Tuesday’s city council meeting was overshadowed by speculation about the upcoming election, as Tuesday was also the day the last day for candidates to register with the municipal clerk’s office.
Throughout the day, the attention of councillors, reporters, staff members and regular citizens seemed mostly glommed on speculation over mayor Peter Kelly’s election plans. Kelly had played coy for over a month, fueling the speculation, but at 4:56pm Tuesday his office released a statement saying he would not run for office. Kelly’s statement said he was focussing on family issues, and “there are also other issues which need my focus, issues which I am sure you are aware of,” referring undoubtedly to the Mary Thibeault estate case. Five minutes later, Kelly came took questions from reporters and was asked, “Did your decision have anything to do with next week’s court hearing? [related to the Thibeault case]?” Kelly answered: “No.”
The drama over Kelly notwithstanding, perhaps the most important event of the day was council’s appointment of Jean-Michel Blais as the next police chief. Blais was the top pick from a nationwide search that led all the way to the Halifax RCMP office, where Blais has served as chief superintendent. Blais studied economics and political science at McGill University, and afterwards earned a law degree from Laval University. He has been with the RCMP for 25 years, including three stints in Haiti.
Otherwise, councillors didn’t do much of immediate importance Tuesday. They OKed the long-expected closure of a cell at the landfill. They punted a scheduled public hearing to a future meeting because the public was incorrectly noticed about the hearing. And they gave up, at least for the time being, on the idea of regulating election signs on public property, because courts have ruled that such regulation violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, unless the signs present a safety hazard.
This article appears in Sep 13-19, 2012.
Congratulations to your new police chief. You can help him out by asking him to review and affirm the 12 qualities necessary for police in our society to hold and practice at: http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/polici…. Also visit my blog on police improvement at http://improvingpolice.wordpress.com. (Those qualities are: Accountable, Collaborative, Educated and trained, Effective and preventive, Honest, Model citizen, Peacekeeper and protector, Representative, Respectful, Restrained, Servant leader, and Unbiased.) There also is a new book out that may be helpful in thinking about ways in which police can improve by someone who did it: “Arrested Development: A Veteran Police Chief Sounds Off About Protest, Racism, Corruption and the Seven Steps Necessary to Improve Our Nation’s Police” (Amazon.com).
A Federale, running the city cops?? Yikes – that can’t be good…
Mr. Blais’ Haiti experience will be an obvious asset, considering the “Third World Failed State” status to which the city seems to be devolving.
Hay Chief: “Lets do it to them before they do it to us” – Sgt. Jablonski – “Hill Street Blues”
A cop is a cop is a cop the only difference is this cop is a mountie, you know the ones who drive drunk, taser people to death, become politicians with about a many clues as yesterday’s turd, one can only hope that some disgruntled passed over Halifax cop shoots this bastard between the eyes before he enrolls the whole force in french language training for two years like that Peter MacKay’s c sucking appointment.