Signs of the Times: Management of Signage in Nanaimo
Email from blog reader Jim Galloway
—– Original Message —–
From: Jim Galloway
To: Ron Bolin
Sent: Saturday, September 11, 2010 10:57 AM
Subject: Fw: Management of Signage in Nanaimo
Ron,
Please be good enough to arrange for this email to be posted to the Nanaimo blog.
Thanks
Jim
—– Original Message —–
From: Jim Galloway
To: mayor.council@nanaimo.ca
Cc: Mitch Wright
Sent: Saturday, September 11, 2010 10:54 AM
Subject: Management of Signage in Nanaimo
Mayor John Ruttan and Councillors,
City of Nanaimo
No doubt your attention has been brought to the Nanaimo News Bulletin full page ‘advertorial’, Sept 9th, wherein “The Soakhouse is turning 3 years old!” i.e. the rubber ducky.
If I might cut to the chase, I view this material as a piece of crap! The expression ‘blowing smoke’ comes to mind. Not only has management of The Soak House clearly contravened the guidelines established by our Bylaw, but it is also showing poor taste and effectively rubbed the nose of Council in it. Isn’t there a point of pushing the limit? Respectfully, the credibility of Council is now at stake.
As you know, for what is now approaching the better part of three years, Council has permitted the real estate, contractors and developers of our City to have cart blanche when it comes to signage. Are we now going to extend the moratorium to the business committee? Isn’t it time for Council to get off the fence and show some leadership on these matters? The alternative is laissez-faire. As one of the general public, I submit that is unacceptable.
Surely Council does not have to be reminded the taxes paid in our City, by the residential ratepayers, are in excess of 65% of revenues received. We may not place advertisements in our local newspapers but, be most assured we do want, and need, to be heard.
Jim Galloway
cc the editor, Nanaimo News Bulletin
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Posts and Comments on Nanaimo Governance 
The “credibility of Council’ went out the window a long time ago. The name Jerry Berry springs to mind. And even suggesting we spend a few hundred thousand trying to find someone to build a hotel downtown was another point coming to mind.
Oh, yeah, and letting staff sign five year parts supply contracts without the approval of council in the first place.
I’d go on, but then I would just sound like a negative nellie, so will shut up now. :^)
The ‘credibility of certain members of the public’ went out the window a long time ago. Negative Nellies Nest Near Nanaimo.
A five year supply of candidates that run for council and lose, only to keep complaining without changing any of their stripes keep losing. There is a time to get positive and change with the flow of the public or in this case (the select few) voters, of which I am one.
George has a point. It is time to get positive. The question is, what should we get positive about: a tax funded conference centre?; a multiplex at public expense?; a concession stand in Maffeo Sutton Park?; building structures at public expense which we then turn over to private businesses?? It’s a great deal if you can get it. I find it hard to be positive about property tax increases which run at 3+ times the CPI.
I, for one, would like to hear all those things enumerated about which George and his select few voter friends think we should be positive.
Ron, the concession stands, conference centres are of the past. The future is of the planning of Maffeo-Sutton Park and what we can do to make it positive. A Multiplex at public expense needs not be tackled by any local municpal or regional government. If sport ownership wants to try and get provincial and federal grants or whatever, that is up to them.
We, as a community need to concentrate on NOT SPENDING MORE, but SPENDING LESS, NOW! It can be done even with the blunders you may not have agreed with in the past. The conference center is built and it must be paid for. The art centre on Victoria Road is paid for and we should not have to continue paying for it.
Let us concentrate on what we can reduce instead of blaming what happened. Let’s insure that the City allows more concessions in our parks and let be given on an equal basis to those that wish to be there. If 20 people want to pay the fee, so be it.
What can the future do for us, in your opinion, Ron?
BTW: The reference to the few voters of which I am one is in regards to how few voters we get, it ain’t about my friends. I have said many times, we each need to bring one more voter out when we vote and that is for every person that votes, not just those that read this.
George: The concession stand hasn’t yet been built and the conference centre continues to cost us about 5% of our tax burden per year, so we need to figure out what to do with it to at least reduce those costs, quite likely by finding some alternate uses for parts of the building. Just spending less is not positive if we don’t have any better ideas about how to use the money we do spend.
I am waiting to hear whether one or more of the 14 respondents to the city’s RFP for a replacement or renovation of the City Annex proposes to use some of the space in the 200,000+ square feet in the conference centre. This could save considerable construction money plus reduce the excess space in the centre to a level more compatible with Nanaimo’s drawing power.
I would also suggest that our Development Commission spend time on more than tourism and pensioners, both of which I expect will be having a hard go in the foreseeable future. Transportation and industrial uses should get a hard look. Old industry may be dying, but new industry is coming.
We really need a lot of positive ideas. And we need to act on them. I am sure that there are a lot out there better than these.
We should not build the concession stand. That will save money. Let the individuals do it the way they have since the days of Frank the hotdog man. Pay a seasonal rate for having the right to park there and sell their goods.
I was under the impression that the entire conference centre space was being used for it’s intended purpose and that there is no space available other than that for conferences. I am against alternative uses for conference space, let it be used as intended. We knew that the conference centre when it was first proposed was going to be a burden on our taxes for X number of years so you are squawking up the old tree on that subject. It is old news, Ron and as long as you keep bitchin’ you will be the old Ron. Comon man, reinvent yourself.
I suggest our development commission not spend an entire cent. Disband it and it’s employees. We do not need to spend anything more on tourism or pensioners but need to develop a plan to bring business to our community that will increase our work force. We need jobs that will pay a reasonable wage (well above minimium) such as research and development and IT. Let’s get a few business blocks (large business buildings instead of condos) built.
Transportation and Industry are not needed. Neither are ecological friendly and we don’t need their noise or stink. Lets get some brain power companies and those that don’t create issues we don’t need.
We need to reduce our city work force by not hiring new people. Put a hiring freeze on. When a space opens due to retirement or other reasons, move current staff to their jobs. Sideway movement and elimination are the best way to reduce our cities costs.
Use the brain power at City Hall to do research on operating our own police services instead of the RCMP. Can we do better on our own. Abbotsford and other smaller sized communities are doing it.
Is the replacement or renvovation of the City Hall Annex a requirement? If so, how many years must it be done in? Is it an immediate need? Can the old A&B Sound building be used in some way, temporary?
QUIT SPENDING MONEY AND ZERO INCREASE IN TAXES, NOW!
I agree, that bitchin’ and complainin’ accomplishes nothing. In the end, people simply stop listening.
Haven’t they sorta stopped listening already?
George has some very positive suggestions, how many of them would be adopted by the current council? city staff?
Will anything change unless there is a complete change in those who govern?
Jim, the stats say they’re listening… traffic stable at about 1,000 hits a week for last few months. People have been reluctant to join the conversation, though.
Frank, are those ‘unique’ hits, or did I account for 10 today myself?
Curious.
Jim, WordPress doesn’t give unique visit stat so you’d be counted each time you visit. I talk to people who say they look at it once or twice a week and some find it on searches and links… How to get more people and a wide range of opinion to participate?
I know that my household accounts for about 200 of those hits each week. Should I stop coming here?
Don’t do that George. (though you might want to get a hobby… just kidding) Seriously, do encourage anyone you discuss civic issues with to comment or contribute.
George: Last time I looked, IT was an industry and if we do any equipment manufacture, such as wind or wave turbine assembly, etc, the parts have to be transported in and the finished products transported out. While fundamental research and innovation are essential, by themselves they do not support work for the general community, but can provide a unique base on which better paying jobs can be produced.
Perhaps you might lead a campaign to see the concession stand die in favour of the quite effective and efficient method of movable feasts which we have used for years. While we reject the method, Vancouver is promoting it. Are we not comfortable in the role of leaders?
As for the conference centre or any other languishing asset, one should always look for ways to maximize utility. Why you want to leave it alone is beyond me. There is no evidence to suggest that it will ever fill its 220,000 square feet of space with conferences. Using 30-40,000 of those feet for a more productive use does not seem to me to be unreasonable.
IT is an industry but not the type you would have at Duke Point nor in an industrial park, and that was the type I personally don’t want. Equipment manufacture will not be a strong industry to have here as almost all product needs to be shipped. Madills survived because of the logging industry here on the island and when that died, so did Madills.
Ron, you haven’t even given the conference centre a chance to be a conference centre and you want to use it as something else. Give it some time. It is not going to get 365 dates for the complete center ever but it is getting more each passing month. If you need more square footage for useful ideas, the city has much more in inventory elsewhere.
In a further sign of the time, after a discussion that can only be described as chaotic, Council passed “Sign Amendment Bylaw 2010 No. 7081” dealing with LED signs, giving it all three readings. It was obvious that they did not wish to give any more thought to this matter after an incoherent clash of amendments over Development Variance Permit (DVP156-2-5779 Turner Road) involving an amendment to the amendment bylaw even before it was passed. To see this debacle for yourself go to:
http://www.nanaimo.ca/CouncilMeetings/VideoArchive.aspx?clip=C100913V
and look for matters at 7:18,7:30, 8:11, 8:38 and 9:49.
I believe that this will come back to haunt both them and us, as all attempt to maximize their exposure. Enjoy.
George: Just for the record, I have not advocated using all the conference centre space for something other than as a conference centre. I merely point out that an examination of the number of, and expected attendees at events scheduled does not come close to using more than a very small portion of the centre’s capacity. In my opinion this situation is not likely to change in the foreseeable future. Any business that ignores options offered by excess capacity does so at its peril.
As for industrial uses, I have suggested the possibility of a viable industrial assembly operation. I agree that steel mills or refineries are both unlikely and undesirable. But what kind of jobs do you propose for our high school graduates who cannot or do not go on to senior intellectual achievements, but need incomes that exceed those paid by the service industries on which we seem to be concentrating our efforts?
The problem with all the space not being used is partially to blame of not having the hotel component. I am reminded of buying a new car and finding out that a day/night rear view mirror, floor mats and the passengers side mirror were optional but I would enjoy the car better with them. Yep, folks might enjoy and BOOK the conference centre and use more of it if they had all the optional parts that we thought were part of the package.
This reminds me that because we do not have the hotel component, the conference center is not complete so we should still be eligible for some funding from the feds and province. Yah, Right.
I don’t know what kind of jobs they can do but then, if I did, I could be elected to council. Oh, wait, you don’t need all the answers you only need to convince others that you do.
So how about convincing voters that you have the answers and getting yourself elected?
Politics has been in my family for over half a century and it is not for me. I like my family too much.
I’m very supportive of and very encouraged by the Design Advisory Panel’s memo to Council —
Click to access scanned-open-council-agenda-october-4-2010.pdf
— opposing Boston Pizza’s application for an overhead/LED signage variance. It would be a dramatic improvement to the way the public’s business is conducted in this town if the advisory committees found the gumption to speak up on matters of principle. Well done DAP!