The Crescent Drive Affair

You should know that I make some tremendous sacrifices for you readers. Tonight for example I attended a community gathering hosted by OURS-Winnipeg co-chair Ron Mazur and Councillor Jenny Gerbasi regarding the future of the Crescent Drive Golf Course. And "Park" ... apparently.

Let me set the stage: There were no free cookies. The small meeting room at CanadInns south was packed with about 140 people, somewhat resembling a community gathering on The Simpsons. Person A: "It's like the City is setting the golf course up to fail." The rest of the room, all together: "Yup" "Setting up to fail" "She's right, it's a set up" "That's for sure". The median age was 60-70 years old and the general sentiment in the room was that Jenny Gerbasi was too pro-development.

During the meeting, Jenny took a lot of heat for voting for a nordic spa development on the site of the struggling golf course clubhouse and parking lot. The residents of the area were quite peeved that they were not consulted on the spa development ahead of time and therefore were not able to exercise their veto over such development matters, as enshrined in the unwritten Constitution Act of -insert person's name-'s Brain.

Ron Mazur was co-hosting as part of a new golf course-specific group called Crescent Park Rescue, in response to the City's request for expressions of interest in developing certain money-losing golf courses. If you haven't picked up on it yet, "park" and "golf course" were used interchangeably throughout the night. As far as I know Crescent Park is not in jeopardy and does not need to be rescued. In fact, at the meeting, Jenny announced that she will be putting forth a motion to pump $1 million into the park for repairs, and that Sam Katz was open to the idea.

Both Jenny and Ron mentioned that the vote of 2/3 of council is required to sell park land, and they were counting on certain votes to save this golf course. What they didn't seem to realize is that a golf course is not a park. I checked the City of Winnipeg web site just to make sure that the definition of a park is not "if it's green and doesn't have houses on it ..."  Sure enough, the definition is more traditional:

Park: Land that is privately or publicly held that has been developed for multiple recreational and leisure-time uses. This land benefits the entire community and balances the demands of the public for outdoor recreational facilities and other amenities, such as pathways, plazas, picnic areas, playgrounds, water features, spaces for free play and leisure.

A golf course does not fit this description at all. It is a single purpose development that does not have spaces for picnics and certainly not "free play"; although you may find water features. I asked Ron Mazur if he had checked the city's definition of "Park" and he had not. Somehow it was just assumed ...

Again, I want to point out that there were NO FREE COOKIES.

There was one guy wearing a Skeleton Canada t-shirt who attempted to be a voice of reason, and even dared to suggest that possibly one or two courses might need to be sold as an alternative to increasing taxes, but that did not go over well. (If you're reading this, Skeleton Canada guy, send me an email.)

There was a promise by Ron to keep fighting to save the park or golf course or whatever, and pleas from Jenny for people to show their support for her, and her lonely fight against the establishment at city hall. Other updates: apparently the nordic spa developer has applied for a development permit, which is good because the old clubhouse has already been torn down; and the golf course is in terrible condition.

Since the nordic spa developer is leveraging the golf course for it's business, I wonder if they bothered to respond to the city's call for expressions of interest in the golf course, to protect their .. you know .. interest? They do have a right of first refusal on the land, or something to that effect, but I'm not sure on the details of how that works. I did not get a chance to ask.

Almost two hours in and it was still dragging on. I had to leave. Next time I'm calling in advance to see if there will be cookies.

Schram Hockey

Back in high school we had a phys ed teacher named Schram. He had a first name, but nobody used it. Anyhow, one of almost every student's favourite activities during phys ed class was a sport we dubbed "Schram ball". The rules are as follows:

1. there is a net in opposite corners of the gym
2. put the ball in the other team's net

Those are the rules. You can kick the ball, throw the ball, carry the ball. You can body check, grab, tackle. Whatever you want. I suppose eye gouging was frowned upon, but there was no explicit rule against it.

I tell you this, because last night's game 7 Stanley Cup final was not unlike Schram Ball. It was not the same sport that the Canucks excelled at during the regular season. It was a slightly different sport. One where slashing, holding and interference were legal. Now, I am generally a fan of physical hockey and "letting them play", but you don't need dirty hockey to have an exciting game. The 2011 Winter Olympic final is a good example of that.

Set the tone early by chucking people who hold or interfere into the bin, and then pull back a bit and refrain from calling any marginal stuff. That gets you good hockey. You know, I'm not sure that Aaron Rome's hit that earned him a 4 game suspension would have even earned him a minor penalty last night.

And this is certainly no excuse for the rioting after the game. That unfortunate debacle could ruin the chances of us watching the Jets on the big screen at 201 Portage if they ever make a playoff run. However, when you get so far only to have the rules changed on you, it would be very aggravating. Especially when the new rules hurt your best players and favour the other team.

It was certainly a deliberate decision - one that the refs discussed prior to the game. Perhaps they even received direction from league VP of Hockey Operations Mike Murphy on how to call the game. The same Mike Murphy who suspended Rome for 4 games based not on precedent, but on a gut feeling. The same Mike Murphy who overturned a Canuck goal in the first round last year upon video review, then later admitted it was the wrong call -- according to this wiki article.

Whoever made the decision, it's something for the league's owners and new director of officiating to think about before next year's playoffs. (note: I am a little bit bitter because I was cheering for the Canucks, so you can take that into account. )

related local post: S&M

Yes the weather sucks ...

... but it could be worse:


I often check out the Environment Canada Satellite imagery to see how systems are moving around, and it seems like every time I look there is a massive storm passing through South Dakota. Just an observation.

By the way, I noticed that our sunny and 23 weekend is all of a sudden rainy and 17. Lovely.

An iPost for my eBlog

I am sure the folks at Apple pride themselves on being ahead of the curve with respect to technology, but they are in the stone ages when it comes to naming their products.

It was not always this way. Appple was one of the first companies to name a computer after a fruit, for example. But this practice of prefixing names with lower-case vowels has run it's course.

For their latest product, as you know, the cavemen in the Apple marketing departments chiseled out "iPad". Four years after Mad TV mocked that very same name, and three years after a Canadian Company named Coconut Grove started selling bra inserts (yes, ladies, pads for your bra) also with that very same name. Not to mention the hand-held inventory device by Fujitsu.

My opinion: Apple should go back to apples. I think "Gala" would have been a great name for their new tablet. Mind you, Gala would also be a great name for a product that makes your boobs look big.

Why we will never get another NHL team

No gloom in million-dollar CEO club

A half-dozen CEOs of Winnipeg-based firms cracked the seven-figure mark in total compensation.

Wow, a whole six CEOs! While the title of the story is meant to rile up hysteria about excessive salaries, and seems to be succeeding based on the comments on the web site, the "evidence" included in the column tells a whole different story: there is no money in Winnipeg.

Only publicly traded firms are included in this data, but even still there are only 25 CEOs who earn a large enough salary to rent a one room apartment and buy dog food for their shi tzu. That is a crazy small number for a city of this size, and to me this is indicative of an economic environment that stifles private investment and drives away corporate money and the types of jobs that support the arts, professional sports, boutique clothing stores, and other things that make city vibrant and exciting.

I suppose the lack of private wealth could be partially made up for by our public kingpins. It would be interesting to see comparison between these CEOs and the chiefs of our crown corporations: MB Hydro, MPI, WRHA, etc... I suppose, if I were to get off my ass and look, that data is probably out there somewhere.

Updates

Yesterday I wrote about Stephane Dion's odd quotes about NATO "helping" Pakistan secure it's border with Afghanistan. Today on the National, I just about pissed myself watching Mansbridge grill Dion about his remarks. Funny stuff. Watch it if you can. Apparently, the "option with the NATO forces" that he was referring to is the option of nicely asking Pakistan if they please wouldn't mind doing something with the insurgents in the mountains.

Two days ago I wrote about the city's water park proposal. Well, PolicyFrog has been doing some thinking too, and has some insights on the issue that are well worth checking out (as usual). I echo some of the Frog's apprehensions, and am slightly concerned that Katz's desire to see a big shiny waterpark added to his legacy as mayor may be the primary motivation behind this $7m contest. I should reserve judgement though, until I see how it pans out.

Woooooooooo.

Was at the gym the other day and caught a bit of WWE rasslin' on the tube in the dressing room. I have only one thing to say: How old and filled with chemicals does Ric Flair have to get before they stop calling him "Nature Boy"?

I've got a Schreiber in my poll

What do we make of this whole Schreiber / Mulroney / Harper thing that's been going on? Is this the big break that the Liberals have been waiting for? A new poll has come out showing that support for the Conservatives has dropped and Liberal support has spiked several points, especially in Ontario. Wow, with results like that the Liberals might be tempted to actually vote on a confidence motion in the House. Can they parlay this into lasting support? A minority government? A majority government? An airport named after Stephane Dion?

Of course, just a few days earlier, this poll came out:

"Prime Minister Stephen Harper is soaring as Canadians' top pick to lead the country, while Liberal Leader Stephane Dion has plunged to third spot behind the NDP's Jack Layton."

Contoversy in the Conservative camp does not make Stephane a good leader. The impact of this depends on how Harper responds. What's happening here is that a shady business man is fighting tooth and nail to keep his ass out of a German jail, and if he's going down he wants to take everybody else with him. The only thing connecting Harper to this mess (so far) is a 7-month old letter that NDP MP Pat Martin considered important enough to throw dierctly into the trash can. Harper has shown that he can navigate tricky situations and end up more popular then before. From his first day appointing unelected individuals to cabinet, to the same sex marriage debate, to his backtrack on Income Trusts. If I were Stephane, I would not get too excited. Unless the Liberals can form a cohesive party with a compelling platform, they're still going nowhere.

Keep our suburb clean!

I live in one of those ‘burbs with the man-made “lakes” amongst the houses. The ones that, this time of year, are like truck stops for geese, only the geese are noisier than trucks and shit all over the place. Anyhow, I was walking by one of these lakes yesterday when I noticed an older couple, most likely retired, strolling along the lake in a public space carrying plastic bags and picking up garbage.

Now I suppose it is possible that Mr. and Mrs. Whoever were actually performing community service for a B&E or auto theft, but I didn’t notice anybody supervising them. Plus, I don’t think the courts assign community service for those types of crimes anymore. I think you need to stab somebody to get community service, and these folks didn’t look like the blade-carrying types.

So, I am pretty sure they were doing it out of a sense of pride and responsibility to the community. Weird, huh? Well, it was good to see, and I am happy to have this couple living in my neighbourhood, so I just wanted to acknowledge their contribution to keeping our community clean and pleasant. Not like those bloody geese.