I love that by reading multiple headlines/news stories one may be more confused about the nature of a situation than if they had just read a single story. I think a great example of that is in the midst of happening in Halifax presently.
It seems that Halifax's mayor, Peter Kelly, is on his way out as the executor of a long-contested estate. The CBC's headline for their story conveying the details is:
The CBC's headline gives me the impression that Kelly had some choice in the matter while the Coast's headline seems to suggest that Kelly had no choice in the matter. These differences seem significant to me, or am I reading more into the headline differences than I should?
A few days ago I drove from Halifax to Wolfville and managed to capture the experience through the power of time-lapse video. All things considered, I think it is one of my better time-lapse vids (but that isn't necessarily saying much).
As some of you may know, it looks as though the Dalhousie faculty and support staff may both be drawing closer to strikes. Given the time of year these strikes would be taking place one would expect any picket lines to include strike huts and burning barrels.
Fortunately for future Halifax strikers, as a result of the ongoing transit strike the municipal government has recently agreed to not enforce the bylaw that makes illegal to have barrel fires in Halifax. Presumably this precedent will carry over to other contemporaneous strikes?
Anyway, assuming that the transit strike keeps going and the Dal faculty and support staff strike, Halifax could soon become the barrel fire capital of Canada.
I'm also curious about strike etiquette. If to separate unions at the same employer are on strike at the same time how are picket positions determined? Seems like there's a chance that the second union to go out could get stuck with dud locations.
Today I learned that the Globe and Mail's long-time parliamentary bureau chief, Jane Taber, now heads the paper's Atlantic bureau. I learned about this change in part by reading what I understand to be her first contribution from her new post.
This first article, which deals with Halifax mayor's Peter Kelly's current political challenges, seems to have been triggered by a recent article in the Coast that deals with Kelly's failings as executor for the estate of a late friend. The Coast article really goes after Kelly and outlines a number of problems with the way in which the probate process has been handled so far.
As Taber notes
Now Halifax is buzzing over allegations that Mr. Kelly took more than $160,000 from the $500,000 estate of a long-time elderly friend, Mary Thibeault, and with questions of why, seven years after her death, the will has not been settled.
These questions were first posed last week in The Coast, a free weekly newspaper.
The primary issue I have with the article comes from the final sentence of the previous quote. As many of us resident in Nova Scotia know, the Coast has been covering the issue of this will for quite some time. A quick Google search for "peter kelly executor" lead me to a March 2011 story on the topic.
Maybe I should at least be happy that the mainstream media finally picked up on the story, even if it took them almost a year? And isn't this the kind of story that the mainstream media should be breaking rather than re-reporting from the local alternative/arts weekly?
Barry Sinclair charged with five counts of voyeurism and two counts of break and enter in south-end Halifax. #cbcns
Does this mean what I think it means? Have they finally caught the South End Halifax sleep watcher?
Unfortunately, they don't yet have a fully story relaying the significance of the tweet (and either confirming or refuting my assumptions). I am hoping that they have one soon. Whether or not this is sleep-watcher related I also hope that the whole sleep-watcher situation is resolved sooner rather than later. It's hard to believe that the sleep-watcher thing has been going on for years without a satisfactory resolution.
Update: A story on the case from October, 2011 can be found here.
Update: An earlier tweet from the CBC reporter covering the police press conference seems to confirm my suspicion that they are dealing with the sleep-watcher issue:
Waiting for police chief Beazley to explain arrest of alleged sleep watcher. #cbcns
As part of his continued effort to justify the use of the moniker "Nofuna Scotia" the HRM chief of police has recently blamed bars and alcohol for high crime rate in Halifax.
HRM drinks too much and Halifax Regional Police Chief Frank Beazley says he has the assault statistics to prove it.
He told the municipality’s police commission on Monday there’s way too much easy access to liquor in this town. Many people sit at home and drink heavily before going out late to the bar and pounding drinks until 3 a.m.
“If I could take the alcohol out of this, I could plummet the number of assaults in HRM,” he said.
Beazley added that several of the 3,202 assaults last year involved people getting drunk and going home to beat a family member.
The access, hours the bars are open and the density of liquor establishments downtown combine to cause real problems.
“Why do we need that many bars in that one area of the community that require so many resources to police it?”
While I am sure it is the case that some number of Halifax's crimes were committed by people who had recently been drinking in bars, do we know that access to alcohol really lead to all that many crimes - or do criminals just happen to also be drinkers? Do other communities with bar districts face similar problems? If not, why not?
And is the chief of police really suggesting that some number of legally operated small businesses be closed or have their capacity to collect revenue severely restricted? Might there not be other steps that we can take before this one?
And I am curious if the chief's suggestion that if he "could take the alcohol out of this, I could plummet the number of assaults in HRM" is accurate. An interesting story from the Guardian today seems to suggest that people will go to great lengths to secure intoxicating substances in the face of prohibitions. At least in the UK an ever-changing array of legal synthetic drugs seem to be popular at the moment. And of course not much is know about these synthetic drugs and what kind of long-term impact they might have on their imbibers. And should one not think about the risk of encouraging such a development be worth by changing alcohol rules?
-We've seen a sudden turnaround in the temperature today. When I woke up this morning it was about -8 but by the time I was finishing lunch the temperature was up to 3. So far this temperature change has not been accompanied by snow or any other form of precipitation.
-I'm in the midst of drinking quite a lot of coffee today. I am hoping that the this consumption will have a positive affect on my productivity today.
-Actually, so far I don't feel so bad about my productivity. Not only have I been able to do some school work, but I have also done some cleaning and housekeeping. I'm even hoping that I've done enough cleaning that Jeannette will be able to notice it when she returns home from work.
-Yesterday seemed to magically become laundry day. I think by the end of the day we had completed four loads of laundry. I am still a little unsure why so much washing was required.
-I think I may have to make a quick loaf of bread this afternoon, and maybe something for dinner.
-For the past few days/weeks I have been hearing suggestions that former Liberal MP Mike Savage would be contesting the next mayoral contest in Halifax. It seems that today Savage made the run official. I am not entirely convinced that the current mayor is particularly popular, so this could end up being something of a race.
Well, after a period of on-again, off-again negotiations Halifax is finally in the midst of a transit strike.
Though Halifax's transit system probably isn't used quite as much as it could be, it still has quite a number of users who will be inconvenienced by this strike. And it sounds as though even non-users are being inconvenienced by increased traffic.
Strangely, Neil and I might some of the few people who might actually benefit. If Dalhousie is successful in its negotiations we may be reimbursed for the period of time our U-Passes were out of commission. And as we likely won't be in a position to actually use our U-Passes during the strike this will just be a benefit.
Even though I do stand to benefit from a long strike I hope that they are able to resolve the dispute shortly.
As I have recently mentioned a few times, I just listened to the entire episode archive of the 99% Invisible podcast. One of the first episodes of this show (but one of the last that I listened to) dealt with a new parking initiative that was being implemented in San Francisco.
The general parking scheme to be implemented in San Francisco, at least as described in the podcast, was to create a system that encouraged a more efficient use of available parking space (their goal is to always have one free space per block). A key component of creating such an outcome is to have dynamic pricing that reflects usage. Higher prices in high demand areas and lower prices in low demand areas. Furthermore, such prices would change regularly to reflect changing usage patterns. (You can read more about the system at the SFPark.org site.)
Anyway, I was reminded of these concepts and ideas as I read a recent CBC article about planned changes to parking rules in Halifax. Instead of dealing with parking congestion problems with an approach reminiscent San Francisco's, Halifax seems interested only interested in implementing a course permitting scheme that will be of the most benefit to homeowners on residential streets (who are currently complaining about the lack of available parking space on their streets).
Maybe I should take a second to step back and describe the parking situation as it exists on the non-campus streets near Dal, the province's largest university and an institution with a relatively well documented parking shortage. What is immediately striking about parking near Dal is not that there are no available spaces, but that there are many near-empty streets with available on-street parking. These streets have almost no cars because complicated no parking schedules (things like two hour maximums or absolutely no parking between certain hours) make them difficult to use for most people with commitments at Dal. Of course, I should also note that the few completely unencumbered parking places are almost always taken.
So getting back to the new proposal, if streets in Halifax are uniformly converted from free parking to permitted parking a few problems may arise. Firstly, streets that are now almost completely empty may fill up with newly permitted cars (making some aspects of the problem worse). Secondly, homeowners will now have to pay for the privilege to park near their homes (though they will have reduced rates). Thirdly, those with irregular commitments in areas impacted by the changes may have a harder time parking as they won't have a parking permit for the area in question (this is the change that really bothers me as it will likely impact me when I am trying to go to Dal).
But that brings us to a few questions: Do we have an inherent right to free on-street parking? and Do homeowners have an inherent right to street parking in front of their property? I guess my initial response to both of these questions is 'no.'
Lets deal with the first question first. As much as I like free on-street parking and as much as I think it is a reasonable thing municipality to decide to provide, I think one can make a pretty convincing argument that as streets that are wide enough to allow for on-street more parking cost more to build that such costs should be recouped from those using the service rather than the entire tax base. Similar approaches are taken with regards to things like gas taxes or bridge tolls. Thus a pay-for-parking approach isn't completely outside the norm in most North American contexts.
Now on to the second question. Though homeowners in residential area might like to be able to park in front of their homes I'm not really sure that they really have much an argument beyond that. If we look at cases of property ownership in areas of dense development we often see that there isn't enough room for all owners to take advantage of on-street parking, options other than parking in front of one's building must be found. Thus I don't see that the home owners in Halifax should really have much of a claim to the on-street parking in front of their homes (particularly during business hours). It should also be noted that as a property owner you can both choose how to allocate your property (such as how much of your property is dedicated to parking) and decide whether or not you own a car. Expecting to also have some claim to street space for which you have not paid and that is not equally available to all property owners or residents seems a bit much to me.
Of course, the other part of the equation that has been seemingly completely ignored, at least if we use this CBC article as our only source, is that attempts could be made to reduce the number of individuals interested in parking in Halifax. Maybe a better bus system or efforts to decrease sprawl might also help with parking problems.
I guess, in the end, I think that this policy is missing the point. People parking on the street is fine, there is nothing inherently wrong with it (though a few parking garages and a more effective pricing scheme might not be completely uncalled for). Furthermore, if you don't provide alternatives to street parking (either parking-wise or alternatives to driving) you won't really solve the problem, you might just shift it further afield. And I suspect that in the best case scenario that is all this policy will do as they fundamentally haven't done anything to reduce the need for parking.
A few years ago I posted about a fire that took place near our South End Halifax apartment. The fire, though not particularly large, did manage to damage a few restaurants and some row housing.
[Embedded video]
Since the fire in January 2010, at least as far as I could tell, not much had happened with the buildings. Though the adjacent buildings were soon fixed and the restaurants re-opened, the restaurants in the primary fire location did not re-open in the same place.
I guess this means that there will now be space for new development beside Cornwallis park. I would be curious to know if there are already plans in place, or if they will only begin thinking about how to fill the space now that the building has been torn down.
It seems that since my last post the police were called to the Occupy NS site to make sure that the occupiers vacated Victoria Park. Based on the photo accompanying the CBC story it looks as though the removal was really happening quite quickly.
This surprise tactic, at least in the short-run, seems to have worked for the city. They seem to have removed the occupiers from the city parks. Of course, I suspect that we will have to wait a few days to see if this all fades away quietly or if the protestors mount some form of rebuttal.
I am also curious to see if the protestors question the validity of the eviction notice and claim that they were given permission by the city. Unfortunately, as the news stories thus far seem to be focusing on the position of the city officials I don't really have a sense of how the protestors are responding to these developments, though I don't get the sense that there has been much of a fight so far (though I guess it's still early).
Hopefully more news will make it out shortly.
Update: Based on Twitter reports I gather that there have been a number of arrests during the eviction process. I guess we'll have to wait a little longer to see exactly how many there are in total.
Though I haven't mentioned anything about the Occupy NS/Halifax front for several days the protest has been on-going. After a negotiated departure from the Grand Parade (in advance of today's Remembrance Day ceremonies) the occupiers set up camp in Victoria Park, a site across from the Public Gardens. As far as I knew things were in motion for the Occupiers to return to their original location in the near future.
It seems now, at least according to the Chronicle Herald and a city notice, that this may not be happening. The city seems to now be attempting to shut down the protest before it returns to the Grand Parade. Apparently the city is now going to try to enforce the no camping and park closing rules that they have been lax about for the past few weeks (That the city seems to think that it is Ok only to enforce rules when it wants to is troubling and, at least to some extent, undermines the principle of Rule of Law that is so important in Canadian society).
In many ways this was a neat little maneuver by the city. The protestors left the site directly in front of city hall voluntarily based on negotiations with the city (a city that seemed to imply that it would support a continued occupation - it even suggested land that could be used for an encampment site). Now, once the protestors have vacated the prominent location, the city has decided it will shut them down.
Though I don't know all of the details, from the outside this definitely seems a little duplicitous on the part of the city government. Not only were the camps allowed to pass health and safety inspections, something that seemed to implicitly suggest some level of governmental approval, but the protestors were also explicitly offered an alternate park-based location for their protest by the city. This latter fact seems particularly pertinent.
For the city, which seemingly approved of the activities protests, to now try to shut them down, if anything, is asking for trouble. I suspect that many of the protestors and those who support the protestors will feel betrayed by the city. As I haven't been in Halifax for the duration of the occupation I don't really know what the public's position is on the matter, but I suspect that it could have a big impact on how this will all play out (and who knows, maybe the city knows that the public doesn't support the occupation). In any case, the city seems interested in forcing the issue sooner rather than later.
It seems, at least according to a recent report by the CBC, that the new farmers' market in Halifax is having some financial difficulties.
Sadly, this isn't really much of a surprise.
One of the issues that Neil and I discussed years ago when we first heard about the new facility was the location. Even though the last location was a little out of the way, this new location is hidden behind a hotel and isn't in a part of town that many locals would visit organically. Actually, given the concentration of tourism activities in the area it is even possible that the new farmers' market is in a location that many locals would actively avoid, particularly in the height of cruise ship season.
Related to the location problem is that there is also a parking/walking problem. I am not sure if the parking for the site is ideal. I kind of get the sense that there probably isn't enough parking during peak times.
Alongside the parking issue is a walking issue. The new site is incredibly unpleasant to reach on foot. There are a few cross-walks that seem to be missing from the mix that would allow pedestrians to conveniently access the market.
All of this is to say that transportation-wise, things don't appear to be well designed so that the location is easy to access.
I suspect that another problem that the Halifax farmers' market is having is that many of their vendors aren't really farmers'. It's one thing to buy an omelette or some freshly prepared food on a Saturday morning, but I am not sure that the food-service vendors are really attracting people during the week when the market is open. At least when I visited on during the afternoon last week most of these places weren't open.
Actually, another problem, and a tricky one, is that the market may be open but most of the vendors aren't. When I was last there it seemed as though only a few of the vendors were open for business. And if the market doesn't have enough selection to allow a shopper to forgo a trip to the supermarket they may instead to forgo the trip to the market.
So being a little out of the way and having an incomplete slate of vendors likely means that an extra trip to farmers' market just isn't worth it for most people during their day-to-day grocery buying activities.
Oh, and not that I am always one for 'character' in a building, but the warehouse feel of the new location does not really induce me to visit.
The worst part is, aside from scaling back to only being open once or twice a week, I really don't know what they can do about the problem as the building has now been constructed and a location change is off the table. Hopefully they manage to come up with something in the near future as it would be disappointing to see the collapse of such a well-respected Halifax institution.
A strange contrast is. the Wolfville farmers' market. They too recently acquired a newly remodelled building and, while I don't know the particulars of their finances, I get the sense that things are going quite well.
Since deciding to come to Halifax for a few days one of the things I have wanted to do is take a look at the Occupy NS site on the Grand Parade. Though there has been more media coverage of the protest as a result of the city's request that the protestors vacate the square to allow things like the Remembrance Day celebrations to take place, my sense of the physical reality was still lacking. How many tents were there? How full was the Grand Parade? Did it look like a tent city?
Finally last night Jeannette and I had the chance to drive by the occupation and get a look at the set up. Much to our surprise the Grand Parade was not full, there seemed to be a line of tents along the back of the paved area, but much of the rest of the pavement was unobstructed. Though there may have been one, I didn't see a single burning barrel (and we all know it's not a real strike/protest if there isn't at least one burning barrel).
As this view of the site was relatively brief I may have to find some time tomorrow to examine the site a little more closely and really get a sense of how things are working at the Occupy NS headquarters (especially considering this is a protest site that has passed it's health and safety inspection).
Oh, and in related news Occupy Magazine seems to have come out with its second issue a few days ago. As far as I can tell this issue also seems to be comprised primarily of articles harvested from other sources rather than original content. In this issue I really was expecting to see more content exclusive to this publication, but maybe that isn't the type of publication they are going for. Maybe if I make it to the Grand Parade tomorrow I will be able to pick up a print copy of the magazine to inspect in more detail.
A sure sign that there hasn't been enough coverage of the Occupy Nova Scotia festivities is that this blog is getting a surprising number of visitors as a result of our discussion of the protest. Given the size of the regular readership and very limited impact of this blog this shouldn't be happening. We shouldn't be one of the first results in the Google blog search category when you search for 'Occupy Nova Scotia,' we just aren't that big or important.
Where's the rest of the Nova Scotia blogosphere on this issue?
Much of the relatively sparse media attention devoted to the Occupy Nova Scotia/Halifax event has been relatively devoid of coverage of how non-occupiers feel about the Occupation. This struck me as quite noticeable.
Didn't Haligonians working in the downtown core have opinions on the Occupy protest? Didn't the city have an opinion on the appearance of a tent city in on of its parks? Or were they all in favour of the Occupy Nova Scotia encampment? These questions and many more went unanswered.
And even though the fact that the the municipal government has issued an 'eviction' notice to the protestors prompted another story from CBC, issues surrounding the community's response are completely absent.
It seems that another component that was absent from the CBC story, but that was included in Halifax Media Co-op coverage, is that while the city has requested that the protestors leave the Grand Parade they have suggested an alternate location for the protest to continue. So the city isn't really shutting the protest down, just suggesting a change of venue. Of course, it's possible that this less prominent location, if agreed to by the protestors, will have a negative impact on the visibility of the protestors.
Anyway, the notice to leave the Grand Parade will likely lead to another round of media attention, though I can't help but wonder how comprehensive the resulting coverage will be. Certainly what we have seen so far, at least as far as I am concerned, is lacking in depth and breadth and has left the public with a very incomplete sense of the encampment as it currently exists in downtown Halifax.
Last week's news coverage of the Occupy Halifax event spoke of protestors who were dedicated to the cause and interested in spending days or weeks on the Grand Parade (at least they would be back this weekend). Interestingly, there seems to have been little to no mainstream media coverage of the protest since last weekend (or at least any coverage that I can find through Google News). I was starting to wonder if the protest even made it much past last weekend
I did just find a post that suggests that the protest lasted at least 6 days. Of course, as this was posted about two days ago I don't know if the protest is still ongoing or if they have packed up camp and moved on.
Twitter activity does suggest that as of last night there may have still been something happening Occupy Halifax-wise, though the extent of the occupation is completely unclear to me.
What seems a little clearer is that news outlets that were covering the event a week ago seemed less inclined to cover the event through the week. And can such an event continue without relatively widespread media coverage? Given media disinterest how long will the Occupy Halifax event be able to hold out?
I guess I shouldn't be surprised to learn that there was, in fact, an Occupy Halifax event, and that it was conducted with the support of the Occupy Wolfville crowd (which explains the weak showing on the Occupy Wolfville front).
And while I would have guessed that such an event would take place in Cornwallis Park I guess it makes a little more sense that it took place on the Grand Parade.
What seems to set this protest apart from the original is that long-term occupation doesn't seem to be the goal. Instead of occupying the Grand Parade for close to a month the Occupiers seem to plan to head back again in a week.
I can't help but wonder if such a protest wouldn't have more of an impact both in actual and media terms if it were to be held on a business day?
