Recognizing the elephant in the room of parkade discussion

Coun. Denis Walsh will propose a motion today that City council “impose a covenant on (the) proposed Lorne Street parkade restricting building any structure on top of the two-level parkade that would interfere with the view of the park from Lorne Street. . . .”

The motion will be soundly defeated, with little debate.

Then, he’ll propose instead, that council direct David Trawin, the director of development and engineering services, to bring in a plan that will make it impossible to build a third level.

Or, will he?

Before we go further, let’s summarize: On the suggestion of Mayor Peter Milobar, council approved by majority vote on May 3 amending the parkade plan to only two levels instead of three. After Trawin then mused that it would make sense to built it so it could accommodate a third level sometime in the future, Walsh gave notice of motion as above.

That’s the proposal that Coun. Pat Wallace has somewhat unkindly characterized as “window dressing.”

It’s true a covenant wouldn’t be binding for all time on future councils, but there’s an elephant in the room this council has so far declined to address: a permanent way of resolving the two- versus three-storeys issue is to design a parkade that is structurally incapable of accepting an additional storey.

In order to make a third level possible, the footings of the structure have to be upgraded, a move Trawin estimates will cost an additional $300,000 up front.

Trawin is going on the assumption that awarding the engineering design contract to Stantec Architecture — as he is recommending today — is based on providing for a possible future third storey, unless council directs otherwise.

When I asked him about this Monday, Walsh said he will suggest a design restriction when he speaks today, adding wryly, “I just think that’s going to be as well accepted as my covenant.”

But here’s the thing. Trawin’s recommendation on the contract for engineering design comes up before Walsh’s notice of motion on the covenant.

That doesn’t prevent Walsh from proposing an amendment to Trawin’s recommendation so that Stantec is directed to come up with a design accommodating only two levels.

It’s a bit awkward to do that before his notice of motion comes forward, though. It would make more sense to debate both possibilities together.

Corporate administrator Len Hyrcan confirms that the order of business in council agendas is set via a procedural bylaw. That order can be altered by a majority vote of council for any particular meeting.

So, Walsh could propose at the beginning of the meeting that his covenant be debated and voted on before Trawin’s report.

Of course, given council’s seeming disinterest in Walsh’s ideas on the matter, they’d probably reject that, too.

In hindsight, the covenant has muddied the issue and provided most of council with an out. If, instead of a covenant, Walsh had proposed from the start a structural design limitation on height, council would have had a tougher time saying no.

At this point, Walsh’s best strategy might be to announce at the start of the meeting, under “Approval of agenda,” that he’s withdrawing his notice of motion.

Then he could focus the debate on the engineering contract and let his fellow councillors explain why they insist on designing a parkade that can, at some point in the future, block the view they say they’re so concerned about preserving.

Eggs 4 Sale, but not in Kamloops

We were driving through Westsyde one recent afternoon when Syd saw one of those spray-bombed plywood signs that said, “Eggs 4 Sale, $4.”

“Stop here,” she said.

So I pulled into the driveway and we got out and went to the front door. There was obviously nobody home, but a note pinned to the door said, “Please leave $ in jar.”

Syd looked over the assorted cartons of eggs in a cooler that sat on a chair on the front step. Finding one that looked pretty good, she shoved a couple of toonies in the jar and we continued on our way.

There’s something rather civilized and neighbourly about a free-enterprise system in which the seller leaves a jar at the front door so customers can help themselves and leave payment while he’s in town.

The place looked like an acreage so the eggs 4 sale were probably legal, but chickens are not a popular item in Kamloops. We’re one of the few cities left in the province — maybe in the entire country — in which urban chickens are against the law.

In more enlightened cities, chickens are recognized as a good thing, a part of the green movement to greater food independence. In Kamloops, they are regarded as vermin.

City council has yet to understand it’s entirely possible for people to raise a few chickens in their backyards without the whole town going to hell in an egg basket.

A couple of years ago I promised I’d keep faithful readers apprised of progress on my chicken coop as I thumbed my nose at my less fortunate urban cousins.

Alas, the coop is still only in my head but, who knows, maybe this is the year — once again, I have an offer of a few fat young hens deemed surplus by a close neighbour who does more than talk a good game.

Selling eggs, as opposed to just eating them yourself, would bring in a whole new City Hall bureaucratic debate, but the urban-chicken concept in general is picking up speed.

Saanich is the latest to embrace it, setting a limit on coop size, number of hens (five), and prohibiting front-yard coops, a not-unreasonable restriction.

In nearby Victoria, Oak Bay and Esquimalt, chickens are already allowed on residential lots. I have it from a very good source that the daughter of one of our Kamloops councillors has chickens in Victoria and can’t understand why they aren’t allowed here.

Surrey, Nelson, Burnaby, New Westminster and Vancouver allow backyard chickens.

Those against chickens claim they’re messy, but any chicken lover will tell you it’s not so if the coop is well maintained. In Kamloops, it would seem, it’s perfectly fine to have cats and dogs running around crapping all over the place, but not chickens that are confined to the backyard.

At least chickens earn their keep.

I don’t see this becoming much of an election issue, but it would be refreshing to hear a candidate or two declare support for backyard chickens.

Don’t forget the words of architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who said, “Regard it as just as desirable to build a chicken house as to build a cathedral.”

Chuck Palahniuk put it differently: “Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken.”

I’d never heard of Chuck Palahniuk until yesterday, and don’t know why he said it, but I’m sure he meant City council should stop brooding and get cracking.

CBC Radio could start new era in Kamloops

I for one, am thrilled with the announcement that CBC Radio will launch a Kamloops-based morning show next year. It is about time.

For too long we’ve had to be satisfied, or dissatisfied, with being served from Kelowna. While they do a fine job down there, there’s very little in the way of original material relating to Kamloops — almost all of it is regurgitated and reworked from our local media and passed off as supposedly fresh content a couple of days later.

The fact the new Kamloops show will have as many as four reporters working for it will change that. And let us not be bitter that Kelowna, in addition to retaining its current morning program, will also get an afternoon program later this year. Let’s, instead, be happy with what we’re getting.

I have one request: could we begin with reporters and hosts who have not gone to the CBC School of Interviewing? Could they not start every question with the word “So…”? Could they not drive us nuts with that uniquely CBC singsong style of speech? Could they not act as though CBC is The Thing?

Maybe Kamloops could be the start of something good.

Dodo bird Lake suddenly flying high on HST

Terry Lake is looking pretty good on the HST today.

It wasn’t that long ago that the Kamloops-North Thompson MLA and now environment minister was staring at the brink of political rapture, to borrow from a current phrase.

At times, it looked as though he couldn’t get it right. He was on the wrong side of the issue, and his defenses of Gordon Campbell’s folly were often scorned.

There were calls — from the left, predictably — for him to join Blair Lekstrom in abandoning ship. He was likened to the do-do bird.

Almost exactly a year ago, he embarrassed himself by claiming a legislative committee of which he was chair had the authority to invalidate the successful anti-HST petition.

“The committee could look at that initiative and say that it’s invalid,” he said.

For that comment, he was called unfit for the job. He was identified by the Globe and Mail as one of the most at-risk MLAs for recall, an assessment that was bolstered by the fact his riding was among the first in which enough signatures were gathered to push the anti-HST petition over the top.

Campbell publicly refuted Lake’s comment about the committee, and Lake himself had to immediately recant, admitting he misspoke.

“It was never my intent to go around or circumvent the petition at all. We’re not looking for loopholes, we will respect the (process),” he said.

Next, he refused to accept the petition from Fight HST leader Bill Vander Zalm, saying only B.C.’s chief electoral officer had the authority to present it to his legislative initiatives committee.

“The law is clear,” he insisted.

Finally, he was put in the unhappy position, as chair of that same committee, of accepting the results of the petition and putting the wheels in motion for a referendum.

Adding insult to injury, the recall campaign came within shouting distance of unseating him as MLA, though organizer Chad Moats made the tactical error of shredding the petition instead of forwarding the names to Elections B.C. for validation.

But that, as they say, was then. Forgotten among all the negative attention of the past year was a comment he made last June 15, two weeks before the new tax took effect.

It should, he suggested, be reduced from 12 to 10 per cent as soon as possible. He explained that, under the deal with Ottawa, B.C. had the authority to change the tax rate after two years.

“It’s always been after two years we could adjust the rate upward or downward. As a government we’ve always looked at ways of lowering taxes.”

That date comes due July 1, 2012.

Nobody in government or in opposition paid much attention to such speculation, and it passed by as little more than the musings of an MLA looking for ways to make a highly unpopular tax just a little less unpopular.

Today, Lake looks like a seer, for Wednesday finance minister Kevin Falcon announced the Liberals will cut the tax to 10 per cent over the next three years. The first cut of one per cent will come — you guessed it — in July 2012.

Was Lake just lucky at cards, or did he influence the outcome? We aren’t privy to discussions of the executive council, so we don’t know.

But either way, Lake’s stock is a heckuva lot improved from what it was 12 months ago.

Tree, Wagamese — two men who disappointed us

Two men from widely different backgrounds — and for much different reasons — disappointed their community last week. Their stories made the front page on the same day.

Ted Tree went AWOL from Kamloops six months ago, turning up safe and sound in eastern Canada.

Richard Wagamese drove drunk early in March of last year — twice — and was found guilty in a Kamloops courtroom.

Both are examples of the challenges of legislating human behaviour.

I met Tree only a couple of times, when he was trying to put together a hockey tournament in support of our troops. I’ve never met Wagamese, and have no insights into what prompted the actions of either.

However, the consequences are clear. Tree abandoned his business and family to disappear. Family spent half a year looking for him and worrying.

There was a public cost as well, since police and search authorities assisted in trying to find him.

Presumably, Ted Tree had the ability to check the news back home and be aware of the distress his unannounced road trip was causing. He apparently made no attempt to reassure anyone that he was OK.

The question arises, should Tree be required to pay compensation, or be legally liable, for what he did? After all, even lost skiers have to pay the cost of being found if they wander into prohibited areas and get lost.

But being irresponsible isn’t in itself a crime in Canada. People have a right to go anywhere they want without explaining themselves to anyone. It’s one of the privileges of living in a democracy.

The only way someone like Ted Tree could be made to do “the right thing,” to provide notice and details of his whereabouts, would be to create a police state in which we would all have to relinquish freedom of movement.

That’s not a solution, so we’re left with the lesson that allowing irresponsible and inconsiderate behaviour is sometimes preferable to the alternative. We can question Ted Tree’s behaviour, even condemn it, but we’re stuck with the fact the only rule he broke was one of civility.

Richard Wagamese, on the other hand, broke a law that’s in place to protect public safety, including his own. His irresponsibility, though it might be the product of any number of experiences in his past, is entirely unacceptable.

On March 1 and 6, 2010, Wagamese was stopped for driving with a blood-alcohol level over .08. His penalty has yet to be pronounced, and I leave it to others to explain why actions that put the general community at risk should be resolved through a First Nations sentencing circle, as has been proposed.

Wagamese was on page one not because he is aboriginal, or was drunk, but because he is a prominent role model who behaved badly.  He is an author and columnist who was awarded an honorary doctorate by Thompson Rivers University last year.

Role models, leaders and spokesmen have a duty to act responsibly in all they do. They are example setters, for better or worse.

Maybe he’ll be able to convert his acts of irresponsible behaviour into a positive by using them as a base of understanding for what it is he wants to say, but it has to start with an apology and payment.

Sometimes writing rules about human behaviour is impossible; other times good rules are simply broken.

Judgment Day plays havoc with long weekend

If you’re reading this, congratulations — you’ve survived Rapture 2011. If not, well, easy come, easy go.

 Yes, friends, this is May 21, Judgment Day, the end of the world, or, at least, the beginning of the end. A fellow from California named Harold Camping has calculated that today marks 7,000 years since Noah’s flood.

 If he’s correct, we’re in for some serious earthquakes to start things off. As best as I can figure, Christ will reappear and take three million people to heaven.

 The rest of us will spend the next five months putting up with quakes, floods, famine and pestilence until the Earth blows up.

 There’s been plenty of warning — billboards, newspaper ads, and signs on vans and campers. And if you can’t believe a sign on a moving vehicle, what can you believe? Just ask the Centre for Rational Thought.

 As I write this, I realize I’m totally unprepared. Others have been busily planning Judgment Day conferences, spending extra time with family and friends, giving away money, or running around telling everyone to repent.

 There are some fuzzy areas, such as what happens to pets and astronauts. An atheist group in the U.S. has offered to look after pets, for a nominal charge. The astronauts are stuck.

 One Facebook page welcomes the event, the writer announcing intentions to “pick up some sweet stereo equipment” after everyone is gone.

 There are some great T-shirts selling on the Internet, like Rapture Ready, and the less confident I Survived Judgment Day 2011.

 I see some definite advantages to the situation. The parkade issue becomes moot, for example, since there’s no way it will be built before October. And, really, how much damage can Stephen Harper do before then?

 Mind you, it has the potential to play hell with the long weekend, not to mention the HST referendum, but I’m confident Canada Post will deliver our mail-in ballots come rain, sleet, snow or great chunks of the Earth breaking off. Assuming, of course, that the posties aren’t on strike at the time.

 Most Christians, it should be pointed out, aren’t on side with Camping. Even if they believe in the Rapture, they don’t believe a date can be put to it.

 ”At the end of the day, Christianity looks like an idiotic faith system,” one pastor said of the publicity around Camping’s prediction.

 This is Camping’s second try at crunching the numbers. He admits he miscalculated when he predicted the end was coming in 1994. He’s not the only one who got it wrong the first time — I find at least 11 other predictions of the end going back to 1844.

 And, we’re not finished yet.. Sir Isaac Newton predicted it will come in 2060, so a lot of us will miss that one.

 Then there’s Dec. 21, 2012, calculated using numerology and who knows what else.

 A disaster movie called 2012 came out last year, shot partly in the Kamloops region. If you want to get a look at some local scenery, and, while you’re at it, also get a picture of what the end of the world might look like, I recommend renting it from your local video store.

 If it’s still standing.

The illogic of being in City Hall

City Hall isn’t an entirely logical place these days.

Council approves a two-storey parkade in front of Heritage House on Lorne Street to placate people worried about the drive-by view of the park.

City engineering/development services  director Dave Trawin says a couple of days later that the two levels should be built to accommodate a third level in future.

Coun. Denis Walsh gives notice of motion this week for a covenant preventing a third level without a public hearing at whatever point it is proposed.

Mayor Peter Milobar takes exception to the “conspiracy” theorists who worry about a third level being in the cards. He has no intention of supporting a third level, he says.

Yet, his position is that no covenant is necessary. But if the intention is not to build a third level, then why not guard against it?

There’s an even better way of doing that than a covenant. Simply build the parkade so that it cannot be expanded to a third level. Then the issue is over.

But that would be logical.

The long and the short of 2011 census

I have in front of me the 2011 census. I’m invited to fill out the paper form we received in the mail, or do it online.

 We “must” fill it out within 10 days.  It doesn’t say what happens if we don’t, but everyone knows there are penalties for not doing so.

 Earlier this year, a Saskatchewan woman was threatened with three months in jail and a $500 fine for refusing to fill out the 2006 census. The census, Sandra Finley said, is “characteristic of fascist, militarist states.” (She was given an absolute discharge and ran for the Greens in the recent federal election.)

 Nobody has actually ever gone to jail, though a half dozen Canadians are fined each census year.

 Census objectors like Finley regard it as an invasion of privacy. They say it’s been a bad thing since biblical times, that the Nazis used it to track down Jews , and the U.S. government went after draft dodgers with it. The Freeman group calls the census “a powerful tool of social control and social engineering.”

 I will fill it out anyway. Maybe, 92 years from now when the 2011 census is declassified, some researcher will find it interesting to know something about the Rothenburger family.

 More important is the statistical information gathered for — as the form explains — funding social programs, schools, policing, fire protection and such.

 The controversy over the regular census pales alongside the long-form version that used to go out to a third of households and which, like the short form, had to be completed under threat of prosecution.

 Federal Industry Minister Tony Clement announced last July the long form would be ditched and replaced with a voluntary National Household Survey.  That one will be mailed out in a few weeks to selected households. It’s expected about half the people who receive it will fill it out.

 ”There are some people,” Clement said, “who believe that Canadians should be forced to divulge intimate, private details about their personal lives to the government. We disagree.”

 The head of Statistics Canada resigned in protest, and dozens of organizations objected. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives questioned how government policy could be effective without “evidence-based” information.

 But, it is what it is. This year’s 10-question short census questionnaire folds like a roadmap but takes only a few minutes to complete. The questions — who lives in your household, their marital relationship, date of birth, first language, and so on — are benign.

 The NHS, with 60-plus questions, gets more interesting. One might wonder why the government needs to know how many bedrooms you have in your house, what time you left for work on May 10, and whether your home is in need of repairs.

 However, we’re assured it’s all useful information for setting policy, and I’m quite sure it is. Though I count myself as one who grows increasingly concerned about privacy in this techno world, I have no objection to telling the government my education, occupation, my ethnic origin or even how much money I make.

 By the time the information goes public, I’ll be long gone. So, if asked to fill out the NHS, I’ll take the time to do it.

 It’s the least a Canadian can do.

 

Counter petition unlikely to succeed

Since I’m in the business of handing out free advice, I’ll offer some to the Kamloops Voters Association — think very carefully before getting involved in a counter petition.

 The simple reason is that, in all likelihood, it won’t succeed.

 There are two good case studies that support this view. The most recent is the attempt to recall Kamloops-North Thompson MLA Terry Lake. The recall committee headed by Chad Moats got roughly 10,000 signatures in 60 days.

 It was about 5,000 shy of the number needed. This, on the heels of the anti-HST movement that resulted in several similar recall campaigns around the province, all of which have failed.

 Moats had a campaign office, a volunteer team, and motivation based on a perceived injustice perpetrated by the Gordon Campbell government. He spent close to $13,000.

 There are differences, of course, between the recall effort and a counter petition against a parkade, but the numbers provide a daunting comparison, and the recall experience is an interesting study in the challenges.

 An apples-to-apples example is the 2002 counter petition against the water treatment plant, which I’ve mentioned previously. That petition, sponsored by the Taxpayers Committee for Open Democratic Discussion, needed 2,276 signatures to force a full referendum on borrowing $30 million for the treatment plant.

 It got only 1,659.

 A counter petition against the parkade would be even tougher, because the threshold of five per cent of eligible voters has since been raised to 10 per cent, which now equates to about 6,500 signatures.

 The change to 10 per cent came after the City objected to the counter-petition coming into play, based on the fact the City had been ordered by the medical health officer to fix its water-quality problem. If the counter petition had been successful, and a subsequent referendum had defeated the borrowing bylaw, the City would have been in the ridiculous position of not being able to comply with a lawful order to build a plant due to having no borrowing authority.

 So, what we have today is a requirement that’s twice as onerous as it used to be.

 Mind you, the KVA might get together a pretty good volunteer group, raise some money, and put on a heckuva campaign, but success is anything but a given.

 And, should the counter petition not work, what happens to the KVA’s credibility as the new voice of civic democracy? Is it then relegated to being just another anti-everything group?

 Alternatively, of course, it could delegate the work to a stalking horse — a member who would take on the counter petition without attaching the KVA’s name to it.

That would avoid embarrassment.

 But while there would be less pain, there’d also be less gain. And without the KVA officially behind it, the chances of getting those 6,500 names would diminish.

 We are, in all likelihood, stuck with a two-level (eventually, perhaps, three) parkade at a location few people like. If they dislike it enough, some incumbent members of council may pay for it come November, and maybe that’s the better battlefield.

 And, by the way, it would be helpful if the KVA was a voice for reasoned, fact-based debate rather than risking becoming a vehicle for disinformation. At last week’s meeting of the group, the myth that the parkade is for the benefit of the hotel across the street was again put forward.

 Enough is enough.

A missed opportunity for learning

By happy coincidence, I was seated beside Bishop David Monroe at Coun. John DeCicco’s table during Saturday night’s Colombo Lodge dinner in celebration of the 18th anniversary of the lodge’s current building.

The bishop told me about the letter he received from John Bandura, the mentally ill man who savagely attacked him at Sacred Heart Cathedral last October, putting him in hospital for several weeks. Bishop Monroe seems more concerned about Bandura and his family than about himself.

Coun. Marg Spina, stopping by our table to pay her respects, joked, “You’d better work on him; he’s an agnostic,” referring to me.

Bishop Monroe is a fine, caring, courageous, intelligent man who would be disparaged by some atheists simply because he is a man of God.

Those who dismiss another human being based on disagreement with that person’s beliefs miss an opportunity to learn.