Cell: 497-2995
Grade this year: F
Grade last year: F
Streatch’s politics aren’t The Coast’s politics: He’s far to the right of anyone else on council, a fact he gleefully reminds us of from time to time.
Streatch, I wrote last year, “seems to take pleasure in being on the wrong side of eco-friendly initiatives like the pesticide ban, clearing parking from the Grand Parade and Halifax’s anti-scent program.” Since then, he’s voted to move forward with the Chebucto Road widening project, and has otherwise pushed a Neanderthalish agenda.
In terms of representing his Eastern Shore constituency, give Streatch (very) minor props for successfully getting his entire district exempted from transit taxes—but that was a foregone conclusion—nobody argued that the rural communities with no bus connections to the city should pay for transit.
What I’d really like to see is a rural councillor make the case for an integrated municipal agricultural policy, one that advances both a locavore urban vision and the farming businesses in the Musquodoboit Valley—but we won’t get there with a councillor who can’t get beyond a “government: bad” mentality.
Worse still, Streatch has thrown his hat into the provincial elections, attempting to join his sister, long-serving MLA Judy, in the provincial legislature, thereby abandoning his rural constituency through this month’s city budget sessions—exactly the time he can do them the most good.
Related Stories
City Council Report Card 2009
This article appears in May 14-20, 2009.
“F”, hehehe, the word jackass comes to mind, how bout a “J”