How Council’s time is allotted

The Council Key Date Calendar shows the following information regarding Council’s primary meeting schedule for 2012; i.e. Council Meetings, Committee of the Whole Meetings and Public Hearings.  The breakdown looks like this:

1. Council Meetings:   21 scheduled
2. Committee of the Whole Meetings:   16 scheduled (to date one cancelled and two specials added)
3. Public Hearings:  12 (to date one has been cancelled)

And then there are the secret In Camera meetings increasingly used by Council: 

Ron Bolin: April 25, 2012

In a column for the Daily News on Friday, April 20, I wrote about the covenants that were to be placed on the possible sale of the old City Hall Annex and their implications:

http://www2.canada.com/nanaimodailynews/news/story.html?id=6bf2c79d-e8d7-4f32-ac53-aa8eaa96706f

In a subsequent comment on it I wrote that,” I understand that the office building next to the New Annex on Dunsmuir which has some 70,000 square feet has just been sold for $5.3 million, has about twice the space and sold for 1/3 the price of our new City Hall Annex. It should also be noted that the demolition of the civic Arena with fewer square feet than the old annex cost tax payers some $567,678 dollars to demolish. This is about the same as the land assessment of the old annex. Those tales about selling it for $1 may well be true. And at that it would be much more than the nothing we got for demolishing the civic arena except, of course, one less ice sheet.”

In response someone with the nom de plume  KNOW IT ALL responded that, “Get your facts straight Ron Bolin. Property next door sold for $6.75 million and it also requires seismic upgrades. The City did look at it. These covenants are yet another example of how some councillors are out of touch with how real estate transacts. Ulimately a great condo site, but it won’t happen in 2 years…more like 10 when multi family market dynamics recover. The highest value of that site today is as a parking lot”