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City of Victoria | 2018-2022 | Mayor and council general discussion


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#3581 Stephen James

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Posted 18 November 2019 - 02:09 PM

Alcoholism is more expensive than drug addiction.

So, of course.

But hey... it's been working so well for 45 years as it is.

Why dont they just get better?

They must be weak people, lol.



#3582 rmpeers

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Posted 18 November 2019 - 02:16 PM

no i don't think our politicians have any courage...

My answer for your question would only be this:
If the science and experience suggests that giving addicts free drugs, supervised and tested, eliminates 90% of the ambulance calls, some of the emergency room crowding, a fortune in law enforcement costs related to drugs, the theft and violence, the rehab and long term hospital stays, then hell yes. The Portugal experience is that the cost of the drugs resulted in a multiple of these savings and, counterintuitively, lowered the rate of homelessness and addiction.
If it works, why not?


I'd be way more open to this idea if, a. The free drugs were somehow contingent on a mandatory recovery program, and b. If I knew that none of our mayor, council, or local poverty activists had anything to do with it.

With those caveats, anything's worth a try.
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#3583 rmpeers

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Posted 18 November 2019 - 02:18 PM

According to the City of Victoria's council dashboard, Ben Isitt has been absent at council meetings enough to be a no-show for 67 votes in 2019, the highest rate among his peers.

The second highest is Loveday with 56 missed votes and the third is Dubow with 53*. Those are three of the four councillors who put forward the pay raise motion.

*Alto has 55, but she was injured eakrlier this year and had to take some time off.


So about 1 out of every 10 votes were missed by the very same councillors pushing for 50% pay raise? This information is not softening my position on the proposed raise...
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#3584 Love the rock

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Posted 18 November 2019 - 02:21 PM

Mayor Helps is writing local councils throughout the region seeking their support for petitioning the provincial government to provide clean drugs to drug users, and to fund "inhalation sites," a safe environment in which to smoke drugs (meth, crack cocaine, etc.) similar to safe injection sites.
 
From Helps' letter:

Can I petition the provincial government to step in and teach Helps and the help knots to stay in their own lane .
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#3585 AllseeingEye

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Posted 18 November 2019 - 07:20 PM

It's all this rubbish which is precisely why I'm looking outside of Victoria for my next home.  If only the region wasn't such a fractured disaster from a planning and transportation perspective.

As we look closer to retirement - within 5 years roughly - and what a post-work life looks like, I am considering buying 2 possibly 3 properties, and I can tell you even this far out that not one of them will be within 50 clicks of this hot mess.......



#3586 LJ

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Posted 18 November 2019 - 07:32 PM

no i don't think our politicians have any courage... 

 

My answer for your question would only be this:

If the science and experience suggests that giving addicts free drugs, supervised and tested, eliminates 90% of the ambulance calls, some of the emergency room crowding, a fortune in law enforcement costs related to drugs, the theft and violence, the rehab and long term hospital stays, then hell yes.  The Portugal experience is that the cost of the drugs resulted in a multiple of these savings and, counterintuitively, lowered the rate of homelessness and addiction.

If it works, why not?

Just like we were going to save $60k for every homeless person we housed you mean?


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#3587 Love the rock

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Posted 18 November 2019 - 09:14 PM

Just like we were going to save $60k for every homeless person we housed you mean?

The reason being is that the citizens and that government on every level possible do not take or can not take the hard line that Portugal has with addicts.You can not enable addiction and give free drugs at the same time.
The addiction wins .

Edited by Love the rock, 18 November 2019 - 09:37 PM.

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#3588 Matt R.

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Posted 18 November 2019 - 11:21 PM

It's all this rubbish which is precisely why I'm looking outside of Victoria for my next home.  If only the region wasn't such a fractured disaster from a planning and transportation perspective.


Easy to whip into town from Parkside Place in beautiful Saanich on the TCH, or take Burnside during rush hour! Uptown is nice and close, Mayfair, heck even Costco and Langford is only a quick 12-15 mins outside of rush hour! The #50 stops just a few moments away! I see a couple nice 3 bedroom townhouses, could probably snag one for $400k!

Matt.

#3589 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 19 November 2019 - 06:11 AM

ouch!

 

 

 

 

Farnworth said Monday that his director of police services is looking at the board’s latest request and there will be a response in due course.

 

He said there is an agreement that when they can’t resolve a dispute, “it goes to director of police services and then to me.”

 

“It’s unfortunate it has to go to this,” he said. “We’d prefer that it be decided among the parties.

 

“I know that one of the parties seems to want to spend more time debating 50% pay increases, and perhaps if they spent more time with the police, we wouldn’t quite find ourselves in these issues all the time.”

 

Victoria council is currently conducting an online budget survey that asks respondents whether they would support increasing councillors’ salaries by more than 50%, to $70,100 annually.

 

 

https://www.timescol...pute-1.24012041


Edited by Victoria Watcher, 19 November 2019 - 06:12 AM.

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#3590 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 19 November 2019 - 06:52 AM

grumpy taxpayers say council should take a 5% pay cut.




To bring salaries in line with the median total individual income of their employers and citizens they serve, the taxpayers of Victoria, council would have to take a five per cent pay cut.

Councillors are currently paid a base salary of $45,384, compared to the median total income of $40,500 in the Census Metropolitan Area of Victoria in 2017 (Stats Canada). Even when allowing for inflation of about five per cent the last couple of years, council salaries still exceed the average resident.
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#3591 spanky123

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Posted 19 November 2019 - 08:41 AM

ouch!

 

 

 

 

Farnworth said Monday that his director of police services is looking at the board’s latest request and there will be a response in due course.

 

He said there is an agreement that when they can’t resolve a dispute, “it goes to director of police services and then to me.”

 

“It’s unfortunate it has to go to this,” he said. “We’d prefer that it be decided among the parties.

 

“I know that one of the parties seems to want to spend more time debating 50% pay increases, and perhaps if they spent more time with the police, we wouldn’t quite find ourselves in these issues all the time.”

 

Victoria council is currently conducting an online budget survey that asks respondents whether they would support increasing councillors’ salaries by more than 50%, to $70,100 annually.

 

 

https://www.timescol...pute-1.24012041

 

Mayor Helps told us that we would save $60K a year per person if we housed the homeless. We spent tens of millions of dollars doing that and costs have skyrocketed. The police need more money, Pacifica can't operate their buildings cost effectively and the medical system is broken. No wonder voters and council are reluctant to keep handing out more and more money with no accountability. 


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#3592 Mike K.

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Posted 19 November 2019 - 08:43 AM

Councillor T-J said on CFAX the other day that the City is overspending.

 

How far we've come from circa 2005, when the biggest concern was whether councillor Madoff would like the colour of the awnings.


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#3593 Nparker

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Posted 19 November 2019 - 08:51 AM

Councillor T-J said on CFAX the other day that the City is overspending...

So we should reward council for their fiscal mismanagement with a 50% raise.  :whyme:


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#3594 rmpeers

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Posted 19 November 2019 - 09:19 AM

ouch!




Farnworth said Monday that his director of police services is looking at the board’s latest request and there will be a response in due course.


He said there is an agreement that when they can’t resolve a dispute, “it goes to director of police services and then to me.”


“It’s unfortunate it has to go to this,” he said. “We’d prefer that it be decided among the parties.


“I know that one of the parties seems to want to spend more time debating 50% pay increases, and perhaps if they spent more time with the police, we wouldn’t quite find ourselves in these issues all the time.”


Victoria council is currently conducting an online budget survey that asks respondents whether they would support increasing councillors’ salaries by more than 50%, to $70,100 annually.



https://www.timescol...pute-1.24012041


Always fun to see a grown-up politician step in and call them out.

Aside from Ben, his cronies and a handful of Uvic staff "activists", the majority of people don't glamourize crime. Most of us, I sense, would like an adequate police force to help mitigate the increasingly unsettling sideshow that Ben and others have helped to stage downtown.
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#3595 Rob Randall

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Posted 19 November 2019 - 09:20 AM

For the record, CTJ disapproves of the massive raise and would vote no if it came up.


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#3596 sebberry

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Posted 19 November 2019 - 01:25 PM

Easy to whip into town from Parkside Place in beautiful Saanich on the TCH, or take Burnside during rush hour! Uptown is nice and close, Mayfair, heck even Costco and Langford is only a quick 12-15 mins outside of rush hour! The #50 stops just a few moments away! I see a couple nice 3 bedroom townhouses, could probably snag one for $400k!

Matt.

 

Nope :)


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#3597 Stephen James

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Posted 19 November 2019 - 02:21 PM

I'd be way more open to this idea if, a. The free drugs were somehow contingent on a mandatory recovery program, and b. If I knew that none of our mayor, council, or local poverty activists had anything to do with it.

With those caveats, anything's worth a try.

RM, I think we have some common ground, lol.  I wouldn't hire this city to take down a tent, or any activists that are spewing their dogma... all goes into the BS pile.

I like the idea of treatment very much, because it works.  My concern with the "mandatory" part is this... you can get people to do what you want them to do more easily by ATTRACTING them to something, rather than forcing or promoting.  (Any parent of children has learned this lesson, lol.)  We could try the forcing first, but I suspect the results are better if we make it hard to get into treatment.  This requires a long explanation but "behaviour change" is where my professional life has been for some time.


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#3598 Stephen James

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Posted 19 November 2019 - 02:26 PM

The reason being is that the citizens and that government on every level possible do not take or can not take the hard line that Portugal has with addicts.You can not enable addiction and give free drugs at the same time.
The addiction wins .

I think "enable addiction" means missing some of how it happens.  No amount of enabling or not makes a difference and working with addicts makes this clear.  They are addicted which, by definition, means the choice is gone:  to an addict, no matter how hard it is to understand, getting the "fix" is as important as life itself and we know this, goodness.  Logic and reason are not helpful.

This is a fact that needs to be faced and accepted before any progress is possible. 


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#3599 rmpeers

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Posted 19 November 2019 - 02:43 PM

RM, I think we have some common ground, lol. I wouldn't hire this city to take down a tent, or any activists that are spewing their dogma... all goes into the BS pile.
I like the idea of treatment very much, because it works. My concern with the "mandatory" part is this... you can get people to do what you want them to do more easily by ATTRACTING them to something, rather than forcing or promoting. (Any parent of children has learned this lesson, lol.) We could try the forcing first, but I suspect the results are better if we make it hard to get into treatment. This requires a long explanation but "behaviour change" is where my professional life has been for some time.


I am inclined to agree, but am not sure how you get the right balance. You do a half hour of counselling before you get your free fix? I literally have no idea how you motivate people out of that lifestyle, but suspect that free-drugs-no-strings-attached on its own might not help much.
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#3600 Love the rock

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Posted 19 November 2019 - 08:20 PM

[quote name="Taco" post="514927" timestamp="1574202411"]I think "enable addiction" means missing some of how it happens.  No amount of enabling or not makes a difference and working with addicts makes this clear.  They are addicted which, by definition, means the choice is gone:  to an addict, no matter how hard it is to understand, getting the "fix" is as important as life itself and we know this, goodness.  Logic and reason are not helpful.
This is a fact that needs to be faced and accepted before any progress is possible.
[/quote
I agree logic and reason mean little to an person who’s addicted to drugs .
It is not the least bit hard for me to understand the fix is as important as life its self.
My stance is by enabling we constantly lower the bar allowing people with addiction to never hit rock bottom .This is a poor decision in my opinion.I also don’t believe that a simplified definition of all addictions means all choice is necessarily gone . I understand a little of brain function, how opioids effect parts of the basal ganglia, extended amygdala and the prefrontal cortex .Free drugs are already given to addicts though hospitals and methadone programs . Methadone programs have also been in place for over 25 years .I don’t know the magic answer. I’m hoping we do not expand our present free drug program without a slow proven WORKING four pillars
approach . Victoria has shown an asinine attitude in that we should expand our free drugs programs all the while cutting law enforcement .
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