The year in review

Its was the best of times, it was the worst of times. But mostly the worst of times. Still, these were interesting times, and we had a lot of fun reporting on 2012. Here are the highlights:

January

The year started with the province announcing that it is cutting university budgets by three percent. “Universities have lost over $16 million, without taking inflation into consideration, in funding over two years,” writes Coast reporter Mark Black. • At its first meeting of the year, Halifax city council votes to rescind the December sale of the former St. Pat’s-Alexandra school site to developer Joe Metlege, but then two weeks later votes again to make the sale. • Former North Vancouver fire chief Doug Trussler is hired as Halifax’s new fire chief. • Transit workers vote 98.4 percent to reject a contract offered by the city. • Former Dartmouth MP Mike Savage announces he will run for mayor, in hopes of defeating long-time incumbent mayor Peter Kelly.

February

The dead of winter is usually dead for news in Halifax, too. But not in 2012. On February 2, transit workers are locked out of their jobs, starting a six-week strike. • Representing the North End Community Heal Clinic, the Mic Mac Native Friendship Centre and the Richard Preston Centre for Excellence, lawyer Ron Pink asks the court to put a stay on the sale of the St. Pat’s-Alexandra school, and justice Patrick Duncan agrees, halting the sale. • The Coast publishes the results of an 11-month investigation, detailing how mayor Peter Kelly mishandled the estate of family friend Mary Thibeault, in part by transferring over $160,000 from the dead woman’s personal bank account into accounts controlled by Kelly and his son. For six days after our report, Kelly goes into hiding, cancelling all public appearances and failing to show for the weekly council meeting. Finally, after the story goes national in the Globe & Mail and on the CBC’s The Current, Kelly announces he will not run for reelection in the upcoming October elections. • People walk. People carpool. People take cabs. People get mad. What people don’t do is take the bus.

March

Completely ignoring HRM By Design, the downtown plan that took four years and millions of dollars to complete with help from thousands of citizens, Halifax council direct staff to study whether it might be a good idea to have a public hearing for something called Skye Halifax, a proposal for two 48-story towers at the corner of Hollis and Sackville Streets. • After 43 days of no transit service, the Amalgamated Transit Union and the city agree on a contract, and buses start rolling three days later, free for the rest of the month.• After a parade of citizens tell them the YMCA is the best thing since mother’s milk, Halifax council agrees to a development proposal on the Y-CBC site. • Way back in 2010, an official at Trade Centre Limited told city councillors they’d be nuts to build a stadium to host the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup. Did councillors listen? No, councillors did not. Instead, they spent around half a million dollars chasing the dream. Now, in March, they realize it was a bad idea after all, and so vote to kill the stadium project.

April

Halifax celebrates the tragic death of 1,502 people by attempting to turn the Titanic disaster into a tourist event. • Gay activist Raymond Taavel intervenes in a fight outside Menz Bar on Gottingen Street, and is himself killed. The next evening, 1,000 people gather at the scene to mourn Taavel. Police charge Andre Denny. Denny had been diagnosed as schizophrenic and was a patient at the East Coast Forensic Hospital. He had been granted a one-hour unescorted day pass from the facility, but had not returned. • Someone is causing barber Phat Luong untold grief, breaking his windows and cutting the line on his oil tank, resulting in an expensive environmental clean-up. • Metro Transit slashes ferry service, doing away with most of the late-night harbour crossings. • Police chief Frank Beazely announces his retirement. • Facing huge budget cuts, CBC decides to close its Halifax TV production studio, and abandons plans to expand its Bell Road TV building.

May

Celebrity economist and pseudo-intellectual Richard Florida comes to town, and the easily duped turn out in droves to hear him babble on. • Cleaning up some old unfinished business, Halifax council votes to pay Trade Centre Limited $359,550 to cover a failed loan made to promoter Harold MacKay. Arguably, the city should tell Trade Centre to shove it, as TCL president Scott Ferguson was the one who suggested the improper loan scheme in the first place. But that would require some sense of accountability and propriety, so that doesn’t happen. • People in Halifax get a sudden urge for gourmet burgers.

June

Tattooist and rapper John Newcombe is killed outside Winston’s Pub in Clayton Park. • A newly hired PR professional teaches Halifax Police Commissioners how to use Twitter. • Justice David MacAdam hears testimony over two days about the fate of the St. Pat’s-Alexandra school sale, and says he’ll make a ruling later in the year. • The heirs to the Mary Thibeault estate petition the court to have Peter Kelly removed as executor. • A hundred and fifty people voice opposition to a developer’s plan to shoe-horn three large apartment buildings into an odd-sized lot behind the Greenvale School in Dartmouth.

July

Halifax parties. Jazz Fest. Tall Ships. Hey Rosetta! on Georges Island. Sun. Booze. Like that. • Halifax council votes to finance an oversized sewer pipe in West Bedford that could one day service development in the Sandy Lake area, which isn’t designated for development in the city’s regional plan. In effect,the deal amounts to an unsecured, 35-year, $2.1 million loan to Armco, one of the largest development companies in the city. • At its next meeting, Halifax council agrees to a financing deal for the new convention centre. The city is now obligated to pay $5.1 million annually for 25 years to pay for its share of construction costs, plus a projected $1.45 million a year in operating costs. Crucially, however, council also agrees to cover half of all the convention centre’s losses, with unlimited liability, and is on the hook for buying and renovating the existing convention centre, for perhaps $35 million. This being the accountability-free zone, city managers crafted the deal so that if the convention centre loses money for the first 10 years, the province will loan the city the money to cover the loss, meaning that all the people who approved the deal won’t have to suffer any consequences personally, should it go south. • City auditor general Larry Munroe issues a report saying, yep, sure enough, Trade Centre Limited is horribly mismanaged. • Spoken word artist Tim Merry writes his first ode to the new convention centre.

August

Moving swiftly into the mid-20th century, city councillors agree to make public the salaries of all city workers making more than $100,000. • The Coast learns that taxpayers are covering half the $200,000 being paid to rhyming poet Tim Merry to conduct consultations for the privately owned convention centre complex. The consultations are largely a bust, and the bill works out to about $2,000 per person consulted.

September

Jean-Michel Blais is hired as the new Halifax police chief. • The city election campaign heats up. Angela Jones, who works in the city’s attorney’s office but who is on parental leave, is told she can’t run for council because she didn’t formally ask for leave to run for office. She sues. • Supreme Court justice Peter Rosinski removes Peter Kelly as executor of the Thibeault estate. • Justice David MacAdam rules against the city on the St. Pat’s-Alexandra sale, saying the sale to Metlege violated the city charter.

October

Peter Kelly files an accounting of the Thibeault estate with the court. It shows that Kelly had repaid the estate $145,000 he had transferred into his own control some years before. • Angela Jones wins her court case and appears on the ballot as a candidate for council. She loses. • A Clayton Park cat is featured on CNN. • Less than 40 percent of Haligonians bother to vote. They elect Mike Savage as mayor. Thirteen of the 16 council seats are won by incumbents. The elections office says that Jackie Barkhouse won in District 3, then says whoops, no, Bill Karsten won.

November

Starfish Properties paints over the Morse’s Teas sign. • The province enters into a secret deal with IBM. Part of the deal involves outsourcing the province’s SAP program to the company, and the province further agrees to pay IBM up to $14.24 million in payroll rebates. • Council votes against holding a public hearing for the Skye Halifax development, killing the proposal. • People who invested in the Seaport Farmers Market are not included in a new arrangement between the port and the market, meaning that they have probably lost their investments. • Provincial auditor general Jacques Lapoint says Trade Centre Limited’s projections for business at the new convention centre are all wet, and that the province should hire an independent consultant to study the issue. Premier Darrell Dexter rejects that advice, so when the convention centre fails miserably, you’ll know who to blame. • Lapointe further says that TCL is horribly mismanaged, and has been breaking provincial policies left and right. Particularly problematic were expense claims submitted by TCL president Scott Ferguson, which included no documentation for entertainment expenses. This being the accountability-free zone, Ferguson will no doubt get a raise.

December

Halifax council approves the “Solar City” program, meaning that up to 1,000 Haligonians will get solar water heating systems installed with help from the city. • Council also approves the sale of the former Bloomfield school site to the provincial housing authority. • Twenty-eight people, including an elementary school principal, a doctor, a restauranteur and an Olympic athlete, are arrested and charged with growing and distributing marijuana.

This article appears in Dec 27, 2012 – Jan 2, 2013.