11779 replies to this topic

[tanker]

I am OK with multiple candidates, but there needs to be some sort of preferential ballot used and no one can be declared the winner until they have achieved 50% +1 of the votes cast.

With only one choice there's guaranteed to be a 100% plurality.

[Nparker]

It seems the CoV can enforce some bylaws

The owners of the local Uomo Modern Barber are questioning the motives of the City of Victoria after receiving a visit from a bylaw officer about the shop’s sandwich board...After 20 years in business, bylaw officers told the Uomo Barber Shop they need to register for a $35 permit to legally keep their sandwich board, which normally sits at the corner of Cook Street and Sutlej Street...

https://www.cheknews...h-board-685767/

And the city's reasoning:

...“The city is taking deliberate steps to become a more inclusive community. Improperly placed sandwich boards can present barriers for people with mobility issues, such as those in wheelchairs or the visually impaired,” the  City of Victoria told CHEK News in a statement...

 

https://www.cheknews...h-board-685767/

Explain the policy of inclusivity to those with mobility issues who can no longer drive through Beacon Hill Park or the "floating" bus stops where the visually impaired must cross bike lanes to get to the sidewalk.

And don't tell me bylaw enforcement is complaint driven. More than 20,000 people have complained about overnight camping in BHP and the city has done nothing to enforce that bylaw.

[Awaiting Juno]

There's movement underway to organize a response to the camping in Beacon Hill Park - those wanting to partake in a variety of actions to restore the park to appropriate use, are encouraged to email savebeaconhillpark@gmail.com to be added to their email communications. As those here (and Ben Isitt) know, a good email list is a powerful thing.

[tanker]

There's plenty of ways to make camping in that park uncomfortable given enough people. A good crowd with bullhorns taking shifts for a few evenings would do it.

Edited by tanker, 24 July 2020 - 09:35 AM.

[kxl]

^ without disturbing the nesting herons?

[Victoria Watcher]

There's movement underway to organize a response to the camping in Beacon Hill Park - those wanting to partake in a variety of actions to restore the park to appropriate use, are encouraged to email savebeaconhillpark@gmail.com to be added to their email communications. As those here (and Ben Isitt) know, a good email list is a powerful thing.

short of a significant or ongoing weekly protests at city hall or in the park at at hekps’ house it’s not going to work.

[tanker]

So the friends of beacon Hill park managed to shutdown popular events like luminara but can do nothing about these camps? Are they allies with helps on this or what?

[grantpalin]

The Friends of BHP were brutal against Luminara. I'm surprised they haven't been as vocal about the campers, at least not that I'm aware of.

[aastra]

 

...is deflecting calls to address the demands of a local petition with 20,000 signatures in a community home to 85,000 people.

 

Only 20,000 signatures in a megalopolis the size of big Vic? That's peanuts. Chump change. Wake me when it's well past 200,000.

 

Now if you'll excuse me I need to go protest against a 5-story development proposal, because such a towering & hyper-dense mega-project would utterly overwhelm little old Victoria.

 

(Victoria is a big city one moment and a tiny town the next, because politics. Otherwise we would need to consider every issue sincerely, honestly, & with consistency.)

[aastra]

Back in 2008 some insightful SOB on the interwebs made the following observation:

 

 

Even though I'm pretty much convinced that the Friends of Beacon Hill Park are misinterpreting the park trust, I have to give them credit for keeping the "appropriate use" issue alive. But I also have to criticize them for raising the alarm on numerous occasions when it just wasn't warranted. If you cry wolf often enough, people will eventually stop listening to you.

 

Suffice it to say, if we're willing to dance with the snake against the community's interests today, then we should never be surprised when the snake comes back to bite us tomorrow. That's what snakes do. They coil around you and promise to bite your neighbour, and then they go coil around your neighbour and promise to bite you. We have no excuse, it happens every single time, without fail, by design. Didn't somebody somewhere once make an insightful philosophical observation about reaping what you sow? Anyway...

 

 

And don't tell me bylaw enforcement is complaint driven.

 

We've exposed this many times re: many different issues. Heck, we've been over it multiple times just for the various tenting episodes. Sometimes it seems like enforcement is guided by inversion of the number & nature of complaints. If a single grump is having a bad day then the hammer comes down without delay. If hundreds of people identify numerous specific & obvious violations (with photographs, videos, etc.) then no need to rush in. Better to allow the situation to marinate for a while and develop some deep flavour.

 

Anyway, there's an easy way to prove whether or not the entire process is rotten. Just go down to BHP and litter or vandalize flagrantly and see what happens to you. Set up a swap-n-shop for bike parts, etc.

[Stephen Andrew]

I am hosting a solutions-based town hall on camping in parks this Sunday at 4pm.

A lot of smart voices here. Please consider joining g me - whether it’s 1 or 100 - I want to hear ideas and try to advance them.

Here’s the registration link https://www.eventbri...6866?aff=efbneb

Edited by Stephen Andrew, 24 July 2020 - 02:33 PM.

[rmpeers]

There's movement underway to organize a response to the camping in Beacon Hill Park - those wanting to partake in a variety of actions to restore the park to appropriate use, are encouraged to email savebeaconhillpark@gmail.com to be added to their email communications. As those here (and Ben Isitt) know, a good email list is a powerful thing.

My worry is that even if that were resolved, mayor and council will just move on to the next action item in their Strategic Plan to Systematically Destroy the City of Victoria.

Let's see... turn Empress into luxury supportive housing, each room comes with its own complimentary assault weapon. And goodbye Miniature World, hello chop shop... and that lawn bowling club would work much better as an open-air safe injection site... okay, ruin Vancouver and Richardson, already underway...

[On the Level]

There's plenty of ways to make camping in that park uncomfortable given enough people. A good crowd with bullhorns taking shifts for a few evenings would do it.

 

 

The Friends of BHP were brutal against Luminara. I'm surprised they haven't been as vocal about the campers, at least not that I'm aware of.

 

 

People running around with bullhorns is exactly what Help / Issit need in discrediting families as fanatics targeting the homeless during covid. The FOBHP hopefully know this.

 

We have a chop shops, military assault weapons, etc introduced by the "homeless....housing first" political agenda under the Lisa Helps/Issit flag. 

 

Let them run their course without giving them cover.

[North Shore]

The Friends of BHP were brutal against Luminara. I'm surprised they haven't been as vocal about the campers, at least not that I'm aware of.

 

Didn't FoBHP die of old age since Luminara?

[Awaiting Juno]

Didn't FoBHP die of old age since Luminara?

 

The thing about organizations is, unlike humans, they've got the ability to have immortality provided they plan for succession.  The Bay Company - how many hundreds of years old?  So I wouldn't say that FOBHP are dead, just resting perhaps.

[tanker]

People running around with bullhorns is exactly what Help / Issit need in discrediting families as fanatics targeting the homeless during covid. The FOBHP hopefully know this.

We have a chop shops, military assault weapons, etc introduced by the "homeless....housing first" political agenda under the Lisa Helps/Issit flag.

Let them run their course without giving them cover.

Ah yes the old let them win so they'll lose political strategy that's worked exactly zero times ever.

[Awaiting Juno]

Pretty sure there'd be no bullhorns involved.  Probably some very polite signs.  Some walking in public spaces, in a socially distanced way - maybe picking up some trash while they're at it.  The law abiding don't yell and demand, they ask, politely.  They make their case, sign their petitions and write their letters and ultimately they vote.  So either helps can clean the wax out of her ears and listen, really listen - to what those who live here have to say or she can stick her head in the long grasses of Garry Oak Meadows of Beacon Hill Park listening only to the advocates who mean well but are unable to think critically about the impacts of the proposals.  She can continue to declare that all is fine and that only good stories should be told as people begin to tap out of this city uprooting their businesses and their homes for the West Shore, Saanich, Esquimalt and Oak Bay.  Then, we'll all remember how "just a little too perfect", Victoria once was and we'll long for those days when a person would only be pestered by 5 or 6 people begging in doorways between Fort Street and Pandora and might catch the occasional whiff of pot.  Best case scenario - enough people remain and care enough to vote differently in 2022.

[Mike K.]

Wow, AJ. So very well said.

[Stephen Andrew]

Wow, AJ. So very well said.

That !

[Stephen James]

I think ignoring the will of the electorate is commendable. Democracy is a failed experiment and needs to be irradicated and replaced with an anarchist system with a strong anarchist leader.

i enjoy the contradiction very much - keep it up!