Image from LINK

Review:

This book will never end. Let’s just put it that way. But yet, it is a heartwarming story. Meet the characters Ponyboy, Sodapop, Darrel, Dallas, Johnny Cade, Two-Bit Matthews, Marcia, Cherry and more! Brothers, friends, gangs… this book has got it all!  Pony, Soda and Darrel (Darry) are brothers that live alone together. Supposedly, their parents died in a previous car accident. Hardships come about for all these teens… so of course, drama. There are socs (short for socials) and greasers. A rivalry of course!

I rate this book a….. 4 out of 5

Why?…. because I think that the violence etc. in this book was a little too much. The movie didn’t really show it, but you saw knives and guns, etc. Plus, younger children may find it disturbing (not mentioning where because some have not read this book).

My ideal age group for this book: 12-13 and up.

P.S… if you see the movie, there is a scene with S.E Hinton herself!

PANDORA AVENUE

PETITION NUMBERS

STILL UNKNOWN

VICTORY IN VICTORIA!

Victoria voters want a referendum on the fate of the Johnson Street Bridge, or, to be more precise, ‘more than 9,000′ of Victoria’s eligible voters have signed an ‘elector response form’ in the City of Victoria-initiated ‘Alternative Approval Process,’  effectively calling into question the City of Victoria’s ill-conceived plan to borrow $42,000,000 to demolish and replace the Johnson Street Bridge, according to Ross Crockford, one of the three original co-directors of johnsonstreetbridge.org.

Mr. Crockford was quoted in a CFAX News Radio story apparently written by Frank Stanford on January 4, 2009, entitled ‘Anti-borrowing lobby claims success.’

Still more signatures are found on petition forms sent or dropped off to City Hall on Pandora Avenue in downtown Victoria.

The Victoria City Council is expected to deal with the final petition count numbers and their implications on Thursday at a special 12:00 noon meeting, JANUARY 7, 2009.

[Links to Mr. Stanford's news article at the CFAX website, along with five other related items, are found in the Comments section below.

1. Victoria's iconic blue bridge get's reprieve, Brennan Clarke, Globe and Mail, January 4, 2009.

2. Comments at johnsonstreetbridge.org.

3.  End of Alternative Approval Process... Special Council Meeting, 12:00 Noon, Thursday, July 7, Victoria City Hall Council Chamber, johnsonstreetbridge.com.

4.  Johnson Street Bridge funding (including counter - petition), Vibrant Victoria forum.

5.  Prospects grim for $42-million bridge loan, Roszan Holmen, January 4, Victoria News.] 

- Gregory Hartnell, President

Concerned Citizens’ Coalition

CCC

After reading chapter one, reveal what connections you can make to the following three areas ( remember to use qudle answering technique)

1. yourself

2. other books or movies

3. world events

CCC PRESIDENT QUESTIONS WHY $3,121,000 COSTS PER ANNUM, +

20 YEAR LENGTH OF AMORTIZATION WERE OMITTED FROM PETITION,

+ WHY PETITIONS WERE NOT SENT TO ALL VICTORIA VOTERS

IN UNPUBLISHED LETTER TO EDITOR OF VICTORIA NEWS

DECEMBER 13, 2009

Victoria News

Letters to the Editor

Re: City mum on bridge counter-petition, Victoria News, December 9, 2009

The City of Victoria omitted vital public interest information from the ‘counter petition’ elector response forms used by Victoria voters participating in a confusing ‘Alternative Approval Process’ (‘AAP’) on a proposed borrowing of $42,000,000 to demolish and replace the Joseph Strauss-designed heritage Johnson Street Bridge.

Then, while the AAP is still underway, Roszan Holmen quotes Howard Markson, the City’s Johnson Street Bridge replacement project spokesperson, talking about the possibility of the City borrowing ‘up to $52,000,000 without having to increase its annual payments.’

This is not helpful and in fact, confuses the issue at hand.

Nor is it helpful when Mr. Markson suggests that ‘no contracts will be awarded for the construction of the bridge until the counter-petition deadline passes,‘ as this suggests the City is ready to award such contracts regardless of the outcome of the AAP.

Victoria voters are also very wise to be skeptical of a Mayor who says that ‘the debt load won’t increase property taxes.’

Something is strange about the accounting methods of this socialist mayor and his stimulus-intoxicated spendthrift Council.

The Elector Response Forms for the City of Victoria’s Alternative Approval Process for Loan Authorization Bylaw No. 09-057, otherwise known as the ‘petitions,’ are inadequate in many respects, but primarily they omit vital public interest information that Victoria voters should have been privy to in this process.

On November 28, the City of Victoria placed the second of two legal ads with vital public interest information strangely missing from the petitions.

‘Debt  costs for this project will be amortized over a 20 year term.’

‘Annual principal and interest payments commencing in 2010 will amount to approximately $3,121,000.’

In other words, when this loan is finally paid off in 20 years, it will cost City of Victoria taxpayers about $62,420,000, and it will cost Canadian taxpayers the federal grant of $21,000,000, bringing the total real costs to Victoria and Canadian taxpayers: at least $83,420,000.

One must seriously question why this vital public interest information was omitted from the petitions, and why the petitions were not sent to every person on the City of Victoria Voter’s List.

It is simply impossible to believe that Mayor Dean Fortin and the Victoria City Council will not raise residential property taxes if the Johnson Street Bridge is torn down.

That is the main reason why people should question his whole plan to do it, sign the cursed petition, and hope for a referendum during the next municipal election, in order to ultimately save the bridge from this appalling philistinism, and kick out all Councillors who voted to destroy our good old bascule bridge that has served us so well since 1924.

Gregory Hartnell, President

Concerned Citizens’ Coalition

CCC 

FORMER CITY MANAGER OF VICTORIA CONDEMNS

‘PURPOSEFUL LACK OF CO-OPERATION BY THE CITY’ …

NOT MAKING ‘COUNTER-PETITION AVAILABLE

BY SENDING IT TO ALL RESIDENTS’…

Questions Fortin’s cost per resident per annum

FORTIN: $19.00

ROUGHLEY: $49.21 

It’s a long strange trip when the former City Manager of the City of Victoria turns out to be the current Vice President of Delcan Engineering, DONALD ROUGHLEY.

If that company name sounds familiar, it is because Delcan Engineering is the very same engineering firm that is responsible for the City of Victoria’s so-called ‘Delcan Report’ on the actual condition of the threatened heritage Johnson Street Bridge.

Today in a Times Colonist op-ed, Mr. Roughley blasted Victoria Mayor Dean Fortin for his ‘questionable’ $8.8 million referendum cost figures, the withholding of information about the number of petitions the City has received, misleading information in a two page brochure produced by City of Victoria ’spin doctors,’ as Mr. Roughley calls them, and, perhaps most significantly, cost per resident per annum of the proposed $42,000,000 borrowing.

Victoria Mayor Dean Fortin says the cost per resident per annum is $19.

Donald Rougley says ‘the cost of borrowing $42 million is $3.121 million per annum, attributable to 63,426 electors, which means the cost per elector is $49.21 per annum.’

That means that there is a chasm of $30.21 between Mr. Roughley’s figures and those of the present spendthrift socialist Mayor of Victoria.

 The Delcan Vice President also found fault with the City for not having ‘made the counter-petition form  easily available by sending it to all residents.’

He says that ‘Mayor Dean Fortin’s recent comment that the referendum will cost an additional $8.8 million is questionable and indicates an attempt to sway people to not sign a petition against the borrowing.’

Mr. Roughley’s attack comes a bit late, suggesting as it does that the johnsonstreetbridge.org group ‘could consider requesting the City provide this information through a formal “request for information.”

He goes further, advocating recourse to a pre-emptive legal strategy : ‘better still, they should apply to the courts for a formal decision to require a referendum.’

However, it is surely significant when the Vice President of the very same engineering firm upon which the City of Victoria is relying to try to sell the supposed necessity of its hurried and unnecessary so-called Johnson Street Bridge replacement project, finds it necessary to distance himself from the manner in which information from that professional firm’s engineering report is now used by the City of Victoria in a ‘misleading’ way that is ‘not credible, fair or ethical, nor is it in the best interest of the electors.’

While Mr. Roughley is careful to give credit to the johnsonstreetbridge.org group for its petitioning activity, it is also curious that he freely gives them legal advice that he perhaps isn’t quite prepared to heed himself.

Thus, he can suggest his disapproval of Fortin’s manoeuvres through the agency of the jsb.org protestors, without having to bother with the excruciatingly maddening bureaucratic minutiae involved to importune the City for the information, which would very likely come too late in any event…

This would appear to be as much a business-legal manoeuvre as a political one on the part of Mr. Roughley, the former City Manager of Victoria.

It should be remembered, notwithstanding Mr. Fortin’s misleading spin, that the Delcan report does not absolutely stipulate that the ‘Joseph Strauss Bridge’ be replaced, but rather takes care to posit replacement as one of two possible solutions to the current deteriorating condition of the landmark.

With this op-ed, Mr. Roughley has thus managed, at the 11th hour, to give an appearance of almost complete neutrality, neither advocating repair nor replacement, effectively hoping to sidestep any undue scrutiny to which he might otherwise have been subject as a principle in the engineering firm responsible for the Delcan Report on the current condition of the threatened Johnson Street Bridge. 

By doing so, he is hoping also to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest, and I applaud him for his prudence in doing so.

I hasten to add that I have no association or acquaintance with Mr. Roughley whatsover, but I am grateful for his intervention in this process at the 11th hour.

By isolating the Mayor in this fashion, Mr. Roughley implicitly exonerates the work of the lone Victoria City Councillor who has questioned the Mayor’s ‘replacement’ agenda for the heritage bridge, Geoff Young, although he does not name him.

This suggests that there may be a contest coming between Mr. Fortin, Mr. Young and Mr. Roughley for the Mayor’s seat in 2011, as it is certainly strangely discourteous to ignore Mr. Young’s courage and tenacity in this regard.

The repair option would certainly appear to be less damaging to the ecology in terms of conservation issues, it would be less expensive to repair the existing bascule bridge rather than to replace it, and that less-expensive repair job would allow for savings to be expended on more pressing social housing issues for the homeless. 

In terms of the so-called ‘triple bottom line,’ repair is the obviously preferable option.

For a link to the article entitled ‘Bridge petition tally stays under wraps,’ by Don Roughley, please refer to the comments section below.

- Gregory Hartnell, President

Concerned Citizens’ Coalition

CCC

ADJOINING MUNICIPALITIES SHOULD FOOT PART OF THE BILL

Thank you, Focus, for keeping the spotlight on a big, expensive civic dilemma: the Johnson Street Bridge.

Do we clean off the rust and keep it?

Or do we rip it out and make ourselves broke putting in a new one?

We should set this to a public referendum: scrap it or scrape it?

When I look at the Delcan report, I see a rusty, ugly structure with two cement blocks hanging in mid-air.

It does not take much convincing by an engineer to have me agree that Blue Bridge + earthquake = owie, as my 6-year-old daughter succinctly pointed out.

Yes, Big Blue sprung from the same mind that designed SF’s Golden Gate Bridge.

There the similarity ends.

I disagree that the metal lattice construction has aesthetic value.

It is an obstacle to the sightlines of Victoria’s Inner and Upper Harbour.

Furthermore, there must be a less clumsy solution to sharing the road between bicycles and vehicles.

Nevertheless, the call for considered, deliberate decision-making that includes authentic public participation is a wise one.

I support the call for a public referendum on the Blue Bridge.

I believe this is an important enough transportation issue that adjoining municipalities should not only have a say, but foot part of the bill.

I call for a CRD-wide referendum on Big Blue.

Mark Brown

CCC BLOG reprint:

FOCUS: focusonline.ca

Re: Citizens petition for a referendum on the Big Blue (December 2009)

January 2010

Pages 6 – 7

CCC

THE TOP NEWS STORIES OF 2009

IT’S LONG BEEN KNOWN the Johnson Street Bridge needed work, but the problem took centre stage in April when a condition assessment revealed immediate need for major upgrades.

There’s a 35 per cent chance that the bridge, in its current state, will collapse in an earthquake over the next 50 years, the report concluded.

Council sprang into action, partly due to the three-year deadline recommended by engineering firm Delcan, and partly to meet the deadline for a federal stimulus grant worth two-thirds of the project cost.

Within two weeks of receiving the report, Council voted to replace the bridge for a projected $63 million plus the cost to revamp the approaches on either side of the bridge.

The option to renovate, estimated at $25 million to $30 million, wouldn’t provide the same opportunities for cycling and pedestrian bath improvements, Councillors reasoned.

It would also cause greater traffic disturbance during construction.

A few voices of opposition sprang up immediately and have grown to a well-organized, well-funded protest group hoping to force a referendum.

More than nine months after Council’s original decision, the matter is far from resolved.

CCC BLOG reprint:

Victoria News: www.vicnews.com

The top news stories of APRIL 2009

Page A5 : December 30, 2009

CCC

Victoria News:

VICTORIA CITY COUNCIL

SHOULD PUT FATE OF JOSEPH STRAUSS’S 

HISTORIC JOHNSON STREET BRIDGE

TO REFERENDUM WITH ELECTION IN 2011

Victoria Mayor Dean Fortin is resorting to desperate scare tactics in his stubborn opposition to the idea of a citizen-forced referendum on the fate of the Johnson Street Bridge.

“Fortin said if the City is forced to go to a referendum, the delay could add $8.8 million in borrowing costs over the life of the bridge,” according to a Dec. 23 article.

One wonders where Fortin dug up this number.

Does he have a crystal ball to forecast interest rates in the next 20 years?

Four days later, Fortin, elected to end homelessness in Victoria in 2008, said that “I don’t think I would ever commit to ending homelessness in six months.  

“It’s a seven- to 10-year plan.”

Try telling that to the cold, miserable and poor homeless.

Contrast that leisurely and complacent pace with the anxious urgency he says is necessary to demolish and replace Joseph Strauss’s historic Johnson Street Bridge.

If Council is serious about helping the homeless, it should cancel the replacement of the heritage bascule bridge and put the fate of it to referendum in conjunction with the civic election in 2011.

In the meantime, Fortin and Council should pay more attention to the needs of the homeless and get the job done with the same urgency they have shown on the bridge issue.

As a letter urged on Dec. 29, “call a civic election over this issue.”

Gregory Hartnell

Victoria 

CCC BLOG reprint:

Victoria Times Colonist: timescolonist.com

Tackle homelessness, stop the bridge rush

Thursday, December 31, 2009

CCC

THINK PUBLIC TRANSIT

WITH BRIDGE IDEAS

The Victoria City Council and Capital Regional District both seem to forget that the city is essentially at the tip of a peninsula.

Funnelling more traffic right into the centre of the city through a new Johnson Street Bridge (the result of a rebuild) just guarantees more gridlock.

Doubling the Point Ellice Bridge would allow the Esquimalt and Vic West traffic more ready dispersal into the city via Bay and Blanshard.

The Johnson Street Bridge from my engineering and U.K. vantage point will easily last another 100 years at a maintenance cost way below that of a new bridge.

Public transit is likely to be coming much more the norm as the oil crunch becomes more apparent.

Consequently, another aspect might be light, rapid transit, using the E&N track for the Langford-Colwood run into Victoria over the rail bridge.

Alternatively: the rail secion of the bridge could be used as a road bridge to help ease congestion.

It is already there.

Morning in, evening out.

The railway station could readily be sited on the Vic West side.

I spent some three months, way back when, trying to get all the municipalities, B. C. Ferries, and the province, to consider high-speed, light, rapid transit between Langford and Colwood, Victoria, the airport, and Swartz Bay.

The old railroad routes!

But I was way too early.

Zero response.

What else did I expect?

Michael McGrath

Brentwood Bay

CCC BLOG reprint:

Victoria Times Colonist: timescolonist.com

Think public transit with bridge ideas

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Page D3

CCC

OPEN LETTER:

‘THINK OF THE POOR, PLEASE’

‘So much more could be done for the poor and the mentally ill…’

As a theatre person who can no longer work due to a broken back, I have learned a few things from being on disability for twenty-two years, and most of these things to do with the meaning of life would surprise you or take you by storm, and I am predicting that within twenty years, there will be a revolution in the midst of the welfare class and nothing will ever be the same again.

My theatre people are the ragged, the mentally ill, the afflicted, the downtrodden, the marginalized and the addicted.

Many of us pay taxes on tobacco, that in turn turns into our chief addiction and any money we have goes to supporting our habit.

My great grandfather was a bugler in the first war … won two medals and every month his heirloom ring goes in the pawnshop.

It is a good month if the ring doesn’t end up there and I wonder if I was hit by a bus would anyone know to retrieve the ring that is ninety years old?

So it is for so many.

“Never in the field of human endeavour has so much been owed to so many by so few.”

Often I’m suicidal and not exactly because of money, but rather the feeling that my glory days of bringing Canada recognition are over and I will never stand at the podium to receive the Order of Canada or any prize of any merit whatsoever.

My godfather was Canadian ambassador to Southeast Asia Godfrey Hearne; my great grandfather, Charles Schofield built cathedrals at both ends of the country, great grandfather Alexander Nairn built the Nairn docks in Toronto and owned a hundred acres along St. Clair Avenue, etcetera.

My family has paid in blood and I would like to know why are our pension is so low, after all this time, and the benefits so limited when it is the lower class that is the glue that holds together the bricks of our great society.

As a seventh generation Canadian, I turn my face to the wall with manifest sorrow.

So much more could be done for the poor and the mentally ill, trimming the excesses of the many wealthy who think of this, our country as a playground not a battlefield.

Both grandfathers fought in the The Great War for the rights I enjoy but if I do not enjoy and revel in them, a priori, what is the use of their having fought?

I have been twenty-one times across Canada in my career and now that career is kaput and I have to struggle to express myself or even get press or get on the radio.

You should try being bi-polar and still run the country, sir.

It is so unbelievably hard that it is a wonder so many try at all, on this pittance we receive from the province.

I am asking you to consider raising the pension from nine hundred to twelve hundred, so we can afford the luxurious rents here in demi-Paradise.

By the time I will have completed this letter, I willl have smoked five cigarettes, so bad are my nerves, so deep is my concern for my country.

Welfare is not a state of mind or a disability.

It is an idea that society has been force fed.

If more socialism is the answer, so be it.

Whatever works in my books.

The Ministries are brutal in the handling of many cases and if they reviewed me to lessen my winnings, I would not hesitate to take my own life as a symbol.

That’s how strongly I feel.

I know people who clear a hundred on their monthly cheque.

How would you like to pay the bills with that? 

Welfare is warfare so the war in Afghanistan should be ignored until we have fed the poor and looked after needs on our own soil first off.

Surely you think of the poor at home while you are jetting to all those exotic locales to rub shoulders and press the flesh?

Examine your conscience Mr. Prime Minister, are we really doing enough for those at the bottom of the heap?

David Burke

davidjure@shaw.ca

Victoria

CCC BLOG reprint:

Island Catholic News

December 2009/January 2010

Page 3

CCC

PROPOSED BRIDGE PANIC SCHEME IS WRONG

Panic is rarely a sound reason to rush to spend a huge amount of taxpayers’ money.

There is a good driving bottom on the west side of the Blue Bridge, where for very little money, a new line of piles with a well strapped capping would prevent damage from any failure of the western lip, which seems to be the main focus of panic.

No matter what new structure is built, it will still be no guarantee of protection against the Big One, which will be a major geological event along a 1,000-kilometre rupture.

The proposed bridge panic scheme is wrong for all these reasons:

As long ago as 1965, traffic studies confirmed that Bay Street and its bridge was the ideal future east-west distributor of automobile and heavy-truck traffic.

It requires no lift bridge and can be easily doubled without blocking traffic for a year or more.

A small pedestrian and cyclist bridge could at that time once again be introduced over Rock Bay connecting with Store Street and providing an attractive near-harbour north-south pedestrian and cyclist route which is now sadly lacking.

Planning to dump an increased flow of automobiles for 100 years into the Old Town flies in the face of all the work of Old Town preservation of the last years.

Far better to recycle the present bridge at half the cost to the Victoria taxpayer.

Within 30 years, “dollar-wise” sensitive commercial development pressure will convert Wharf and Store Street into plazas for pedestrians and golf-course vehicles as Victoria continues its increasingly rapid transformation into a superb retirement area.

Anyone who thinks this is futuristic hasn’t live here and seen the changes for over 80 years.

Ian W. Sherwin

Victoria

CCC BLOG reprint:

Victoria Times Colonist: timescolonist.com

Don’t panic to spend money on a new bridge

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Page D3

CCC

Outsiders (Volume 4) #25
Written by Peter Tomasi
Art by Fernando Pasarin and Derec Donovan

Tomasi’s run comes to an end with this issue and it was a good issue. Yes, Tomasi had Halo being called Violet again (Ugh she never went by that name!) but he lets her be the big hero and kick serious ass in this issue so I forgive him. I love when Halo kicks ass. I think this was a good way to end Tomasi’s run and this Blackest Night tie-in was definitely successful. Do I think Tomasi’s run was that great? No it could have been a lot better but it wasn’t awful either. I am more afraid of what the Didio-Tan run will be like. I hope they pleasantly surprise me. Oh and it was nice to see Thunder again!

… FRIENDS OF

JOHNSON STREET BRIDGE …

GREGORY HARTNELL AND DAWN KEOUGH,

CONCERNED CITIZENS’ COALITION HOSTS RECEIVED:

CONCERNED CITIZENS’ CANDIDATE DAVID BURKE,

 HELENA CHONTOS, DAUGHTER OF NIKOS CHONTOS +

MARIA HARTNELL CABRERA

‘FACE TO FACE’ TV SHOW HOST JACK ETKIN,

GREEN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR STUART HERTZOG,  

RICHARD OLAFSON + CAROLE SOKOLOFF:

HUSBAND + WIFE WRITER-PUBLISHERS

ROCKLAND NEIGHBOURHOOD ASSOCIATION REPRESENTATIVES

AND FAMILY FRIENDS… 

A fascinating cross section of three generations of Victoria’s Johnson Street Bridge conservationists visited at the Rockland Avenue home of Dawn Keough and Gregory Hartnell for a ‘Blue Bridge” Boxing Day Coffee Fiesta + petition-signing on Saturday, December 26, 2009 between 2 and 4 p.m.

Dawn Elizabeth Keough is the hard-working unionized care aide wife of Concerned Citizens’ Coalition President Gregory Hartnell.

David Burke (‘David Jure’) is one of four former Concerned Citizens’ Coalition Councillor Candidates, and is the author of ‘Visions and Revisions.’

Helena Chontos is the beautiful and talented neice of Gregory Hartnell. She is a student, resident in Yaletown, Vancouver, daughter of Nikos Chontos  and Gregory Hartnell’s sister Maria Hartnell Cabrera.  She was accompanied by another beautiful young female friend whose name shall remain anonymous.

Jack Etkin is an avid cyclist and arrived on his bicycle with his safety helmet.  The former Green Party Candidate is the publisher of The Bridge, and hosts ‘Face to Face’ with Jack Etkin, a community public interest interview programme on Shaw TV Victoria.

Stuart Hertzog is a Green political commentator and former Green Party Candidate who recently unsuccessfully challenged the national Green Party leader Elizabeth May from being parachuted in to stand for the federal seat in Saanich and the Islands against incumbent Conservative Minister of Natural Resources Gary Lunn. 

Richard Olafson and Carole Sokoloff are a husband and wife team of poet-publishers who produce Ekstasis Editions and the Pacific Rim Review of Books.

The senior couple at the alcohol-free coffee and cake  Johnson Street Bridge ‘Alternative Approval Process’ petition-signing party were resident property owners at the southeast corner of Moss and Rockland, active in the Rockland Neighbourhood Association, a pleasant, well-informed and engaged husband and wife team of community activists whose names escaped me…

The hosts, Dawn Keough and Gregory Hartnell, wish to thank all their family, friends, neighbours and all the johnsonstreetbridge.org volunteers and other Concerned Citizens who gathered signatures on petitions (and continue to do so), and to honour them for their efforts to SAVE THE ‘JOSEPH STRAUSS BRIDGE’.

‘Goyo de la Rosa’, Editor

LA ROSA REVUE 

CCC

INQUEST LEAVES BAIL QUESTIONS

Although the recommendations from the Lee-Park inquest no doubt contain much of value, a huge gap remains in what we have learned.

The fact is that the only people who were in a position to make a difference at the time, and who remain so today, were those in the justice system responsible for the decision not to oppose bail and for having bail conditions enforced.

Given those systemic failures, no police response, however speedy, could have changed the outcome.

Peter Lee was known to be violent, had threatened his wife, tried to harm her in a contrived car accident and was due in the court for an unrelated assault charge.

Surely, it  is not just in retrospect that we can say that he should have been behind bars.

There is no suggestion those in Crown Counsel’s office are anything but good people.

But even good people need to work within systems of checks and balances that ensure accountability.

We have no more reason today to be confident that proper checks and balances are functioning in Crown Counsel’s office than we did two years ago.

The Crown’s successful attempt to portray the search for checks and balances – even to the point of denying jury access to a key document like the police report to Crown counsel – as a witch-hunt suggests a disingenuousness that is itself troubling.

Initial calls for a public inquiry, which would have had a broader mandate and powers, were dismissed by the Solicitor General of the day [Wally Oppal] on the grounds that an inquest would have all the authority that is needed.

It is difficult to believe that he did not anticipate that proceedings would unfold just as they have.

Kenneth Stewart

Victoria 

CCC BLOG reprint:

Victoria Times Colonist: timescolonist.com

Inquest leaves bail questions

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Page A13

CCC

REMEMBERING TAT THE BLUESMAN

I”d like to thank the Times Colonist for publishing the article about Edward (Tat) Tatoosh, elder from the Nuu-chah-nulth nation and West Coast bluesman.

The Island blues community lost a valued performer.

I first had the fortune of playing with Tat and the Lost Tribe Band in the late 1980s.

He took me under his wing and taught me about the blues.

Many a great night was spent travelling in the blue van to Port Alberni, Port Alice and other Island locations.

Fortunately, he was recorded and was a big draw at the blues jams, back when people used to go.

Everyone would remember Tat, with his top hat and his West Coast aboriginal take on the Chicago blues.

He will be sorely missed.

Gary (The G Man) Thompson

East Sooke

CCC BLOG reprint:

Victoria Times Colonist: timescolonist.com

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Page A13

CCC

SAVE JOHNSON STREET BRIDGE IN 2009 FOR POSTERITY!

‘BLUE BRIDGE’ BOXING DAY PARTY

COFFEE FIESTA

 PETITION SIGNING

ALCOHOL-FREE FAMILY EVENT

FOR A REFERENDUM ON THE FATE OF THE

‘JOSEPH STRAUSS BRIDGE’

Meet friendly neighbours… helpful volunteers… sign petitions…

drop off signed petitions… pick up more blank petition forms…

1357 ROCKLAND AVENUE

DOWN PRIVATE LANE

SOUTH OF ROYAL TERRACE

FIRST HOUSE ON RIGHT

GREGY STUCCO, TURQUOISE TRIM

LOOK FOR THE ANGEL IN THE WINDOW!

BOXING DAY

SATURDAY

DECEMBER 26, 2009

2:00 P. M. – 4:00 P. M.

14:00 h. – 16:00 h.

CONCERNED CITIZENS’ COALITION

1357 ROCKLAND AVENUE

VICTORIA V8S 1V7

TELEPHONE 250 382 97 67

GREGORY HARTNELL + DAWN KEOUGH

gregoryhartnell@yahoo.ca

Concerned Citizens’ Coalition Weblog:

CCC BLOG: gregoryhartnell.wordpress.com

CCC

POLITICIANS BLIND TO ALCOHOL DAMAGE

Politicians are wimps when it comes to tinkering with the price of alcohol.

Forget the fact that we are drinking more and our “drinking binge” has increased the many harms of alcohol abuse from cirrhosis of the liver to domestic violence.

The University of Victoria’s Centre for Addictions Research of B. C. earlier proposed a tax increase of two cents per drink to fund more treatment and prevention programs.

There was a public outcry and the government made no effort to implement recommended policy changes despite the urgent need for prevention and harm-reduction strategies.

The reality is that the government relies on the revenues from the most vulnerable and high-risk drinkers to pay its bills.

Ten per cent of the population consumes approximately 50 per cent of the alcohol sold in the province, but they are not getting their fair share in return when it comes to treatment needs.

This time, the centre is proposing creative solutions without overall price increases to reduce alcohol-related harms.

I hope our elected representatives, when they raise their glasses in a toast on New Year’s Eve, will make a commitment to consider the health and safety of the people of B. C. and take a serious look at the proposals put before them.

Lembi Buchanan, president

Nickel-a-Drink for Addictions and Mental Health Research Foundation

Victoria

CCC BLOG reprint:

Victoria Times Colonist: timescolonist.com

Politicians blind to alcohol damage

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Page A15

ccc

VICTORIA COMMUNITY TV PRESENTS:

FACE TO FACE

WITH THE JOHNSON STREET BRIDGE

ON SHAW TV: CHANNEL 11

VICTORIA + SALTSPRING ISLAND

Ross Crockford sets the stage as we talk about decision-making, democracy and bridges.

Ross brings out some remarkable points and asks if an open, fair, and honest process has been followed here.

Portland engineer Ed Wortman follows up with a discussion about how to repair and extend the life of the existing ‘blue bridge,’ and it certainly seems this can be easily done.

Sharon Wood-Wortman poetically describes the issue from an historic and heritage point of view.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 20

10:00 A. M.

9:00 P. M (21:00 h.)

This programme should have been broadcast last week;

it wasn’t due to a technical error;

Shaw TV and ICTV apologize for this.

The  programme was already broadcast yesterday

Saturday December 19 at 11 a. m. and 11:30 p. m.

Produced by Lazarus Productions

ICTV (Independent Community Television Victoria)

can be reached at jetkino@yahoo.ca

Most of our shows can be viewed on the internet.

Google: Face to Face with Jack Etkin

CCC

After being charged with mischief again, Ingmar Lee deftly turned attention away from his latest stunt at the leg, to condemn the recent awarding by former Clayoquot spokeswoman Tzeporah Berman of some sort of  phoney Copenhagen ‘green’ award to British Columbia’s clearcuttin’ Premier Gordon Campbell.

As  I believe that all three of us, that is to say, Mr. Lee, Ms. Berman and I, are all individuals who have been arrested in defence of old growth forests, and particularly at Clayoquot Sound, I have a longstanding interest in the careers of any individuals associated with the Clayoquot Mass Trials, and in the ongoing conservation history of the Clayoquot Sound, and indeed, all of what was once known as ‘Quadra’s and Vancouver’s Island’.

As a fellow arrestee, I have a deep and abiding sympathy for all those who have made resort to Gandhian non-violent civil disobedience, are contemplating doing so, or are about to do it for the public good.

I also admire those who have the ability of speaking, as they say, ‘truth to power.’

Ms. Berman’s awarding of the award to Mr. Campbell was indeed an event that deserves to be deplored, whether she did it on behalf of some ‘eco’ foundation or other, or on her own volition.

Ms. Berman owes some sort of explanation for this egregious deed, indeed, a retraction of the award, and an apology would more properly be in order.

For a link to the statement by the daring Mr. Lee, please refer to the Comments section below.

- Gregory Hartnell, President

Concerned Citizens’ Coalition

CCC

OUR OWN TENT CITY WOULD KEEP THEM WARM

Re: “Pointless appeal wasted resources,” editorial, Dec. 11

I strongly agree with the editorial on the City of Victoria’s ill-advised appeal of the Court ruling on temporary overnight shelters in parks.

The previous Mayor and Council were wrong to appeal the original ruling.

The current Mayor and Council should have abandoned the proceedings immediately upon assuming office, rather than waiting a year for the B. C. Appeal Court to state the obvious: Our public spaces belong to everyone and it is not a crime to be homeless and needing a place to sleep at night.

It is particularly appalling that the Union of B. C. Municipalities and the provincial government joined the appeal to argue the spurious “principle” that a ruling based on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms impeded elected officials from setting public policy.

Perhaps a remedial course on Constitutional Law 101 is in order for those agencies.

Still, at least Mayor Dean Fortin and Council have done the right thing by deciding not to appeal the most recent ruling.

I would urge them to seriously consider establishing a tent city on city lands as a temporary solution until enough affordable housing and supportive housing units are built to house those who are sleeping outdoors on cold winter nights.

Several U. S. jurisdictions have implemented this approach successfully.

As the temperature dips below freezing, it is our obligation as a community to do whatever we can to make sure all our residents have access to safe and warm shelter every night of the year.

Eric Kaye

Victoria 

CCC BLOG reprint:

Victoria Times Colonist: timescolonist.com

Our own tent city would keep them warm

Friday, December 18, 2009

Page A13

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BRIDGE ISSUE SPURS FURTHER MISTRUST OF ALL POLITICIANS

I do not enjoy walking around outside on a cold, blustery day, but for the last week, I and other members of johnsonstreetbridge.org have been doing just that.

While collecting petition signatures to compel the City of Victoria to hold a referendum, we have been listening to the people.

“Why can’t we fix the present bridge?

“Why are they rushing this project?

“What about the homeless?

“Why do we need sewage treatment?”

These comments are not only from City [of Victoria] taxpayers, but from the taxpayers in surrounding municipalities who are ineligible to sign the petition.

There seems to be a theme of distrust  of our elected officials at all levels of government, and the Johnson Street Bridge debate is fueling this belief. 

With the stampede for stimulus money over, there is no imposed deadline for a completion of a new bridge.

There is also plenty of time for consultation with those who would prefer to see the present bridge repaired, and the millions saved go toward funding other important projects.

Dennis Robinson

Oak Bay

CCC BLOG reprint:

Victoria News: www.vicnews.com

BRIDGE ISSUE SPURS FURTHER MISTRUST

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Page A9

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