Steelworkers’ president’s ‘vision’ of mining development

Received a sealed envelope today. It was a big white United Steelworkers District 3 envelope with a hand-written note on the front that said, “For Mel from Richard Enjoy — I liked your Saturday column.”

Inside was an eight-page document published in March 2011 and written by Steelworkers Local 7619 president Richard Boyce, who was the subject of the Armchair Mayor this past Saturday. More precisely, his comments about the Ajax mine were the subject.

The paper I received today is entitled “Appropriate Risk?” and does, I assume, represent his current opinion even though it’s now a year old. The first sub-headline inside is “Development with Vision.” Since I wrote Saturday about conflicting visions on the Ajax issue, this eight-pager is an appropriate elaboration on his position.

He can correct me if I’m wrong, but a reading of this manifesto leads to the conclusion that he is strongly in favour of Ajax for economic-benefit reasons, but that we must be careful to extract the greatest community profit possible from it.

“Will we be paid a fair share for a non-renewable resource? Will the Kamloops population benefit as a whole? Is there a plan in place that will maximize the economic benefits available? What will we leave for future generations?” he asks.

All good questions, of course, assuming developing the mine at all is a good thing. Boyce seems to have already made that judgment, and it’s a thumbs up as long as there’s a good dollar in it for Kamloops. “Development with vision means ensuring that all residents will benefit from mining development in Kamloops through the creation of jobs, positive economic spinoffs, increased tax revenue, and a better quality of life.”

In comparison, he pays scant attention to environmental concerns or the issue of location. Ajax, and New Gold, he writes, “seem to me to be the only bright lights on the horizon.”

Which, I am obligated to say, reaffirms my earlier comments about short-term and long-term vision. But I’m thankful for the document, which I hadn’t seen previously.

You can dress it up but open-pit mine will still be ugly in the morning

Winston Churchill said many clever things, but one of the best-known stories involved a woman who accused him of being drunk.

There’s some dispute as to whether his accuser was Labour MP Bessie Braddock or Lady Astor, but accounts of his reply are pretty consistent: “Yes, Madam, I am drunk,” he confessed.

“But in the morning, I will be sober and you will still be ugly.”

Much like an open-pit mine. You can dress it up with finery about what a fine addition it will be to our economy, and you can accuse its detractors of exaggeration, but in the morning it will still be ugly.

People like Richard Boyce of the United Steelworkers suffer from a rare form of myopia. In their idea of vision, the distance is blurry; only objects — such as dollar signs — that are right in front of their eyes come into focus.

He said at a Rotary luncheon this week Kamloops risks becoming a backwater — a “have-not” community, to be exact — if the Ajax mine is turned down.

Really, Richard? The very future of Kamloops depends on an open-pit mine? This would be one sadly inadequate city if all it had to look forward to was a big hole in the ground.

Boyce reflects a certain view, which is that the only hope for our children is this mine, and that those who oppose it should ‘wait for the facts.’ For those in favour, no need to wait.

Opponents of the mine are “a machine,” he was quoted as saying. Pity the ninth-largest copper producer in the world with its bottomless public-relations budget and only the likes of the chamber of commerce, one of the most powerful unions on the planet, and — at least indirectly, the premier of the province — to speak in its favour.

How can they possibly stand their ground against a coalition of TRU profs, Aberdeen residents and a couple of hundred members of a citizens group that isn’t even registered as a society yet? Such a machine.

Boyce is correct on one thing — there will be economic benefits. If that were really the only issue, then let the blasting begin.

Not everyone, though, is of the opinion that a mine is essential to the survival of the community. Why does that merit an accusation of being “anti-industry,” as Boyce called them this week?

Even if the project passes environmental muster under the less-than-perfect system of review, there’s something else to consider, namely that vision thing.

The fundamental difference, vision-wise, is between the close-up focus on immediate and tangible benefits versus the long-term vision of lifestyle and the everyday feel of the community — what we see, feel and hear around us.

Those of the latter view struggle with fitting a giant open mine pit and all its attendant unsightliness into their vision of Kamloops. They can’t understand why Kamloops can’t grow and prosper without this particular project. They think our economy can accommodate resource industry, just not within municipal boundaries. It’s about location.

The world needs mining. Kamloops has mining. Do we need or want more of it, especially beside the city’s biggest residential growth area? That’s their question.

They’re asking, “Who wants to sleep with an ugly step sister snoring in the next room?”

Kamloops is our kind of town, warts and all

When Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley died in 1976, the great Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mike Royko wrote that, “He wasn’t graceful, suave, witty, or smooth. But, then, this is not Paris or San Francisco. He was raucous, sentimental, hot-tempered, practical, simple, devious, big and powerful. This is, after all, Chicago.”

Newfoundland-born author Wayne Johnston, in his best-selling book The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, describes St. John’s at length through one of his characters. In a fictional letter to her friend Joey Smallwood in 1949, Sheilagh Fielding writes: “How different it used to be, Smallwood, this city, yours and mine…. Goats wandered about at will the way cats in cities do today…. What I miss most are the horses. The sound of the city changed gradually as the horses were replaced by cars and the streets were paved….”

Molly Ivins, writing in the Dallas Times-Herald, described Lubbock this way: “Good Lord, Lubbock, Texas. Well, about 88.3 percent of the world there is sky, and if you are used to that, it feels like freedom and everywhere else feels like jail…. It is extremely difficult to develop either pretensions or affectations in Lubbok. Without getting laughed out of town.”

Renowned urban planning activist Jane Jacobs told the Globe and Mail in 1949 that, “As a relatively recent transplant from New York, I am frequently asked whether I find Toronto sufficiently exciting. I find it almost too exciting. The suspense is scary. Here is the most hopeful and healthy city in North America, still unmangled, still with options.” She was grateful, she said, to be enjoying Toronto “before its destruction.”

Writers love to write about their cities. For the most part, it’s a labour of love. The best ones love the gutters and back alleys and street people as much as the lawns and the symphonies.

Wednesday morning, I drove past the art gallery, the hockey arena, the university — all signs of our refined Kamloops lifestyle — and up to the Broadcast Centre on Columbia to talk on radio about the Kamloops Project.

A stripper was entertaining a couple of the jocks in one of the studios (I neglected to ask for her business card).

This is Kamloops, where ballerinas perform in a theatre at a high school while strippers dance in a studio at a local radio station. Where drivers speed up instead of stopping for red lights; sports writers can be banned from hockey games for criticizing the local team.

We have a beautiful park on the river, just over the hill from where a giant open-pit mine might soon serenade the residents of Aberdeen with daily renditions of the 1812 Overture.

Kamloops is a little bit cowboy chaps with a dash of yoga pants, a place in which big American 4X4s share the road with trendy Japanese sedans.

But it’s a kind town, and getting more beautiful as it ages.

Wednesday was Leap Day. It was also the day in which Kamloopsians took pictures of themselves and their city and posted them on the Kamloops Project website, which should be ready to look at later today.

They took pictures of all kinds of things, but they show we have one thing in common with all those other places – we’re proud of our town. It might be a little raucous and hot-tempered at times, but it’s a pretty good place to be.

The Scoopz-arena real estate deal that never was

Back in March of 2008, not long before the City started working out a deal with Tom Gaglardi for sale of the Scoopz lot, it entertained a proposal to sell not only Scoopz, but the arena on the other side of the street.

Scoopz would be developed as “residential.” A convention centre would also be built, with one possible scenario being that it and the arena would then be leased back to the City.

The suitor wasn’t Tom Gaglardi. It was Graham Lee of the Prospero Group, a Vancouver-based real estate and investment company.

Documents obtained through the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act show that Michael Eibl, then the manager of new business development with Venture Kamloops, received an email from a Vancouver realty firm on March 4 of that year.

“Hi, Michael,” it began, “I’ve been asked to ‘get going’ on Graham Lee’s/Prospero’s Letter of Intent and need Kamloops’ wish list. Are you willing to sell the arena and then lease back; does Prospero buy the land for the convention centre, build it, and lease it back to the City. Do you want Prospero to buy multi family site (the 1.7 acres) and assemble and redevelop the nite club site? Thanks and let me know what works best for you. Eric.”

Eric is Eric Walker of Cushman & Wakefield LePage Inc.

The next day, Eibl passed along the information to Jeff Putnam, then the City’s business and client services manager, who forwarded it to then-mayor Terry Lake and CAO Randy Diehl.

Lake had no enthusiasm for selling Interior Savings Centre. “I still have a pulse so the ISC is not for sale but I’m just one vote,” he wrote back. “As for the convention centre/hotel let’s get creative! We should meet them and have an open discussion.” (It’s unclear from the documents I have whether a hotel was a firm part of the plan, and, if so, whether it would be built as part of the Scoopz residential complex or at the ISC.)

If that open discussion was held, obviously nothing came of it, since talks then began with Gaglardi.

There could be any number of reasons why the Prospero proposal didn’t pan out — price, ownership of the arena, or the details of what would be built, for example. Neither do we know whether it ever came to a vote by City council, since real estate transactions are properly done in camera, and minutes of the in-camera meeting at which it was discussed weren’t released to me.

It’s interesting to speculate, though, what might have happened had the idea gained traction. Instead of owning a facility that continues to run a deficit (albeit a decreasing one), the City would be able to budget predictable leasing costs. Or, maybe let the new owner run it entirely and allow the free market to determine rental rates.

To boot, the City would have a new convention centre, whether as part of Scoopz or on the land in front of the ISC that was once proposed for just such a facility.

There are nuances upon nuances, clauses upon sub-clauses, interpretations upon clarifications, and proposals upon counter-proposals in such negotiations. Who can say whether this was an idea that was worth pursuing?

But if a parkade can create the public commotion it did, one can imagine what a fuss a deal like the one broached by Prospero might have caused.

Final five of most fascinating ‘Loopsians for 2011

Herbert Wirth, 'Most Fascinating Kamloopsian 2011.'

Look, when I call them the 10 Most Fascinating Kamloopsians of 2011, I mean they’re cool because of the connection between who they are and what they did, not that they’re perfect.

On Tuesday I began with Tina Lange in the Number 10 spot, and worked through Richard Wagamese, Terry Lake, Violet the purple dog, and Carl Anderson, offering, in my books, a pretty convincing argument for each.

So, onto the top five of the top 10.

5. DYLAN ARMSTRONG — The hefty shot putter has been at the peak of his game during 2011, spreading the word about Kamloops as he travels the globe blowing away his competition. He was named overall athlete of the year, most outstanding athlete in field events, and most outstanding performance of the year by Athletics Canada. And, he set a Canadian record. That’s what you’d call heavy lifting.

4. JOAN HUGHES — Whether it be a City bylaws officer giggling during testimony, cantankerous “freemen,” or noisy partiers disturbing their neighbours, it’s just another day at the office for Justice of the Peace Joan Hughes. Last year, she presided over the infamous “skateboard mom” case, and was the subject of a review by the chief provincial court judge of B.C. over the way she chastised the defendant. While 2011 has proven more sedate, she’s had a stream of oddball cases in front of her that continue to make her courtroom an interesting place to be.

3. BONNIE MARCHAND — Who knows how Fate conspired to put Bonnie Marchand in Erwin’s Bakery on Dec. 7, looking to buy a loaf of bread. Instead, the short-on-cash Marchand bought a $5 lottery ticket and won half a million bucks. How quickly a life can turn around. What did she do first? Bought new trucks for her two sons, of course.

2. MARK RECCHI — Home-town hockey hero, part owner of the Blazers, he was the consolation prize for the Tournament Capital after he and the Bruins beat the Canucks in the final. Then he blew a major chunk of that good will by capping his 22-year NHL career with pointless cheap shots about the Canucks supposedly being “arrogant” and “hated.” Which, in turn, earned him adjectives such as “Insensitive” and “classless.”

Which brings us Numero Uno, the Top of the List, the King of the Kamloopsians. And he doesn’t even live here; probably has never even visited.

1. HERBERT WIRTH — Never heard of him, have you? But you will. He’s CEO for the Polish state-owned mining giant KGHM, which has the majority financial stake in the Ajax project. Or, at least, he was at this writing. There have been media rumours over the past week that he’s about to lose his job because the Polish government isn’t happy with his opposition to a planned new mineral tax. As this goes to press, though, Wirth carries on making new deals for KGHM in Canada and China. If he does get the boot, somebody else will have to take his place when the first ceremonial blast is set off south of town. But whoever that might be, you’ve got to admit he’ll be a fascinating Kamloopsian, even if he doesn’t actually live here. He’ll likely ante up for a summer home in Aberdeen anyway.

The top 10 most fascinating Kamloopsians of 2011

Right about now, you’ll start reading and hearing about “the biggest story of 2011” in the media, including ours.

What makes for “big news,” of course, depends very much on individual palates. My vote would go to Ajax, but I’ll take a different approach — instead of talking about news stories as such, let’s consider the 10 Most Fascinating Kamloopsians of 2011.

Behind every story, after all, is at least one person. This is a list that could have numbered 100, but lists of 10 are so much easier. We shall begin, in order, from 10th place and work our way up.

10. TINA LANGE — She’s gone from selling newspaper ads to running a bistro to managing a hotel and being a civic politician, but the real reason she makes the list is because she uttered the quote of the year just a couple of weeks ago. “The sentiment is good that we’d like to help people but quite frankly it’s not our job,” she said during a council meeting. She said it In the context of a discussion about energy efficiency, and didn’t mean it literally, of course, but the fact a politician actually said it at all is, well, fascinating.

9. RICHARD WAGAMESE — His story is one of conflict between the man he wants to be and the one that is. He’s an author and a poet, having, among other things, received an honorary doctorate from TRU, and a national Aboriginal achievement award. And last month he was handed an 18-month conditional sentence with house arrest in the latest chapter of his conflict with the law. His criminal record of more than 50 offences goes back to the 1970s, but he uses his ongoing troubles to tell stories about native life.

8. TERRY LAKE — No one questions his occasional short temper and abrasiveness. What I like about him, though, is that he is without fear. He wasn’t afraid to run for mayor, then dump that job in favour of a chance at being an MLA and, later, cabinet minister. He’s decisive and doesn’t back down in front of a hostile crowd, of which he’s faced a few. Anybody who can’t take criticism from the public or the media, and who can’t hold his own respectfully in the face of it, shouldn’t be in politics. We don’t need whiners in politics. Lake has backbone.

7. VIOLET — Every list should have at least one dog, especially a purple one. Violet hit the news after she was found tethered to a fence by the SPCA. There followed a bizarre series of twists and turns to the story of how she ended up purple and abandoned, but it’s all working itself out. A close second in the animal category goes to Arundel, Aragon and all the other wild horses of the Deadman Valley who were saved from slaughter.

6. CARL ANDERSON — Entrepreneur, activist, just a guy who’s trying to help others. All those labels can be used to describe Carl Anderson, who hit upon the idea of opening a pot shop on Tranquille Road to provide medical marijuana to his clients. Things went along fine until the cops moved in and shut him down, making him the poster boy for the public-policy battle over access to medical pot.

But you’ll have to wait until Thursday for the top five.

Sympathy for Big Oil understandably in short supply

Forgive me, for I have sinned.

I have been unfaithful, and I don’t care.

I am a gas-price trollop — or, more accurately, I suppose, libertine — cruising the streets day and night (mostly on my way to and from work) looking for the best deal.

Costco leads the way on "cheap" gas; sometimes others follow, sometimes not. (Daily News photo)

Full serve, self serve, pre-pay, pay at the pump — I’ve done it all.

From time to time, I’ve tried to change my philandering ways, only to be disappointed. Never again.

One morning last week, I approached a station that had led the way to 97.9, where I’ve been gassing up for awhile. Like a hot poker, the numbers on the marquee struck my unbelieving eyes — “1.19.9.”

“Is 22 cents overnight even legal?” I muttered to myself as I passed it by, vowing never to return.

We are all, each and every day, at their mercy. When the rapture comes, we will be transported to our creator — Big Oil — in a giant 4X4  topped up with $20 worth of regular. Some will, no doubt, stay behind, hoping to save a penny or so a litre if they hold out for just one more day.

The oil companies have more excuses for high prices than our kids have for not doing their homework — supply and demand, the high cost of transportation, a refinery in Texas blew a gasket, a sheikdom in the Middle East is having a revolution.

Nobody believes any of it. What I’m trying to figure out right now is why I should be sympathetic to an industry that raises the price of a litre of gasoline 22 cents overnight and now wants to make things less safe for its gas jockeys.

WorkSafeBC doesn’t see it that way, but I’m not impressed by the plan to let gas station owners avoid double-staffing or putting up safety barriers as long as they install time-lock safes and hand out transmitters.

“Some workers said ‘we don’t want to be behind the screen,’” a WorkSafeBC spokesperson said by way of explanation, adding that if gas stations are forced to have two employees during late-night hours, it could mean two people instead of only one would be in harm’s way.

Let the logic of that one settle in for a bit.

Not that I’m a particular fan of gas-station attendants. They range, in my experience, from friendly to catatonic. Nor do I enjoy the pre-pay requirement of Grant’s Law.

But I do think we need to remember the reason for it. In 2005, Grant DePatie was on late-night duty at a Maple Ridge gas station when 16-year-old Darnell Pratt put $12.30 in the tank and pulled away without paying for it.

When he tried to stop Pratt, the 24-year-old DePatie was caught under the car and dragged to his death.

Pratt was convicted of manslaughter and released last year to a halfway house in Kamloops. He took off, was caught and put back in jail. He was released on parole again a few weeks ago.

So, I’m just saying, maybe Big Oil could suck it up, stop whining about the rules, and take some of its 22 cents a litre and put it into security for the gas jockeys who help make them all that money.

CBC debate has its roots in old radio rivalry

That IS Anna Maria Tremonti.

CBC Radio drives me nuts.

Every time Anna Maria Tremonti ends an interview with “That IS Joe Blotz, who spoke with us from our studio in London,” it drives me nuts.

When Jeff Douglas mucks up his lines on those little slices of life he does for As It Happens, it drives me nuts.

Every morning, when I listen to the Kelowna show ripping off another story from a community newspaper because the mother corp. refuses to invest in local reporting, it drives me nuts.

And if I have to listen to one more self-satisfied homage to itself for having been around 75 years, I swear I’ll go nuts.

But would I want to do without Definitely Not The Opera, Stuart McLean (though I’d appreciate it if he’d finish his sentences at the end instead of in the middle), Rex Murphy’s Cross Canada Checkup or any number of other first-class programs? Well, no, life would not be worth living.

In other words, I, like every other Canadian, have a love-hate thing going with our national broadcaster. Bottom line is, please keep shoveling my tax dollars into the CBC so I can continue being driven nuts.

That, however, is not what the current community debate is really about. City council’s discussion of the CBC last week has generated a great public hair-pulling over whether the CBC is worth what we all pay for it, and whether council should be involved.

But underlying the whole thing is the dog-eat-dog competition that characterizes the radio industry in Kamloops. Though Coun. Pat Wallace is being pilloried for her stance against subsidies to the CBC, her position today is absolutely consistent with her position of years gone by against out-of-town radio entrepreneurs.

Local stations do not want more competition either for revenue or audience, and will do whatever they can to avoid it. As a result, there is no love lost between Radio NL and its Broadcast Centre competitors.

Back in 2005, for example, NL applied to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission for a new country music station. Three other applicants, none local, also wanted new licences.

It seemed a routine endorsement, so when NL asked for a letter of support, council agreed. “I don’t mind exactly telling the other ones to get lost, frankly, out of Toronto,” Wallace said at the time.

It seemed a rather strange thing to say, given that Kamloops is always trying to attract business from other places, but she felt strongly about supporting local business against new competition.

Broadcast Centre, though, was distinctly unhappy about it.

“If this application is approved, it will result in a significant reduction of service in radio in Kamloops,” said news director Doug Collins.

His rationale was that the Broadcast Centre (though not locally owned) was also a good local corporate citizen.

NL president Robbie Dunn called the Broadcast Centre’s attempt to throw up barriers tawdry, unseemly, disgusting and misleading, not necessarily in that order.

So, whether the prospect of increased local competition is from an established local station, or from “outside,” it’s a sensitive matter.

And when the “outside” challenge comes in the form of a publicly subsidized broadcaster, Wallace is going to have something to say about it.

Our community’s love-hate relationship with the Red Bridge

Coun. Tina Lange, KCBIA manager Gay Pooler, Mel and Heritage Commission chair Andrew Yarmie unveil plaque at Red Bridge on Wednesday.

Every time I drive across the Red Bridge, I wonder whether I’ll emerge on the other end with both mirrors intact. All drivers, I think, have a love-hate relationship with that bridge — we love its oldness, we hate its narrowness.

Yesterday, I was privileged to take part in a small ceremony at the bridge to mark a project of the Heritage Commission and the Communities In Bloom Committee aimed at drawing attention to the heritage importance of the bridge. I was asked to be there because, while I was mayor, I promoted the idea of heritage designation for the Red Bridge.

That was eventually accomplished, but the two groups want to take it a step further by creating an informational spot at the Lorne Street end that will include a kiosk explaining the bridge’s history. For now, there’s a small planted area and a plaque, which we unveiled at the ceremony (it’s been awhile since I’ve been asked to unveil a plaque).

Many people might not know that this is the third Red Bridge in that spot. The first was built in 1887; this one was built in 1937, and had a projected lifespan of 30 years. How wrong they were; 75 years later it’s still standing and in full use. Engineers constantly talk about how it has only a few years of useful life left, yet it’s still there.

I was also asked to say a few words at the ceremony, so I noted the above, and also pointed out that structures other than buildings often have heritage importance as well.

At home, we have a silk-screen print by the great regional artist Steve Mennie, called Bridges, which he did in 1999. It features the CN bridge and the Red Bridge. When Art Charbonneau was B.C.’s transportation minister, I wrote about my disappointment when the old wooden decking of the Red Bridge was removed and replaced with ashphalt.

It made practical sense, because the wood decking would wear down and had to be replaced every year, but I lamented the rosion of its historic look. Art sent me over a piece of the wood decking as a souvenir. I still have it at home, where I can now not only look at the bridge via the Mennie print any time I want, but reach out and touch a piece of it.

Colleen Stainton told me after the ceremony she researched the naming of the bridge and found out it’s not called the Red Bridge based on its paint job. All bridges of its type came to be known as Red Bridges due to the colour of fir used in their construction, she says.

Congratulations to the Heritage Commission and CIB for taking on the job of raising awareness of the importance of the bridge.

 

Scoopz documents now on Kamloops Daily News website

The complete file of documents from my application under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act with respect to the sale by the City of the Scoopz property is now posted on The Daily News website. Rather than repeat it here, I will direct you to www.kamloopsnews.ca.

Click on the story headlined “Daily News releases FOI documents on sale of Scoopz.” When the story opens, click on the line under Related Links that says “full details on our FOI documents on sale of Scoopz property.”

That will take you to the 38 pages of documents.