Wayne Schulstad — Letter to the Daily News
Re: ‘Millennium running out of time on hotel deal’ (Daily News, March 6)
Your article quotes Mayor John Ruttan as stating, “Without a solid plan to start construction, this deal will be over.”
He is of course referring to the agreement between the City of Nanaimo and the Millenium/Suro Joint venture, specifically article 7.3(b) which defines very clearly when the developer is in default of their obligation under the agreement.
The critical difference is of course “commenced construction” as opposed to “solid plan.”The default clause does not say the Joint Venture must have a “solid plan” in place, but actually reads “If the Joint Venture has not, on or before March 31,2010, commenced construction of the hotel in a manner acceptable to the city in its sole discretion” (then it is in default).
Is it asking too much to ask city’s officials that they understand the agreement they signed with the developer?
I suggest it is not.
And that’s because there is the obligation of the city, upon default by the developer, to immediately initiate action to recover the $3 million already advanced and to draw down the $100,000 letter-of-credit issued by the developer as its penalty for not meeting the agreed schedule.
Wayne Schulstad
Posts and Comments on Nanaimo Governance 
Ummmmm, a closed circuit of all the same correspondents . . .
How to engage a civic discussion with the likes of a Nanaimo administration? Well evidently judging the same repetitive respondents in Nanaimo Blog you don’t!
What is the point in trying to invoke an intelligent response from an organism who responds to a legitimate question on say, the wisdom of a sprawling Sandstone of Cable Bay saying “sprawl is not a zero sum game!”
What the hell that means is anyone’s guess!
Only the impertinence of boredom can invoke such disrespect from a councilor Holdom. Yes, I have seen him, on a number of occasions, demolished by nimbler minds: of course enveloped in his conceit, he is happily oblivious!
He’s got away with petty games far to long to change now!
But Holdom is not alone. There is a limited range of ingenuous support from the likes of real estate, developer, stick builder and errant academic who lack the wisdom to place their franchise wisely. All yesterday’s cold spaghetti: expect no change!
There are more! He is supported by such as the director of planning Tucker…and that is why we no longer have a containment boundary.
With the signal exception of two councilors, council cannot detect the stink of its own decaying hubris. Obviously, there is enough decrepitude in this innocent little town to keep it on its insipid track.
Here http://members.shaw.ca/urbanismo/DTES/DTES.charrette.html is a little urban experiment a couple of us are working on in Vancouver.
I hesitate to post it in view of recent local declarations of urban villages: University Village, (Value Village) and North Nanaimo Centre (Alias Rutherford).
A consumer mall emporium is no a village and never will be.
Still our little DTES charrette experiment may interest a couple of locals . . .
Urbanismo: Thanks for contributing to this wee blog launched by us “usual suspects”. I agree that the trail of responsibility for the elimination of the UCB and the more-Surrey-than-Surrey developments in our southern boonies leads to the desks of Bill Holdom and Andrew Tucker. Councilor Pattje continues to be the lone voice promoting 21st century city building that comes from creating healthy, pedestrian friendly neighbourhoods. I’m struggling to comprehend Councilor Kipp’s vote in favour of Cable Bay/Oceanview’s plan being written into the OCP.