mosher. Nicoll will receive an extra $8,000 dollars for her deputy duties. Current deputy mayor Darren Fisher will step down to spend more deputy time with his deputy family.

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A Sea King helicopter will fly by the Halifax Central Library during its opening ceremony at an unknown date which “will be announced shortly.”

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Overall grade: C

This article appears in Oct 23-29, 2014.