Good old-fashioned Garden City rant.

To quote the Joker in Tim Burton's Batman, "This town needs an enema!"

Yeah, it's been said before but in trying to do our civic duty tonight -- just getting to the open house that City Hall was hosting on the ridiculously costly infrastructure project to replace the Johnson Street Bridge -- it took us about 4 minutes to get close to City Hall and 20 minutes to find a place to park. Even the nearby parkades were packed because of an event at the McPherson Theatre -- in fact one parkade was the biggest part of the delay as idiots blocked the road for no fewer than 5 traffic light signals trying to enter. We finally got around that mess and found a spot that was barely big enough to pull into but Hubby managed it.

The meeting itself was a mix of boosters, detractors, and people who wandered in off the street to get free coffee. Local media was there as were a few councillors (no sign of Mayor Fortin though. Too bad -- I'd have told him how hard it was to park on a Monday) watching a powerpoint presentation and looking at the same drawings that have been circulated for months -- all of which were drawn up by a UK based architect (what -- Victoria, BC, and even Canada didn't have an architecht available???). Council will vote this Thursday. I'd be tempted to go but they rammed through the funding issue at nearly midnight last time and frankly I don't have much faith in this council to do what its citizens want.

There has been NO consideration of repairs to the existing bridge, only talk of the $63 million (some of which may be a Federal Funding carrot) to build a new bridge (that may still be subject to a toll). We took Kiddo to put in her vote because she will likely still be paying for it when she is our age if she stays in the city.

After the open house, we decided to detour to Serious Coffee -- generally a great place to get a quick coffee. Unfortunately, it seems that their management does not pay staff long enough to allow them to properly clean up so they shut down the espresso machines and stop brewing coffee long before closing time -- tonight nearly 20 minutes before closing. To make matters worse, we had ordered a "child's hot chocolate" -- most places will steam this at a lower temperature or add cold milk to temper it. Instead it was scalding hot and Kiddo was brought to tears burning her tongue. At least when Hubby asked, they brought her some ice water. (She was still crying when she went to bed.)

On the way out there were four people headed in for coffee. Hubby told them, "They've already shut down" and they turned and left. While they might have put up with what the dregs left from the day's brew, we didn't think it was fair that anyone pay for that.

Further up the street, three bewildered tourists were trying to figure out where to eat. They were standing on Broad Street outside the fish and chips place that had closed for the night sometime between 7:30 when we walked past the first time and 7:50 when we returned. We directed them to the Irish Times Pub after explaining that the city kinda rolls up its sidewalks weeknights.

It comes down to this: if you can't find many businesses open and you still can't find a place to park in the city, something's broken and a new bridge is not going to fix it.

OTTO? OTTO!

On Friday, I checked in with CoffeeCrew.com to see who won the OTTO vote. Turns out there was a tie -- me and another author. The editor decided the fairest way to deal with it was to email everyone who had voted for someone other than the top two and ask them to pick one -- he called it a vote-off, I pointed out to him that it seemed similar to BC-STV.

When he later told me people started pushing back and saying "No way! We want the person we voted for to win, that's why we voted for them," I told him, "and that's why BC-STV failed."

However, enough people re-voted that I ended up the winner.

By a single vote.



So, I won't have the OTTO for a couple of weeks yet but when it does arrive, I promise you a review and plenty of photos. Thanks so much to those who voted for me; I owe you an espresso.

Our province is so screwed.

If our esteemed leader had put the Winter Olympic bid to a province-wide vote, I am fairly certain it would have failed. Why? Because I know of no one who is deluded enough to think that any modern Olympics, now a bloated athletic circle-jerk run by crooks and cronies, can come in on-budget. And guess what? We are now hugely on the hook for cost-overruns for the Olympic Village (the overrun alone will cost nearly eight hundred thousand dollars per unit* by the time it's done -- are you effing kidding me?? You could buy 1100 otherwise empty condos on the Vancouver market right now for better value.)

When I say "we" I mean the province because the City of Vancouver has taken a page from the current corporate culture and stretched out its hand to government for a bailout. Harper is being all tough-love about it but Campbell will cave and we will all have to pay.

And if you think this is all Vancouver's problem, think again. The rocket scientists/flim-flam men running the Millennium Development Corporation that is behind the Olympic Village haven't been able to even begin construction on the other project bid they won -- a hotel complex adjacent to the new Nanaimo conference centre. The city council there has been trying to fine the corporation but in the meantime they are still screwed.

Meanwhile CBC is pointing out that two of the big sponsors for the Olympics are Nortel (which just filed for bankruptcy today) and General Motors (and I think we are all aware of how they're doing).

It's not just me crying foul:

• After the Olympics comes debt (Vancouver Sun, 13 Jan 09)
• Straight talk on Games costs (Victoria Times-Colonist, 14 Jan 09)
• Olympic Village may cost Vancouver taxpayers $875M (CBC online 9 Jan 09)
• and over at the Coffee Crew blog, Colin regularly raises his digital fist. He recently posted Olympic Rant #24.
  

Of course, part of this mess can be blamed on the current global economic situation but at the root of that is the very same thing that is at the root of the consistent cost overruns and scandals faced by both city and international Olympic committees: greed. There's a good reason it's one of the seven deadly sins.

---

*simple math: $875million overrun for 1,100 units.

If you want to show your disdain for the Olympic mess, how about a Vancouver 2011 bumper sticker? See the pile of rubble? Yeah.

Yes, this is an election-themed post.

While our sad little federal election is already a mere dust mote in the corner of our collective Canadian consciousness, the U.S. Election is everywhere today -- and I mean everywhere. You would have to turn off your web browser, television, radio and avert your eyes all day to avoid it. Here are some more interesting election-related links if you would rather not look away:

• If you look at Google.com (here it automatically redirects me to Google.ca) you'll see a clever election logo:
  
  
• Cakewrecks has politically themed cakes today (including one I submitted!) plus a bonus misspelling: "Your Vote Counst"
• Graphic Tales' DB Dowd is sketching election day.
• Mental Floss serves up 11 Memorable Moments from Forgotten Campaigns.

And if you're really desperate to kill time, you can just search "polling station" or "I voted" or "us election" at Flickr or your favourite search engine or surf over to CNN to see if one more viewer will down their servers.

We'll be watching tonight as the numbers start coming in, snacking on an array of appetizers as prepared by my Hubby.

whoop-de-doo.

Well, that was as lack-lustre as elections get, frankly. The Conservatives dissolved parliament as a minority government and still come out of it a minority, albeit with a handful of extra seats. (I love the "Bigger minority" headline on the Times-Colonist today.)

The only good thing is that Dion will hopefully realize no one wanted to vote for him and he will hand the reigns of the Liberal party over to someone more ... appealing.

Locally, our three incumbents kept their seats -- Savoie handily won her Victoria seat, Lunn's win was less decisive (and there are more than a few questions about how things played out in Saanich and the Gulf Islands), and Martin's results were down to the wire (I expect a full recount for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca).

For comparison to the 2006 election; Conservatives moved from 124 to 143 seats; Liberals from 103 to 77; the Bloc from 51 to 49; NDP from 29 to 37 and "other" from 1 to 2 but the one lone Green Party member (who was not elected as Green but crossed to the Green party shortly after being elected) was not re-elected. That's going to make life pretty hard for the Greens in the next election. [Interestingly, Wikipedia lists a slight variation for the 2008 results with one fewer Liberal and one more Bloc member.]

We have to wait a few more weeks to watch the U.S. election outcome and then we limp into the late fall Municipal elections. The City of Victoria is overrun with candidates with 8 people vying for the Mayor's seat and 35 fighting for the 8 council seats. Included in that batch are a bunch of people whom one member of Vibrant Victoria said he wouldn't "hire to serve coffee" -- the kind of candidates who give "fringe" candidates a bad name.

After November I think I will be all electioned-out.

If you are in Canada....

You'd best be casting your ballot today! Polls are open 7 am to 7 pm.

(I have to wait until after work, but I will definitely be putting an X next to someone's name.. and yes, it will be the Not Boomer candidate in my riding.)

Oh, Quitcherwhinin.

OK. So. BC Ferries is in a tailspin because they jacked up fares high enough that people have rethought their travel. Now, without tourists to make up the difference, the corp. is looking at cutting some runs -- more than the usual off-season thinning. This annoys me, but we can plan around it for the few trips we are likely to take.

Politicians are grasping at straws, saying that the ferries are an extension of our highway system (true, they are) and that service needs to be maintained. Keith Martin talked about the Trans-Canada highway in particular and how the ferries deliver so many people from coast to coast. Um, Keith, check your maps. The Trans Canada highway crosses the straight at Nanaimo. So, yeah, we could say that route has to be protected at full service, but I don't think the argument holds for the Southern route.

Ha! This is the way you stop terrorists and tyrants...

... deny them their weapons.

Basically, a shipload of weapons and/or amunition was on its way from China to Zimbabwe but because the goods had to get to the land-locked country through a port, dockworkers in several coutries refused to unload the shipment. Awesome.

The ship will likely return to China where officials regard it simply as a "transaction" and are not commenting on the political issues.

[I heard this on the CBC this morning, but couldn't find a story on their site, so here is more information from Thaindian News.]

Dear Parents & Mr. Harper

Dear Parents,

You know that $100 cheque -- the Universal Child Care Benefit (UCCB) -- that Mr. Harper sends every month for kids under 6?

Did you know it counts as taxable income? I didn't.

I got a nasty surprise this week when Revenue Canada sent me a reassessment for my 2006 taxes: "We have adjusted your return to include the Universal Child Care Benefit that was paid to you in the year, as reported on the RC62 slip"

When I pulled my tax file, the RC62 slip was not among the paperwork, so I suspect I filed it in with the Canada Child Tax Benefit (CCTB) paperwork (I haven't looked there yet -- I was too annoyed) -- that's the payment which is adjusted for income for parents of all children under 18 (when I was a kid, my parents called it the "Baby Bonus") -- I presumed, incorrectly it turns out, that they were administered in a similar manner.

So, anyway, if you counted it as income, you are ahead of me; if you didn't, you may be in for the same surprise.... just thought you should know.

---

Dear Mr. Harper,

While I understand it's better "optics" to send out a nice round $100 then sort it out later, and while I expect it was in the small print somewhere, I still think it's rather misleading to have two similarly named family benefits but only exempt one from taxes.

Since it took your bean-counters nearly a year to contact me with the adjustment, I can only presume that there are many other parents like me who failed to grasp the fact that this was a taxable benefit that should have been included as income. I see, checking the form, that there was in fact a line to report the UCCB; I am fairly certain that this was omitted from the tax software I had used.

At any rate, I think it is sneaky, especially as this "income" may also change the amount of CCTB, GST credit, and other benefits to which we may have been entitled.

regards,
One Very Grumpy Parent in Victoria.

I miss my public library.

It's been more than a month since the brain trust at the Greater Victoria Library Board locked the doors on its staff due to an ongoing labour dispute (and it's a stupid dispute too -- the Board agreed to pay equity in 1992 but has never paid it!) through the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association (GVLRA) -- I phoned Chris Graham this morning and got a recording -- he sounded besieged (good!) and promised he was working on it, but I don't believe that for a minute. This lockout is not saving them much but it's going to earn them all a big black eye, come municipal elections this fall.

Worse, it's costing families --especially those who can't afford to buy books or find other access to research databases or the internet in general. CUPE 410 (the local representing members who are locked out) has this estimate on their website:

The loss of Library service is a direct cost to every Library user. In 2007, the Library loaned 4,069,026 unique items.

If users, instead of being able to borrow these items, had to pay for them at only $10.00 each (less than the cost of many paperbacks!), they would have had to come up with $40,690,260.00 instead of the less than twelve million dollars they actually spent to run the Library system.

The Library system, far from being a drain on the economy, is actually a powerful generator of real wealth - wealth that the Library Board has taken away.

A little arithmetic shows that every day of this lockout is costing Victorians at least $111,480.16, for a total loss of service value so far of $3,455,885.00 as a conservative estimate.

I've personally felt it, because Kiddo is a rampant reader. Luckily, I have access to the books at the UVic Libraries, which include a lot of kids' books (both in the McPherson and Curric libraries) -- but Kiddo just mows through them! I brought home 6 books last night and she read 5 of them before bedtime. I also felt it when we were working through the renos and I wanted to check the most recent building codes -- free at the library, but $95 if I wanted to view them online. Pshaw.

It sucks that the people feeling the most of the impact are the low-income families, the unemployed, and anyone on a fixed-income in the region -- it's not their dispute, but they have lost a critical connection within their community.

I can assure you that anyone who is currently sitting as a municipal politician and also on the GVLRA or the GVLB will not be getting my vote in November -- and that includes all current mayors.

Please, give your heads a collective shake and get back to bargaining. Figure this out and give us back our library!

Looking South of the 49th Parallel and raising an eyebrow.

Why? Several things... these among them:

Barack Obama has a Twitter feed. His latest note this morning says, "In Columbus,MS & wondering how somebody who's in second place is offering the vice presidency to the person who's in first place." This makes me giggle as well as raise my brow because... well, this time the Democratic race seems to be split by age. Elder Boomers and the party elite still seem to be behind Hilary but that Obama bandwagon is overflowing with GenX and GenY types. Maybe I'm wrong there... if so, could you point me to some stats?

The LAist is concerned about Satan's Ice Cream Truck, or rather, the tune that one particular truck plays. The article provides the audio (albeit very rough and slightly garbled) and it sounds familiar to me... but I have never taken a Music Appreciation class so I can't quite put my finger on it.... Any music scholars in the audience care to take a stab at it?

New reports suggest many Americans are drinking drugs; trace amounts of a cocktail of pharmaceuticals (and likely a few illicit drugs, too) are showing up in water supplies across the states. When I first saw the teaser for the news last night, "What's in your water?" I told the TV it was urine. Unfortunately, I wasn't really far off:

So how do the drugs get into the water? Well, people take the pills, pass out what they don't absorb and flush the toilet. Wastewater is treated before it is discharged and often treated again at drinking water treatment plants but most treatments do not remove all drug residues.

Eww.

Twenty Nine Percent.

That number refers to the raise that the BC Government is giving itself. Every MLA (Member of the Legislative Assembly) will get 29% salary increases plus pension improvements; the Premier will see his salary more than double with a 54% increase. I'm all for better wages and I'm sure some MLAs earn their keep, but giving raises to politicians is always a tough sell. In this case, they did their research and asked for public input but got little.

What gets me about this raise is the way the opposition, the left-leaning NDP, has handled it. First they railed against it "We didn't ask for it; we won't support it!" -- even to the point of booting one MLA out of caucus who said he would support it. Now though they say "We want the pension, but not the raise." Of course, to get the pension, they have to vote in support of the whole package. And their spin on it? They're going to donate their raises to community groups who have been affected by government cuts.

Yeaaaah. Riiiiight.

I'm sure some MLAs will donate their money, but who the heck is going to track all that? (Hopefully some reporter with a chip on his/her shoulder will take on the task.) And in the end, the record will simply show they voted in favour of a 29% pay increase.

Congratulations. In 2010 when we next negotiate our contract, I hope these MLAs pay attention, because they're going to get an earful; three years is not a long time in labour memory.

My two cents.

I just want to get this off my chest. There is much wailing and gnashing of teeth over the fact that the BC Liberals have cut the funding for the Child Care Resource Centres, but I have to say the one time I really needed them, they were useless. Absolutely useless.

Sure, they sent me info -- but it turned out to be either the same info I had already read online or stuff that was seriously insulting to my intelligence and therefore useless.

They also gave me a list of daycares that were able to take children at that time. Except that the list was incorrect -- of the 6 daycares only ONE actually had room; the others were taking names for a waitlist.

In the end, I found what I needed on my own, thank you very much, so I am not sad, or overly concerned, that the funding has been cut. Hooray for the Liberals for getting one right.