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The Militarization of City Bylaw Officers?

I've been hearing a few concerns about the "militarization" of the city hall's bylaws department. At the very least, there is some feeling that we should not be replacing the RCMP with bylaw's officers. Bylaw officers currently sport bullet proof (knife proof?) vests emblazoned with the words PEACE OFFICER - and I have heard they may carry handcuffs.

Are these overkill? Are they necessary to do the job in today's times? Are bylaw officers trained in arresting and handcuffing folks? Do Rambo looking bylaw officers unnecessarily scare people or send a message that is too strong?Question to research and ponder. 

Downtown Gets Boost from Rocky Mountaineer...

It's a bit hard to fathom how much exposure Kamloops derives from the Rocky Mountaineer stop. I was in Chicago in the summer of 2005 for the Rotary International Convention and could not believe the number of people I met who had been through Kamloops on the train.

Rocky Mountaineer management has decided to spread its summer passenger stops in Kamloops throughout the week. Instead of a large amount of visitors two or three times a week, the same number of people will be more evenly distributed throughout 5 or 6 days I believe.

The upshot of this is that all Rocky Mountaineer guest will now overnight in downtown hotels. For passengers on this incredible train trip, this decision makes total sense. Downtown Kamloops has such great ambiance and energy. I've heard it described as one long park - with the wide sidewalks and decorative street features. There is not much of that around the southwest sector hotels.I know the Kamloops Central Business Improvement Area is gearing up to make sure new visitors have a great experience.

A Downtown Parking Shortage?

I am always puzzled when I hear people say we have a shortage of parking downtown. Perhaps, for employees, but as a frequent patron of downtown businesses, when I drive, I am never at a loss for a parking spot.

I prefer the bus , but still find a need to drive from time to time.

I usually have to walk a few block from where I park downtown, but I like the exercise and fresh air. I guess its a matter of perspective.

A quick comment on marketing transit: I still don't see enough marketing of transit to downtown employees. It may be happening, and I may have missed it. It sure would be good to find out if we can get people riding the bus, before building a whole bunch more parking downtown.

A Heineken at the Transit Exchange

I love travelling by transit. The last few months, I have been in my car way too much. How I missed letting someone else do the driving while I read, answered email, or socialized. How I missed the extra, no longer gas money in my pocket.

Early this month, I bought my bus pass. And I have been trying to schedule so riding the bus is workable with my busy life. .

Today, I went down to the transit exchange to catch a bus  to Sahali. As I walked by the bus shelter area,  someone from within a crowd of teenagers yelled out "hey, there's Arjun Singh!!!!". I craned my neck in an attempt to spot this enthusiastic person, but only caught a fleeting glimpse of what seemed a young man in amongst all the other people.

I walked to my bus stop on the exchange and sat on the nearest bench. The enthusiastic young man came over. He said, "you are Arjun Singh, aren't you, I've only seen you in the paper".  I confirmed that I was indeed me, and the young man shook my hand and sat down beside me.

It was then I noticed the large bottle of Heineken beer in his hand. And I became quite alarmed. 

Clip from my End Homeless is Good For Everyone Press Conference...

How to End Homelessness - Create Economic Activity, Reduce Crime, and Save Taxes at the Same Time.

Ending homelessness in Kamloops makes sense for so many different reasons - morally, fiscally, and in terms of crime and community safety. Whether someone voted conservative, liberal, ndp, or green in the federal election - we will all find significant common ground in ending homelessness.

Ending homelessness is not a left wing issue. It is not a right wing issue. It is a community issue, and we all can benefit. So many of us feel that having people in our community without a home is morally just not right. And added to that:

Businesses benefit when people are not eating, sleeping, and defecating in this alley. Victims of crime benefit as less people get caught up in breaking the law on a habitual or occasional basis.

Significantly, and I have had this number confirmed by BC's Minister of Housing and Social Development, providing services to people living on the street costs taxpayers (round numbers) $55000. Housing the same person, and supporting them in housing costs (round numbers) $37000.

Ending Homelessness in fiscally responsible.

So again, there are many good reasons to end homelessness. To right a moral wrong. To help businesses grow. To reduce crime. And, in fact, to be more efficient and accountable with our tax dollars.

So how exactly do we end homelessness in Kamloops?

Let me say, first of all, we have great social agencies  working to house people and support them in housing. We have great and growing community involvement from faith based organizations, the business community, and from concerned citizens from all walks of life. What I will propose today, I have learnt from all these great people.

1. We need to adopt a "housing first" approach. This approach emphasizes providing people housing before helping them beat an addiction issue or helping address mental health issues.
   
   
2. We need to stop doing homeless counts, and start doing needs assessments for homeless people. And then we have to find resources for social service professionals to find housing and provide supports that meet their needs.
   
   
3. We need a coordinated effort. And I believe city hall needs to coordinate and facilitate this effort. We need to state that one of our official community goals is to end homelessness in Kamloops. We should consider a council committee whose goal it would be to coordinate community action to end homelessness.
   
   
4. We need to monitor our progress carefully and publicly report on our progress. We need to make sure everything we do is moving towards zero homelessness in Kamloops.
   
   
5. We need to continue to work closely with our primary funding partners, the provincial and federal governments, so that they understand our needs and requirements to achieve our goal.  We should find out how much city bylaw officers, fire department and RCMP spend on issues involving homeless people.

Many communities across North America are adopting these approaches and are starting to have great success.

Lastly, let me say how proud I am to have been of part of our current city council that has, I think, worked very hard to assist the creation of supportive housing in Kamloops. I would like the next council to build on this success.

When Might I Ever Vote For Gambling Expansion?

 

 

As many probably know, city council just approved the building of a new and larger downtown casino. It's true I have opposed every expansion of gambling / gaming that has come before council since I have sat at the table. I have been concerned about the social ills that come with gaming - most notably gaming addictions.

But, I also know that gaming is an adult activity and most people who partake do so responsibly. I also know the gaming generates large revenues for community groups and for city hall.

I was trying to formulate in my head what would tip that balance for me. What would give me comfort that expanded access to gaming in Kamloops is a net positive, as opposed to a net negative?

BC Lotteries offers services to about 5000 people who self identify with gaming problems. That's out of a total estimated population in BC of 120 000 problem gamblers. So, our success rate with helping people with these types of issues is a little more than 4%. That seems too low to me, and that's ultimately why I voted no on the upcoming expansion. 

I wonder if it might be an idea to set some sort of benchmark - say 10% helped next year - and base my positive vote on that. Or maybe that is too simplistic, leaving out things like the actual cost of the positives and negatives, the entertainment value of gaming, the economic development spinoffs, etc etc.   

Stephen Trower on the Downtown Hotel Deal...

Interesting letter to the editor by Stephen Trower in the local newspapers on the Scoops lot hotel deal with Tom Gaglardi's Sandman Signature Group.

(Wouldn't it be great if the new hotel had a coffee / ice cream bar called the "New Scoops" or the "21st Century Scoop" or something like that. Oh ya, and if it had a purple and green colour scheme - and a KAMI fish mascot in the corner.)

Back to Mr Trower's letter. In it he talks about a few potential concerns:

1. Taxpayer subsidy for banquet and convention space
2. Traffic flow
3. Parking
4. City selling rather than leasing lot.

Before addressing some of these points, I would first like to say that a major plus for me in this proposal was that it takes the very divisive proposal of a hotel between Interior Savings Centre and the waterfront off the table for a long time. Heck, we may even see a rezoning back to parkland.

I always enjoy reading Mr Trower's thoughtful, intelligent letters. In the spirit of conversation, here are my initial thoughts about the concerns he raises:

1. The study looking at expanded meeting and banquet space at the Interior Savings Centre, across the street from the proposed hotel, should perhaps make it clear the space should be available to all potential bookings, not just bookings from the hotel.
2. Traffic flow modifications should be the financial responsibility of the developer, and not the city
3. I am not sure what the plans are around parking. I probably didnt well enough follow some of the discussion we had on this, but I will commit to getting more certainty about these plans.
4. The city might have looked at leasing the land instead of selling it, but that might give less certainty and less opportunity to the developer.

I think a classy hotel on the scoops lot will be a good thing. It's not a make or break thing, a matter on which we need to hang our civic pride, but it will help provide a first class amenity to Riverside Park and to downtown in general.

Should we close off Victoria St to cars more often...

There was a surprisingly large number of people browsing on a Wednesday afternoon, at the farmers market on Victoria Street. The 400 block was completely closed to traffic, creating a pretty vibrant pedestrian scene. A A lot of folks were asking why we don't do this more often. Good idea?

Working through the priorities...

A blog post on anonymous commenters get over 15 comments and much media coverage, while this Feb 17th post on my 3 top personal priorities as a member of Council in 2008 gets no comments and scant media coverage.

An interesting fact to chew over. 

On one of those priorities is:

Helping the Business Community Engage in Social Issues in Our Community: That's a long title, but its an important issue. If we are really going to house the homeless, or even help people who are housed but not to their satisfaction, we are going to have find more ways of bringing an entrepreneurial mindset to the table. Business and professional people want to help on the root cause social issues because they know it is the right thing to do from almost any standpoint - moral, financial, for community wellness.

Tomorrow, I am helping facilitate a meeting that will hopefully help more business people learn about the social issues in the community, and learn how they can add their positive entrepreneurial mindset.

I am looking forward to it.