Kevin Crush

Not that long ago one of the incumbent alderman quipped to me that if the public was really that concerned about the present council then why weren’t more running for office? The answer was given over the past week with a slew of new candidates for alderman. With the five incumbents, there are now 13 people vying for the eight positions open and the list could be one of the strongest fields of candidates seen. There are at least three of the challengers I believe are locks for council while there are only two of the incumbents that I would bet on seeing again after Oct. 15 (meaning I predict three are on the bubble). I have a feeeling a few of the incumbents are feeling a bit more worried right now.

I love the irony behind the title. Maybe one day I’ll write a book based on it. That’s the future, right now I’ll just bitch.

A nuclear power plant near Grimshaw? While I have visions of Homer Simpson, or at least some redneck, at the controls, I’ll actually complain about something tangible. I don’t actually mind nuclear power that much - that is if we had a way of disposing of the waste properly. Too bad we don’t yet. We also don’t have a clean or safe way of mining uranium. The only safe part about nuclear power is the actual generation itself - assuming no one is asleep at the wheel and causes a radiation leak. Yup, gotta love nuclear power. (My favourite quote from yesterday was from one of the city aldermen who quipped that the power plant may not increase the population of Grimshaw but it will increase the head count. Chortle softly to yourself.) So once someone gets nuclear power all cleaned up and looking spiffy I might actually like it, but right now I feel like a girl wearing a potato sack is trying to ask me out - maybe she’ll be hot after a makeover but right now I’m walking away.

Mayor Wayne Ayling is right. There are too many unanswered questions right now. Will using the neighbouring shallow lake for cooling be enough? Why is an unproven reactor technology being built here? Why did the federal government recommend against nuclear power in Fort McMurray because of potential risks but it is seemingly OK here? How close to the provincial government is Energy Alberta?

Sort out the questions and figure out a way to make all aspects of nuclear energy safe. Maybe then we can have a nuclear Peace.

Putting a plug in here for an old friend of mine. Tania Spilchen and I go way back to Salisbury Comp (Go Sabres! Woo!) but since we graduated she went on to start a non-profit organization called One! International. It was formed as a way to help the street kids of Mumbai, India, to get at least some form of a basic education. She’s doing a fantastic job over there and everyone should check out her website www.one-international.com. Give it a read over. If you like what you see, help out. You never know, one of those kids might change the world one day.

Time for me to offer my independent thoughts on Grande Prairie aldermen about to give themselves a 31 per cent pay raise. What the hell are they thinking? Less than two months before an election, do any of them want to be re-elected? They must because except for the two that have announced they won’t run, I have it on good authority the rest are running even if they haven’t declared yet. Now I’m not against paying civic politicians a good salary. They have to put up with a lot and you have to respect that, but they also have to realize that in GP at least it’s just a part-time job not something to live off of. If they had left the raise at a 17 per cent hike to $25,000 a year, I would have said fine. No problems here. Even the mayor’s salary going to $75,000 a year, fine. That’s full-time and he’s in charge of a city, fine. My problem is with this idea to give every alderman an extra $3,000 a year because they’ll be in a scheduled rotation for six weeks as deputy mayor - bringing their annual base salary to $28,000 and a 31 per cent raise. (The mayor suggests my math is wrong, but $21,300 to $28,000 - you do the math.)

What I don’t get is how being deputy mayor is worth $3,000. Its six weeks of if the mayor is away you’re called on to cut a ribbon. Seriously. The job usually doesn’t get much tougher than that. Just about the only real responsibility they would have is on the off-chance a declaration of emergency had to be announced, they would be the ones ultimately making that call - but how often does that happen? And the amazing thing is deputy mayors can take vacations during their six week stints! On several occasions I’ve called the city for official comment and the mayor happened to be away so I sought out the deputy mayor and lo and behold they’re not even in town. What the hell is the use of having a deputy mayor, no less paying them extra, if they’re not even there to do the job?

Now let’s add in something else: in Alberta, civic politicians get one-third of their salary as a tax-free allowance. Thats kind of like increasing their salary (based on $28,000) by an extra $9,333 every year, giving them a salary more equivalent to $37,000 if it was you or me. And we still haven’t even got to the benefits and allowances yet. Basically, at the end of the day if these guys are being paid part-time, its a pretty damn good pay for a part-time job.

Yeah yeah. I call this The Daily View but I can go long periods between actually updating this thing. So yeah, I’m horrible.

In numbers to be released later this afternoon, the city’s municipal census done earlier this spring shows Grande Prairie has finally surpassed the 50,000 people mark. Specifically, the new official population is 50,226. That was a 6.69 per cent increase over the 47,076 population that Statistics Canada recorded just a year earlier. What’s amazing about that growth figure is that this past year was supposedly a downturn in the economy because of a slowdown in the oil and natural gas fields. That slowdown is apparently not evident in the city’s continued boom and growth rate.

Now on one side, 50,000 is just a symbolic threshold. Yes, the city will receive more per capita tax dollars from the provincial and federal governments, but we would have received that even if the population had been 49,999. In many ways, its bragging rights. GP is playing in a new league now. Where the number really has an effect is in the Intermunicipal Development Plan the city agreed to with the county years ago. At the time, the growth rate was much slower so the city agreed it would not go after any major non-consensual annexations until the population hit 50,000 - something the county trumpeted when the city mused about a major annexation back in 2005. Now that mark has been hit and it will be interesting to see what the city does now, especially when its growth study is expected out soon and with election candidates bringing up city/county relations as a major issue.

On the federal front, I was glad to see Peace River MP Chris Warkentin step in to help a woman get her passport so she can go off on her 25th wedding anniversary trip. The passports, which had been applied for in May with what should have been enough time to get them processed and mailed, are now apparently in the mail because of Warkentin’s intervention. A couple of questions, though: why do we have a passport system that requires MP interventions to get them processed? and, why are MPs allowed to circumvent the normal rules? The first question just means Canada is filled with bureaucratic red tape (gee, who would have guessed?). The second might be more important. If MPs, who are just representatives of the public, are allowed to break the rules and get things speeded up for certain people, does it not represent some people in our society are more privileged? Are our systems running unchecked and anyone can override them? What happens if a MP uses this power for more selfish reasons? They’re important questions to keep in mind, but like I say, it was nice to see Chris step up in this particular case.

I was glad to see a couple of new initiatives brought forward to the city’s public works committee today on affordable housing. One has the municipality agreeing to waive common building fees and securities developers would normally have to pay, while the other allows developers to build up to 20 per cent beyond the maximum density limit if they guarantee 10 per cent of the units will be dedicated for affordable housing. Both initiatives allowed developers to make a little more money than they normally might have if they wanted to build affordable housing. There are still some unanswered questions, but kudos to the city for putting forward this proposal. However, the city is also losing the planner who proposed it, Andrew Merrill, who is going to UBC for a two-year Masters in planning. That’s too bad for the city because he actually had some pretty good ideas.

Well unfortunately my nice little Internet hook-up decided to crap out over the past few days, and during a week when I could have used it. Especially seeing as my phone is VoIP, so my modem being out means no home phone. My cell phone bill is about to shoot through the roof because of it. But now I’m back posting and not a moment too soon.
Lets talk pools. Its still summer and its sunny today so I figure its appropriate. Two years ago a group which was to later call themselves the Peace Country Wellness Facility Society came forward to propose their alternative multiplex to Grande Prairie’s own vision for a multiplex. Now, they had some good points and while the city won’t admit it their plans led the city to revising its own proposal, particularly in respect to getting rid of the proposed theatre to allow for more gym space, creating an indoor running track, and focusing on constructing a multitude of rentable gymnasiums rather than a single gym floor with bowl seating that would likely only be used for major events. Good for the society, but again the city won’t admit how they really did influence what has happened with the multiplex planning to date. Where the society was foolish was they wanted the city to abandon their plans all together and just give the society money to build their own vision. That would have ended with the city giving money to a private group to build a multiplex without any expectation of the money ever being returned. It was a stupid idea, especially as the city had changed its plans to more closely mirror what the society had wanted. It was made worse as some of the society members are not the most humble people in town and it often felt like they wanted to bully the city into accepting their vision. The city didn’t buy it but it left bitter feelings.
Things started to change when the city’s architect began circulating more detailed designs for the aquatics centre and potential fieldhouses. It won converts with the society, which has since had a change at the top and are far more approachable and friendly than before. Talk to them today and while they still like their vision, they want to work with the city even on the city’s plan to get the best possible multiplex for the region. They have ideas to save money and they make strong points that has shown the city’s ineptitude in not having a feasibility study prepared for the current multiplex proposal.
Back in July, knowing the city was being caught flat-footed by the society, just hours before the society was to make a presentation to city council asking for a feasibility study, an actual business plan, and the creation of a management model, the city rather suddenly asked for a business plan to be created. Clearly, it was a move to head off criticism from the society because sure enough at that day’s city council meeting the mayor and some aldermen crowed about the fact they were asking for a business plan. Aldermen also trotted out past feasibility studies. The society was dumbfounded and looked it. But they took the information and studied it.
Fast forward to the council meeting on August 13 and the society made council look like idiots. It was amusing to watch aldermen squirm as they were told how over the years they had screwed up. Those feasibility studies council had brought out were completely irrelevant and had nothing to do with the current multiplex proposal - they were just studies of the overall Community Knowledge Campus concept, comparisons to other facilities, and studies on the need for more facilities. To top it off, all the studies were completely outdated. Then they were able to point out the business plan for the multiplex only includes the aquatics centre, leaving out the fieldhouses even as a possible concept in the business plan. This despite the fact, which even the city’s architect admits, that the fieldhouses are where all the revenue generators are. The pool will just drown in money without the dryland gymnasium space and leasable office/commercial areas of the fieldhouses. What’s more, the society even used their own private money to start creating their own feasibility study on the city’s multiplex, just because its needed to see what can be afforded. Then they also browbeat council on the fact they haven’t approached the towns and villages in the area, nor the health board nor the college, for partnerships. What an incredible regional facility this will be without bothering to ask the region if this is what they want.
Clearly, the society has come a long ways and now has ideas to add and a willingness to work with the city on their project. With good fortune, most of council realized this change in the society and voted to have administration work with them on getting their feasibility study done. Unfortunately, Mayor Wayne Ayling and Ald. Bill Given apparently don’t believe in cooperation and voted against working with them. That’s a shame because it shows an arrogance that unless you’re fully submitting to the city’s ideas then you should be cut out from the discussions.
Hopefully, the city and the society will find common ground and begin to work together to get the multiplex built.
I’ll say this: I want to see the entire multiplex (aquatics centre anf three fieldhouses) built as soon as possible. This region needs that type of facility considering its relative isolation to other major centres. I also want to see it at the CKC site not because its the best location but because the committment has already been made to that location. If this doesn’t get built there, this city will have a lot of explaining to do on why millions were sunk into twin ice arenas, a high school, and sports fields, and a private group’s millions into the gymnastics centre, and then the city just walks away from it. Who knows, maybe someone will listen to me.

Bit of sad news from Somalia. Amongst all the violence in that country, a Somali-Canadian journalist, Ali Iman Sharmarke, owner of the HornAfric Media Company, was killed Saturday by a remote-controlled landmine as he returned from the funeral of radio broadcaster Mahad Ahmed Elmi’s funeral. Elmi had been shot early Saturday as he headed to work at the independent radio station, owned by former Ottawa resident Sharmarke. Both were believed to have been targetted for the station’s broadcasts which frequently criticize both the government and Islamic militants. It only underlines the danger many journalists face in order to support the freedoms and rights which should be the rights of all.