Back to the future in figuring our future
Is it time for another “Encounter on the Urban Environment”?
In late February 1970, Nova Scotia’s Voluntary Planning Board invited a dozen disparate international experts—a black community leader, an industrialist, a labour leader, a journalist, an economist, an urban planner, etc.—to come to Halifax for a week-long “experiment utterly new to the western hemisphere.”
“Their assignment, although it was never explained to the 12 in precisely these terms,” noted a later report, “was to take a community of 250,000 and turn it upside down.”
They did. Given the freedom of the city, they spent long days and longer nights wandering from the Volvo auto assembly plant (Why are no blacks working here?) to the new container pier (Why is it in the wrong part of town?) to the school board office (Why is the education system so awful?) to the press club (Why is the media even worse?)…
Each evening, they staged a live televised town hall where they argued, debated, questioned, cajoled, harangued and listened to anyone who showed up. The powerless got to speak to the powerful and the powerful—in the glare of the spotlight—responded.
While the final Encounter report—cobbled together by 12 very different people between meetings, visits and late-night drinks over the course of one exhausting week—was understandably less than the sum of its parts, the process itself galvanized the city and engaged Haligonians in ways they’ve never been since.
Halifax at the time was at a crossroads, unhappy with its parochial present, trying to find a more interesting future for itself.
Although it would be unwise to heap too much credit on Encounter—the times were a changing everywhere back then—the reality is that Halifax became a much more interesting, engaged and dynamic city in the years that followed Encounter.
We could use a little of that involvement today.
Now that polarizing Peter Kelly’s decision not to re-offer for mayor has sucked the life out of what might have been a real debate over the future of our city, we need to find new ways to engage citizens in that discussion.
We could do worse than another Encounter.
Copyright 2012 Stephen Kimber
Peter Kelly’s stadium dream our nightmare…
The stadium is dead. Long live the dream. But let’s keep it a dream instead of the reality turning into a taxpayers’ nightmare.
A brief history is in order. Peter Kelly, our in-search-of-a-legacy-to-match-his-longevity mayor, has long been eager to have the city to erect an expensive new stadium, most recently—and urgently—in the faint hope we might somehow complete it in time to host a few FIFA Women’s World Cup soccer matches in 2015.
Keep in mind Kelly previously tried to saddle us with that costly Commonwealth Games white elephant. And still wants us to invest in his convention centre fantasy.
After feasibility studies and consultations, not to forget a pretty-please, deadline extension request for our FIFA bid, council asked staff in December to report on what it would take to build a stadium in time for the World Cup events. Including, of course, identifying who else might be willing to share in its $60 million construction cost.
Oops.
According to the report, staff consulted widely with their provincial counterparts, prepared detailed information packages for all MLAs, met with both opposition leaders and even sat down face to face twice with Premier Darrel Dexter.
In the end, the province decided the city hadn’t presented “a business case... to support a provincial investment.”
The city enlisted Nova Scotia’s federal minister and stadium booster Peter MacKay. But even MacKay’s cabinet clout wasn’t enough to convince his ministerial colleagues to pour federal cash into the project.
Which left the private sector. Last month, the city asked for “expressions of interest” from private developers. Seven made submissions. Only three offered potential “partnership opportunities,” staff reported, and none included “any cash value.”
Logically, staff is now recommending council just say no to building a stadium at this time.
Kelly, who told Metro’s Jennifer Taplin he’s “an eternal optimist,” was disappointed but still hopeful the project could go ahead in “years, not decades.”
The stadium, it’s worth noting, will never pay for itself and will be a continuing operating drain on city taxpayers, regardless of who shares in its capital costs.
So I hope he’s wrong.
Copyright 2012 Stephen Kimber
Time to make transit an essential service… no, really
It’s time to make transit an essential service.
By that, I don’t—necessarily—mean it’s time to take away bus drivers’ right to strike.
What I do mean is that, however the current labour dispute ends, it’s long past time city council made transit a can’t-live-without service. And not just for those who, because they can’t afford the alternatives, must wait for the bus that doesn’t run when they need it, or doesn’t go where they’re going, or...
Let’s start by banning parking in downtown Halifax, say from Duke Street to Spring Garden, and from the harbour to Citadel Hill. Then couple that with an efficient shuttle service to zip people around within the urban core.
With no parking and less traffic, we could free up space for bike lanes, sidewalk patios and more street-level activities, encouraging a level of urban density that would finally make downtown a living, liveable community.
Next, let’s ribbon the peninsula with bus-only through streets. How about Agricola or Robie running north-south? And Quinpool-Cogswell-Duke or Chebucto-Cornwallis heading east-west.
Such a subway-that-isn’t-quite could feed into bus-only lanes on all the key roadways and bridges leading in and out of the peninsula in the north and west.
To complement that,how about an efficient, high-speed ferry network to transform our magnificent harbour into a way to link rather than divide us. Much like Sydney, Australia, does with its iconic ferry service, ferries would make it easy—even pleasurable—for commuters to travel between downtown Halifax and Dartmouth, Bedford, Burnside, Hammonds Plains, Westphal, even Herring Cove.
Not to forget the possibilities light rail offers from the farther suburbs to downtown.
I know, I know. I’m dreaming. But there are ways—a congestion tax on automobile traffic across the bridges, tacking tolls on major highways—to help fund versions of this.
At a time when gas prices are spiking and carbon emissions are choking the environment, such ideas are far from as far fetched as they may seem.
The upcoming Kelly-free municipal election offers us an opportunity to talk about our future.
Let’s not waste it.
Copyright 2012 Stephen Kimber
Goodbye Peter, hello future
Peter Kelly’s final mayoralty meltdown announcement last week was not triggered by any of the many mis-governance issues that should have long since ended his political career. Ironically, the mayor was ultimately hoist on the petard of his own sloppy-and-perhaps-worse handling of the estate of a friend, a private matter unrelated to his duties as mayor.
It is tempting at moments like these—this “after-27-years-of-public-service-I-have-made-my-contribution-to-the-good-of-the-community-to-the-very-best-of-my-ability-and-it-is-time-to-seek-new-horizons” moment—to seek to be kind too, to acknowledge the toll public service takes on a politician’s personal life.
It does. But how many times in his own eye-darting, stand-up, self-serving, stick-to-the-talking-points farewell interviews did the mayor do it for us: endlessly lamenting the marriage lost, the 90-hour weeks, the nights sleeping on the office floor?
It is tempting too to glorify any soon-to-be-gone politician’s accomplishments.
There were a few: Kelly’s genuine public apology for the wrongs of Africville, for example, is praiseworthy, as was his success in piloting the harbour solutions sewage treatment project to completion, HRM By Design, the Canada Games, the skating oval, the…
But, after 12 years—for a man who will leave office this fall as Halifax’s longest serving mayor ever—that list is woefully short.
The other side of his ledger is much longer and more damning: the botched Commonwealth Games bid, the concert-gate scandal, the lack of a business case for a new convention centre, the mindless, my-city-is-better-than-Moncton push for a new stadium, the violations of HRM By Design, the St. Pat’s school sale fiasco, the endless cat bylaw debates, the dysfunctional council meetings, the secrecy about everything, the refusal to take responsibility for anything…
Perhaps Peter Kelly’s greatest contribution to the future of our city will ultimately have been his decision not to re-offer.
We no longer have to have a referendum on his record.
We can begin to have the conversation about our future.
It’s time.
Copyright 2012 Stephen Kimber
With friends like Jamie Baillie, bus driver don’t need enemies
So let me see if I have this right.
When workers are at their most vulnerable—when, for example, they’ve decided to join a union and are attempting to negotiate a first contract with a more powerful, perhaps hostile employer—Jamie Baillie is a champion of free collective bargaining. Let the chips fall where they may… so long as they fall the way of Michelin and Sobeys.
On the other hand, when workers have some leverage—when, to pick another example out of the ether, transit workers vote 98.4 per cent to stop driving their buses to put pressure on the employer to negotiate better terms—Jamie Baillie thinks collective bargaining is a crock and wants the premier to legislate them back to work. Immediately.
At least the Tory leader is consistent in his inconsistency.
Jamie Baillie
When given the choice, Baillie will inevitably come down on the side of the over-dog.
Baillie doesn’t put it that way, of course. “I’m a believer in collective bargaining,” he declared disingenuously Friday.
Baillie’s idea of collective bargaining? The premier should lock both sides in his office, “tell them they’ve got 12 hours to work out their differences and if they’re not able to do so, then he’ll settle it himself.”
How would Baillie settle it? While he doesn’t offer specifics—three guesses on which side he would pick as premier—Baillie did say he wants the province to consider declaring transit an essential service so future collective bargaining could be rendered meaningless.
He’s a “believer” all right.
I will confess I’m not sure who’s right and who’s wrong in the current strike—or if the answer to that question can be one or the other.
But I do know both sides are under enormous pressure to find a settlement. Union members face the daunting prospect of buying groceries and paying mortgages on meagre strike pay. Management has to know that if the strike drags on it risks a permanent loss of riders to carpooling, biking and walking.
There may come a time when legislation is necessary. But not yet. Let the two sides bargain collectively. Without meddling from “believers” like Baillie.
Copyright 2012 Stephen Kimber
Metro Transit negotiations require talking… and leadership
Whatever else one can say about the rights-wrongs of the current Metro Transit strike, it is clear city negotiators were never interested in negotiating with its 760 bus drivers, ferry operators and support staff.
The contract between Metro Transit and the Amalgamated Transit Union expired Sept 1. There was just one face-to-face session—essentially a presentation of proposals—before the city applied for conciliation. That’s unusual. According to the union, the city and its police and water commission unions are still negotiating new contracts two and four years after the previous ones expired.
From November to January, the two sides met with a conciliator eight times before the city walked away, triggering a conciliator’s report, a strike vote and the countdown to the now ongoing work stoppage.
City negotiators twiddled their thumbs until 30 minutes before last Wednesday’s midnight strike deadline. Then they offered the union—which had a 98.4 per cent strike mandate—an either-or, take-it-or-leave-it offer.
The key sticking point isn’t money but scheduling.
The city blames a century-old rostering system—which allows senior drivers to pick their schedules first—for $1 million in un-budgeted overtime. (A city report, however, acknowledges those cost overruns include covering for vacancies, sick leave, holidays and special events, and represent only one factor in Metro Transit’s $3-million deficit.)
The drivers say they need rostering because of the split-shift nature of their jobs. A driver, who is required to report for work at the Transit garage 15 minutes before a 6 a.m .shift, drives for four hours and may find herself ending her shift far from the transit garage—and her car. She then has four hours to kill before beginning her 2 p.m. shift somewhere else. An eight-hour day suddenly becomes more than 12.
Surely, there are ways to make the rostering system more efficient for Metro Transit without eliminating its obvious lifestyle benefits for long-time drivers.
But in order to accomplish that, the two sides would have to talk.
There’s no sign that will happen soon.
And no sign either of leadership from city hall to make that happen.
Copyright 2012 Stephen Kimber
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About
STEPHEN KIMBER, a Professor of Journalism at the University of King's College in Halifax, is an award-winning writer, editor and broadcaster. He is the author of one novel -- Reparations -- and seven non-fiction books.
Buy his books at Amazon.