Nanaimo City Council Meeting
Monday July 21, 2014
4:30 PM Shaw Auditorium
Vancouver Island Conference Centre
- Dr. Dave Witty presentation regards the next steps for the South Downtown Waterfront Initiative
- DVP 6057 Doumont Rd.
- Nanaimo Yacht Club Waterfront Walkway Upgrade
- Summary Cash-in-lieu of parkland dedication reports
- New provincial liquor policy changes
- Changes to pricing in licenced establishments
- 2014 Grants advisory committee recommendations PTE requests
- Unresolved building defiiencies
- Island pallet solutions ltd. termination of lease and demolition of improvements
- Request for qualifications for environmental services 1 Port Drive
- Strategic plan implementation progress
- Lantzville water agreement update
- 2014 Reserves
- VIEX and pacific sport grants
- Quarterly direct award purchases
- Quarterly single submission purchases
- South Fork water treatment plant update
- Partnership with BC Hydro, appliance rebate program
- 2014 sport tournament grant requests - final uptake
- Travel assistance grant recommendations
- Request for approval in principle Nanaimo Curling Club Lease
- Delegation regarding the cancellation of the Leadercast event at the VICC
Democracy Is Too Important To Leave To The Politicians
Do Your Civic Duty By Getting Informed and Getting Involved
If you say: " I'm too busy just trying to keep it together to get involved, consider that perhaps, if you were more involved you might not be having so much trouble keeping it together "!
You can view this Council Meeting Agenda here - - - Agenda .
The city just agreed to pay an outside firm nearly $25,000 to review the city website's content and set up a navigation structure. Our IT head gets paid about $150,000 a year and IT staff are paid at least $37.00/hr. and yet they can't properly set up the city website?
The city paid a consulting firm $75,000 for the purpose of reviewing and developing governance-related policy, structures and processes. (In other words to tell the city manager and mayor how to do their jobs). A recommendation that came out of this report was the hiring of Alison Habkirk (an associate of Jerry Berry) at a cost of $8500, again to tell city management and council how to do their jobs.
Council decided to spend $120,000 to install a public toilet at Diana Krall Plaza.
Council decided to spend at least $200,000 on the old theatre on Victoria Rd. when a $20,000 solution would have done, until it is decided what is to be done with the building long term. Two engineers have raised questions about the seismic standard of the building, but staff seem content to ignore the concern.
By deciding to bring downtown parking enforcement 'in-house' which was supposed to save tax dollars, we are now going to lose $140,000 in the first year.
We are paying over $60,000/yr. for downtown parking attendants (meter maids).
We gave a $300,000 tax exemption to the bar operating in the old train station. This exemption was originally thought to apply to the area of the train station used as a train station and not the area operating as a pub.
Council decided to spend $170,000 on an electric Zamboni, when a propane fueled one costs $80,000 and does the same job.
Council decided to spend thousands of dollars to implement a policy of banning the sale of bottled water at civic facilities.
Council decided to add another $700,000 to the $844,000,000 financial plan to pay for a communications person (spin doctor), do you think that is a good use of YOUR tax dollar??
If you can't attend council meetings in person (preferred) you can watch regular council meetings on Shaw cable channel #4. You can also watch the meetings live on the city website using this link.
The regular city council meetings are the only ones broadcast live on either Shaw Cable or streaming video from the city website. The Committee of the Whole meetings, while not broadcast live are recorded and can be viewed on the city website HERE.
Some Council Decisions You Might Want To Think About
The city just agreed to pay an outside firm nearly $25,000 to review the city website's content and set up a navigation structure. Our IT head gets paid about $150,000 a year and IT staff are paid at least $37.00/hr. and yet they can't properly set up the city website?
The city paid a consulting firm $75,000 for the purpose of reviewing and developing governance-related policy, structures and processes. (In other words to tell the city manager and mayor how to do their jobs). A recommendation that came out of this report was the hiring of Alison Habkirk (an associate of Jerry Berry) at a cost of $8500, again to tell city management and council how to do their jobs.
Council decided to spend $120,000 to install a public toilet at Diana Krall Plaza.
Council decided to spend at least $200,000 on the old theatre on Victoria Rd. when a $20,000 solution would have done, until it is decided what is to be done with the building long term. Two engineers have raised questions about the seismic standard of the building, but staff seem content to ignore the concern.
By deciding to bring downtown parking enforcement 'in-house' which was supposed to save tax dollars, we are now going to lose $140,000 in the first year.
We are paying over $60,000/yr. for downtown parking attendants (meter maids).
We gave a $300,000 tax exemption to the bar operating in the old train station. This exemption was originally thought to apply to the area of the train station used as a train station and not the area operating as a pub.
Council decided to spend $170,000 on an electric Zamboni, when a propane fueled one costs $80,000 and does the same job.
Council decided to spend thousands of dollars to implement a policy of banning the sale of bottled water at civic facilities.
Council decided to add another $700,000 to the $844,000,000 financial plan to pay for a communications person (spin doctor), do you think that is a good use of YOUR tax dollar??
Two years ago they decided to spend $16,000,000.00 on a new staff office, an amount equal to YOUR tax increase for 5 years!
It is unbelievable that in this day and age this bigotry and lack of democracy can happen in Canada. The level of bigotry demonstrated by the Nanaimo city council was matched by its level of ignorance. The reasoning sounded more like something we would expect from Nazis or communists. As if this weren’t bad enough guess what the Nanaimo city council did now. The council has authorized hosting a pagan pride Parade. After banning the Christians they are now welcoming the pagans. Who elected these bums?
ReplyDeleteLet’s try something. This should be fun. As weird as the Nanaimo city council is, it has given me some ideas. So to treat everyone equally how about using the same wisdom of the Nanaimo city council, the same innuendo, the same name calling and the same bigotry against the pagans. We can even use some of the same rhetoric. Fair enough? (Where there are parentheses pagan has been inserted where Christian was mentioned at the Nanaimo council meeting.)
It must be remembered that some of these people have an “unbelievably strong (pagan) belief”. It is almost” criminal” what they do. “We will not accept that a criminal organization comes into our community and sets up a blog”. “We will not tolerate their hate speech”. “ It is almost a criminal point of view in this day and age. ” “We are protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to not allow this. These pagans are “divisive”. We cannot allow them to use our city owned facilities for their pagan practices. We cannot allow “expressions of hate”.
Just like a “Christian” event was cancelled the Nanaimo pagan pride parade should also be cancelled. We must treat all groups and religions equally. That is democratic. Here are some reasons. Let’s look at some past activities of pagans. Pagans have boiled people in oil. They ate each other. They have sacrificed humans, even cutting out hearts still beating. They have crucified people. In fact pagans invented crucifixion. Nero, a classic pagan, fed Christians to the lions in the coliseum for entertainment. He used Christians as human torches to light up his garden parties. Pagans cannot be trusted. Apparently there is an airline of some pagan country where the first class passengers eat the second class passengers. Pagans kidnapped two hundred and seventy girls, mostly Christian, in Nigeria. Who knows what these pagans might do. Will they march naked in the parade? Pagans have no moral code and as far as we know they have no prohibition against nudity. We, the council, must protect our citizens and not allow them to tarnish our reputation. Do we want to be “affiliated” with them and all the evil they represent? Should we allow them to use our facilities? Does the city of Nanaimo want to be “associated” with these pagans? . Maybe we could blindfold all the spectators when certain unacceptable floats show up or maybe we could cover up certain body parts of the pagans in order to comply with Nanaimo standards.
(to be continued)
E. sawatzky