Tag: Common Council
Preventing Service Cuts, not a priority!
This seems to be a big promise by a lot of candidates this election. Let’s face the facts in the past 10 years this city’s spending has ballooned from about 90 million to 135 million. It is time to reconsider what services that city should offer. To have a reasonable tax rate this city needs to reduce its spending very drastically. In most accounts, the number that results in a reasonable tax rate is about $105 million dollars. Our fire service is one of the most costly in the country. Our transit services have increased in municipal funding from $250,000 to over $5 million dollars in the past 10 years. In addition, the biggest sources of revenue (the parking commission) and the biggest expenses (major facilities, pension fund, solid waste) are not under the city’s complete control and are hidden behind provincial legislation. These bodies are also not required to be either open or accountable to the public. Several years ago the spring garbage collection was removed for costing half a million dollars in one week, but was it really required? A truly responsible new council should take the necessary measures to remove Saint John from the ranks of the…
Council’s Last Chance at Transit
It is now 7pm in the council chambers and the councillors are now arriving. As council begins there is 44 people here. The meeting has now begun the councillor are doing their opening thanks to different community groups. Joe Mott is absent tonight. Most of the routine business is quite boring and routine. The first item is 12.1 on the demolition of a dilapidated building on city road no one will miss. Next is a review of the Taxi by-law review and a full presentation with slides. Council has after an hour approved starting the process of drafting the new Taxi By-Law something that has been talked about for close to 15 years now. Now they are discussing changes to the procurement policies. Now it is time for transit (11.2). Councillor Higgins has moved to reassess the decision to cuts. Now the motion is a refer to budget deliberations. Councillor Farren sounds hesitant as long as it does not increase taxes. Deputy Mayor Chase does not seem to really support this. He is even denying that Higgins did know that the facts that she is denying and is stern on holding the budget. Councillor Norton is proposing a public review…
A Memorable Mass Transit Story
Remember that one time on the bus, when…? Share your mass transit stories. One of my best memories on the bus was on an East bus headed to the mall on March 25th, 2004. I happened to run into my friend Tony, we were both heading to the mall. At this point I had my first batch of 25 names on the nomination papers. This was where Tony signed as the witness. As soon as I got to the mall I instantly went to head back to the north end to file the papers. The first time 8 of my names were rejected as the people who signed were not actually registered to vote. Then the second time 45 minutes later I was 2 names short. Then 25 minutes later, I was officially on the ballot. When it finally got approved, the first thing I did was to run to every media outlet that I could find and dropped off my Press Release. Running for Mayor was one of the most interesting times of my life, and all the people and aspects of the community that you get exposed to is unreal. Then six and a half weeks, and 448…
Does council not care about protocol
This week I went to the council to see the debate and decision on Peel Plaza/North of Union project. That particular topic is so revolting in so many ways that it needs not mention here. But what is even more inexcusable is the state of the decorations in the Council chamber. I have attached a photo that demonstrates the three worst violations. 1. The Queen’s Photo This item really bugged me most of the night it is not noticeable on TV or the web feed but the photos are crooked. In the chamber, it was the Philip photo that looked wrong but upon review in PhotoShop , it is actually the Queen’s photo that is eleven degrees clockwise crooked. 2. The New Brunswick Flag This one is not as noticeable as the others but the flag is a good decimeter down the shaft from the top making it lower than the other flags. 3. The Acadian Banner/Flag In this case , you don’t even see it because it has no base and is leaning against the Canadian flag. Bonus: Flag Order The flags are positioned incorrectly. They are positioned left to right: Union Jack, New Brunswick, Canada, Acadian. By official…
Okay, a second look at the election.
So now that I have looked into the election a little harder, I am changing some of the options. Mayor:Mike Richardson- I’m not quite sure what it is but Mike seems to have a well thought out plan, no dirt and the just has a personality that one would pay attention to as mayor. Councillor At Large: Danny Jardine- I remember Danny from the last election he was one of those people that are deeply rooted in the social aspects of the community, like Donny Snook, that understands the poverty aspect of the city but is that enough, I’m adding this name to my shortlist because the list of candidates that I get to choose from is so pathetic, I think ward 4 might just have the worst turnout than any other part of this city. Mark LeBlanc- A maybe Rick Mantle- I think this one could make the council a little interesting. Chris Titus- This one is a definite vote, many of my favourite memories of council involve this fellow, especially back in the Shirley days. I like that Chris is involved in the community not afraid to express new ideas, and knows the when a horse is being…
RTV Council
At the beginning of the 2004-2005 season, I had redesigned the Common Council coverage graphics. These were replaced in January of 2005 with the current standardized graphics. Here are the graphics used in the Fall of 2004. The images above may not be reproduced on any site other than cefm.ca.
I’m against wards for Saint John
After hearing that Common Council is going to let us vote for or against wards I thought I would point out my views. The problem with wards is that you force people to elect people based on where they live as opposed to whether or not the person is any good for the job. In addition there is no course in the system to correct this error. Although it does allow for people to run and get elected that do not have broad support, but it also hinders the election of people that might be good people. And in some cases if there is no good people running in a riding the people in that riding would have to “make do” with one of those. We see it all the time in Provincial and Federal governments some ridings end up with weak people all the time that end up being backbenchers and you never hear from them till next time there is an election. Using Miramichi as an example here are the results from May 2004. MIRAMICHI (source gnb.ca) CANDIDATE CANDIDAT(E) SEX SEXE VOTES RECEIVED VOTES OBTENUS ELECTED ÉLU(E)S INCUMBENT SORTANT Mayor / Maire Gerry Cormier M 2558   John McKay M…
After the election
Many people have asked me what was it like to run for Mayor of Saint John. The answer was that it was a time of a life time. I was privileged to meet everyone that I did meet. I now have a greater respect for Saint John and the issues about it. I thought that I knew a lot about Saint John from reading the news, and watching council, and working in the community. There are others that thought I would have been better off running for council, but with the total number of people running, and the fact was there where much better people who were running for council with the knowledge and ability to do this city well. To be quite honest the councillors that were elected were some of the best of the crop. Out of the 50 there was actually only about 17 that I thought were the best suited for the job and 9 of them were elected. Now back to the Mayor’s seat. Running for mayor provided me with the best exposure. I was mentioned on the Newspapers, Radio, and appeared on TV. Also, I had many people who would stop and talk to…
Making a TV Show
Note: This article was originally written for Journalism 2023 Journalistic Writing in November 2002. The 50th Annual Saint John Santa Claus Parade comes around for another year. This was a difficult production for producer Don Ferguson to organize volunteers. In addition, the float list was only available late on Friday afternoon. Three hours before the parade was to begin, we headed down the hill to set up the equipment. On arrival, we realized the taped introduction had the old TVNB logo and Parade 2001 on it. It was determined that we could just cover it up with graphics, but at about the time the parade was about to start to come down the hill the tape got jammed in the machine and I had about 2 minutes to come up with an alternative. Then the parade went really well until the floats stopped coming down the hill in order of the list and then it was a scramble of; What float is it, type it in, bring it up and take it down and repeat for about forty or so floats. After a hard day of work, after the family dinner, many families sit down to feed their brains with…