25967 replies to this topic

[lanforod]

and

 

 

Does not all of this ring very hollow to anyone who has a functioning memory? Observers from outside Victoria were exhorting the city to change course ASAP even during the 1990s.

And yet in the year 2024 we're being warned by astute commentators about the dangers of complacency? In the year 2024 we're reminiscing about the good ol' days back in 2008, even though back in 2008 those very same form letters to the editor re: "I left town because everything is terrible now even though everything was wonderful when I first arrived" were already a long-established element of the ongoing drama?

 

Politics and short memories fit like hand in glove.

 

It's because the slippery slope has practically become a sheer cliff.

[Victoria Watcher]

Days after his release from a provincial jail for threatening to kill Canada's deputy prime minister, a Vancouver man with a history of mental illness is behind bars again — accused of stabbing a stranger in the heart of the city.

 

Vancouver's mayor joined Vancouver police Chief Adam Palmer Thursday afternoon to announce charges of assault against Kent Douglas Meades, a 46-year-old who was on probation at the time of the attack.

 

Palmer said the 61-year-old victim of the stabbing was released from hospital after being seriously injured, but "the emotional trauma will likely remain for a long time."

"The victim and the suspect in this case are total strangers to each other," Palmer said.

 

"I want to acknowledge the concern and fear that some people may have ... What we're learning is concerning."

 

 

 

https://www.cbc.ca/n...g-b-c-1.7151420

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 21 March 2024 - 08:16 PM.

[Mike P.]

Just like our very own "random" stabber, (the one who pulled the alarm at the downtown daycare before stabbing a cyclist in front of VicPD headquarters)... he is a convicted murderer. What was he doing on the streets months after taking someone else's life?

[Nparker]

[Victoria Watcher]

An advocacy group and others are making a final plea to the City of Vancouver to hold off on its second phase of a plan to clean up the site of a homeless camp in Crab Park.

 

The group called Stop the Sweeps and residents of the encampment oppose the move, saying they’re being offered small, fenced pens to live in while the city bulldozes their community, which includes a warming tent and kitchen.

 

An open letter that was sent to the city on Friday was signed by 450 individuals and groups, and says if the 40 tents at the site are moved it will be replaced by a managed tent city where no new residents will be allowed to live. It instead calls on the city not to destroy any structures and to allow park residents lead the cleanup themselves.

 

Vancouver officials announced earlier this month that dozens of homeless people staying in the city’s only legal encampment would have to temporarily move because the site had become unsafe and unhygienic.

 

Vancouver’s deputy city manager Sandra Singh said the plan to shut down the section of park designated for the encampment this week will allow equipment to be brought in to clean piles of debris and unsafe structures.

 

 

https://www.cheknews...leanup-1196612/

[Nparker]

Small, fenced pens - for free - seem better than the mess I see along the 900 block of Pandora. Literal beggars cannot be choosers.

[Victoria Watcher]

Area around Goolden Hall has become a slum

Re: “Alix Goolden Hall has become a ­fortress,” letter, March 22.

 

You might say the letter regarding the effective siege of the Alix Goolden Performance Hall next to Our Place on Pandora Avenue has struck a chord with me.

 

I used to attend many enjoyable concerts at the hall; now it has been made impossible.

 

Many artists were genuinely impressed with the venue. Emmylou Harris referred to it as “a jewel box of a building.”

 

Through the benighted negligence and unwillingness of our politicians, particularly our municipal politicians, to take firm and effective action, this area has become a slum, one that is visibly metastasizing throughout the downtown area and beyond.

 

The “OUR DTWN” banners are sadly laughable. Someone else has been stabbed in the centre of town at midday and many are afraid to go downtown.

 

And “Tiny Town” is set to reopen after many broken promises that it was only temporary and that there would be increased and effective security.

 

Residents must now brace for the resumption of elevated levels of crime in the North Park neighbourhood. It has been reported that it will be run by Our Place.

 

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

 

 

Ian MacDonell

Victoria

 

 

 

https://www.timescol...y-raise-8509262

[Nparker]

On the plus side, there will soon be bike lanes on Blanshard Street! 

 

[Mike P.]

Victoria in its entirety is a disgrace. There should be a fence around the "our place" proprerty and no tents/drug allowed outside that fencing. Do they not have a social obligation to keep the surrounding area clean and livable? I cringe every time I see that red hair clown running the show on tv. Zero accountability and thinks he does a great job.

 

Area around Goolden Hall has become a slum

Re: “Alix Goolden Hall has become a ­fortress,” letter, March 22.

 

You might say the letter regarding the effective siege of the Alix Goolden Performance Hall next to Our Place on Pandora Avenue has struck a chord with me.

 

I used to attend many enjoyable concerts at the hall; now it has been made impossible.

 

Many artists were genuinely impressed with the venue. Emmylou Harris referred to it as “a jewel box of a building.”

 

Through the benighted negligence and unwillingness of our politicians, particularly our municipal politicians, to take firm and effective action, this area has become a slum, one that is visibly metastasizing throughout the downtown area and beyond.

 

The “OUR DTWN” banners are sadly laughable. Someone else has been stabbed in the centre of town at midday and many are afraid to go downtown.

 

And “Tiny Town” is set to reopen after many broken promises that it was only temporary and that there would be increased and effective security.

 

Residents must now brace for the resumption of elevated levels of crime in the North Park neighbourhood. It has been reported that it will be run by Our Place.

 

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

 

 

Ian MacDonell

Victoria

 

 

 

https://www.timescol...y-raise-8509262

 

Edited by Mike P., 27 March 2024 - 03:58 PM.

[Mike K.]

Mike, this isn’t the sort of place to be rude like that.

We’ve hidden a few of your posts in recent days, and we’ll have to ask you to tone things down.

[max.bravo]

Victoria has the street problems it deserves. We voted for politicians who did exactly what they told us they’d do- increase homeless services, give out free drugs, remove the stigma, make downtown inhospitable to cars, stop arresting street criminals, criminal sentencing by race, make hard drugs legal, etc

[Nparker]

Not we voted, THEY voted. For at least the past 5 years, in each opportunity where I have been able to cast my vote - municipally, provincially, federally - I have tried my best to select the people who did not support the things listed above. Almost invariably, my preferred candidates were not elected. I accept no responsibility for the excessively poor choices of other voters nor the consequences these choices have had on the world around me.

[Mike P.]

Mike, this isn’t the sort of place to be rude like that.

We’ve hidden a few of your posts in recent days, and we’ll have to ask you to tone things down.

I'm not sure where I was rude but I'll be more politically correct in the future. Homelessness/addiction is a business, and all I gonna say is that A LOT of people benefit from NOT resolving this crisis. Cuz if there's no crisis there's no them places and such, right? A wholotta jobs wood be eliminated by fixin the issues. The current model of let's put lipstick on the pig, let's throw glitter in the air and let's give free drugs as if it was candy doesn't work, and the more it goes, the more the taxpayer is getting fed up of the inaptitude and enablement of those in charge, and we're at a tipping point where we collectively say enough is enough! The dead are piling up by the thousands, the criminals are kings of the jungle and the taxpayers are captive of the decisions of a few, so disconnected from reality they have to lock themselves in their municipal/provincial castles and act like the imploding world around them doesn't exist, while they pat themselves on the shoulder giving themselves raises and praises for their great work, which only destroys society as we once knEw it. I will shout it loudly, SHAME on them. SHAME on them ALL for allowing this to happen.

. 

Edited by Mike P., 28 March 2024 - 05:20 PM.

[Nparker]

... the taxpayers are captive of the decisions of a few, so disconnected from reality they have to lock themselves in their municipal/provincial castles and act like the imploding world around them doesn't exist, while they pat themselves on the shoulder giving themselves raises and praises for their great work...

Sad, but true.

[Mike P.]

Sad, but true.

I feel for y'all Nparkers, for TinyTown 2.0 is being shoved down y'all throats with all the trouble that accompanies it, and none of y'all have any say in this abysmal atrocity destroying y'all lives like a cancer spreading down someone's spine at the speed of light, not once, but twice!

Edited by Mike P., 28 March 2024 - 05:53 PM.

[Mike K.]

Yup, all good, but let's not make things personal. That's where we have to step in. 

[Victoria Watcher]

All that money spent, the problem continues

 

 

In three weeks we will be expecting a visitor to Victoria who has expressed a desire to walk the streets and “have a look around.” I am not excited by this prospect, if only because I will be embarrassed for my city.

 

The homeless are everywhere, and no one is doing the right thing to end it.

 

I say “the right thing” because there are plenty of people doing the wrong thing — people who are supposed to know what they are doing. Yet they still spend other people’s money like water on a winter day in fruitless efforts to patch the dike, doing nothing to fix it. For them, optics are everything.

 

No one is doing anything effective to end homelessness.

 

In the past two budget years, the Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness has received a million bucks from the city alone to solve the problem ($126,661 in 2021 and $816,607 in 2022), and $4.23 million from the Capital Regional District since it was created in 2008, and the problem is worse than ever.

 

This organization decides to do something, it doesn’t work, so they plead for more money to do the same thing that didn’t work the last time. It is an endless spiral of failure.

 

Pleading publicly for the powers that be to actually fix the problem is a hopeless task. My guest will just have to lump it.

 

 

M.D. (David) Hansen

Victoria

 

https://www.timescol...-leaves-8530476

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 30 March 2024 - 03:36 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

Madeline and Cory Crane have been running the Friends of Haven Thrift Shop, a fixture in downtown Nanaimo, for almost two decades, and have built up a loyal clientele.

But the couple are closing the popular second-hand store next month, saying they’ve seen a large decline in business in recent years because customers don’t feel safe anymore in the neighbourhood.

“People are scared to come, browse and shop downtown because of the chaos and perceived danger,” said Madeline Crane, who started working at the store, at 451 Albert St., in 2000 before purchasing it 19 years ago.

“I don’t blame them. When I arrive at the store in the morning, I have to clean up syringes, drug paraphernalia and feces left scattered in the entryway.”

She said the outside of the building has been scorched by small fires from people doing drugs in front of the 7,500-square-foot store.

https://www.timescol...isorder-8544988

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 03 April 2024 - 05:49 AM.

[JimV]

The so called homeless problem is largely one of drug addiction and crime, exacerbated by a large dose of misplaced compassion.  Until senior levels of government get serious about these issues nothing will change for the better.

[Victoria Watcher]

Yup. But it’s unlikely to happen. The getting serious part.

Mostly politicians say “it’s a problem everywhere” instead of saying how we might make it not a problem here.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 03 April 2024 - 03:12 PM.