I’ve marked the comments with interest over the past several council and committee meetings from certain councillors — Ward 3 Coun. Dan McCreary and Ward 4 Coun. Richard Carpenter in particular — claiming their resolutions and their work is unfairly being bashed by their colleagues.

“I would hope that politics aren’t going to creep into this and that we’re not going to see resolutions decided here based on who moves them,” McCreary said during debate on improving bylaw enforcement in the city.

The RogersTV clip of the entire discussion is available here— the bylaw discussion starts at 47:30, McCreary starts speaking at about 20:35 and the jab at politicking comes at around 52:15.

This follows another poor reaction at the May 16 finance committee when McCreary bristled at Mayor Chris Friel’s comment that he didn’t like where a resolution McCreary had moved “was coming from.” Friel apologized in open council May 22 for the misinterpretation, clarifying his unease was over the intent behind the resolution, not its source. Friel did do the “non-apology” Monday— you know, the ones starting with “if you were… then I’m sorry,” but having been in the room for both, I think the good councillor’s skin may be softening.

McCreary’s is usually one of the best-behaved people on camera and in non-televised meetings, saving his politicking for behind the scenes, so these statements were surprising.

The bylaw resolution wasn’t his best work— he wanted better enforcement within existing resources. The resolution itself originally called for a dedicated department. Rather vague as to how that would be accomplished, creating the circumstances where staff members writing the requested report would likely not produce the range of options McCreary was actually seeking. After he made his jab (perhaps in reaction?), McCreary accepted several amendments that made his resolution better.

As passed, council now seeks options on how to improve bylaw enforcement— not through a dedicated department but  officers.

Carpenter has complained of late the finance committee isn’t being shown the respect it deserves. Not sure I agree based on what I observe as a regular attendee of these things and having read the procedural bylaw that gives the finance committee its mandate. The committee has fumbled its way through how it can both learn more about how individual city departments operate and try and address issues as they arise and that was also a bone of contention on Monday.

I would suggest a taking a deep breath when one’s resolution is criticized and perhaps not taking it quite so personally.

This thought has been percolating in my head since early February when I attended Ontario Speaker / Brant MPP Dave Levac’s consultation / open house on bringing a residential detoxification-rehabilitation facility to Brantford. Suitably backburnered, it came up again this week as the Downtown Brantford Business Improvement Area (BIA) has asked council to look into what it might do to move the Victoria Park Clinic.

For those not in the know, the clinic is a privately operated methadone clinic running out of a portion of St. Andrew’s Church on Darling Street in this city’s downtown.

Considered separately or together, this has very, very good potential to be a the city’s largest “NIMBY” fest ever. I can picture it now— legions of people screaming at the top of their lungs they believe these services are so desperately needed in Brantford, but not near their slice of the city.

The downtown merchants, for a variety of reasons not completely related to the clientele, don’t want the meth clinic in their neighbourhood. They’re asking to move it out of the downtown and for the planning rules to change to keep anyone else from setting up a new one downtown.

At Monday’s community development committee meeting, there were already grumblings from Ward 5 councillors about the relocation of certain undesirable activities that used to take place in the downtown to East Ward and Eagle Place neighbourhoods.

Yet we’re Beautiful Brantford! Big city vibe, small town feel! A caring community!

In that vein, what would impress me is to see a community of people in this city stand up and proudly say, “We believe in the importance of these services and we’d like to see them in our neighbourhood. Here’s what we propose to create the appropriate space.”

That would be a true test of our compassion, our understanding and our humanity. I have my doubts there are enough people who think like this in Brantford, but I could stand to be pleasantly surprised.

Having been in the room at the city’s Brownfields Community Advisory Committee meeting March 8 to watch this conversation unfold, I kept reading all weekend as committee member Mary Ellen Kaye struck up an email exchange with Mayor Chris Friel. All of council, several staff members and local media were all cc’d on the exchange throughout the weekend.

The exchange is embedded below, as I printed and Scribd it earlier today.

In a nutshell, Kaye asked a question of the planners at the BCAC meeting about why the city wasn’t re-designating lands around the Garden Avenue / Sinclair Boulevard medical centre as residential. Currently, the area is designated industrial (with some small pockets as business park). The zoning for the medical-centre site is “business park industrial,” with a sub-class created specifically to allow the centre to exist within that zoning. Zoning around the site is largely “general industrial.”

When Kaye kept pushing the policy planners at the meeting for why the city wasn’t demanding that area become residential infill — argument centering on how the medical centre could really use some residents nearby — the response, while not always to the point, pointed to how while the existing zoning is industrial nothing stops current landowners in the area from applying to redesignate and rezone. Or from intensifying it as is— the city’s strategy and targets refer to “people and jobs” per hectare, not just residential units. I do wish the planners had been clearer in stating this, as it would have pointed to how perhaps it’s the medical centre that’s in the wrong location as opposed to suitable surrounding land uses.

Landowners’ meetings with planning department staff members are par for the course. There is regular exchange of correspondence, inquiries and so on as a developer builds a file for any planning changes it’s seeking for a parcel of land it owns. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear, now that Vincorp got the land it wanted and may have plans for it, that it’s been talking to the city’s planning department about how its own plans might fit (or not fit) within the existing designation and zoning. A $5 request under the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act could net emails, phone lots and appointment calendars to prove or disprove whether or not said meetings have actually taken place, but be prepared for a lot of black ink on any records returned.

Kaye, not having received a satisfactory response to her committee questions, grabbed something out of Hamilton and then insinuated — nay, outright stated — the same was happening in Brantford. How she got from “why isn’t Garden/Sinclair in a 2005 intensification map” to “city planners are having secret dinners with developers” is beyond me.

Should Garden Avenue / Sinclair be an intensification corridor? Anyone is welcome to suggest it. However since it’s, uh, quite far from other identified residential / commercial / industrial intensification areas, it’s not the strongest candidate. Should we weep when the medical centre struggles to draw patients to its easterly location? In a free-market response? No— the developers and others involved should have spent more time on whether that was a suitable location.

As to the rest? Let’s see whether or what it might evolve / devolve into.

Kaye-Friel email exchange

Couldn’t help myself from giggling a little on this one— a post inspired by the emails I some times get.

This week, I received a number of emails from city councillors (gotta love that bcc: function) pointing to some concern over moves to setup a community meeting in Ward 1. As the city’s largest geographic ward, the one with the biggest pockets designated for growth, any changes to ward boundaries would likely impact this ward. Whether they do, or whether there are any changes at all, is up to the current council.

Even as the newbie, I’m well aware of the running joke— parts of Ward 1 being referred to as “Ward 6.” It’s a ward that doesn’t exist but because of how big Ward 1 is, it’s a subsection.

Here’s a snippet of an email that explains the intent.

In comparison to the remaining Wards, and with ongoing issues of residential, commercial, industrial, educational, public service, population, infill intensification, and potential Waterfront Masterplan Implementation, we are determined to find a council-approved method to
properly address the workload associated with the sheer amount and volume of issues facing the citizens of Ward 1.
We would appreciate the chance to work with you to create an opportunity to plan a well advertised Ward 6, Town Hall Meeting using our regular format of live minutes, question, comment, and suggestion.
(names deleted) would like to present, with the help of willing staff, the differences between Wards and the remedies to better customer service.

Which drew this wonderful response from a councillor in another ward that was shared with me.

I hope that you have not already decided on the ward boundaries in the absence of city wide consultation and the committee. I assume you were joking about calling it a ward six meeting then.

The chain of back-and-forths in that message also included the concern that calling this community ward meeting, even in jest, a “Ward 6″ meeting would only confuse. Further, given the city has an existing process underway to look at the number of wards, the size of wards and whether councillors should be full- or part-time, etc., this tongue-in-cheek reference might muddy the waters.

Having said that, I think anyone who’s voted (and I know that’s a minority) in a municipal election or really cares about municipal politics in this city would quickly realize that “Ward 6″ is what it is— a reference made in jest.