Late Night…Great Night

The City of Victoria released the findings of its Task Force looking into the problem of late night rowdyism in Downtown. Headed by Mayor Fortin, Councillor Thornton-Joe and Chief Graham, they took a wide-ranging look at the causes and solutions of public disorder caused primarily by over consumption of alcohol.

The report can be downloaded from the City’s website.

As I said to Monday Magazine:

Downtown Residents’ Association president Rob Randall feels his organization’s concerns were listened to and incorporated into the report.

“We’re optimistic that we’re going to see a concerted effort to follow up on it, to really follow through on the things we can do, like the taxi stands and the busses . . . and to keep hammering away on those things that we don’t really have control over, like the fines for liquor.”

The need for more liquor inspectors giving more frequent inspections is another thing the Province will have to help with. BC Transit and the taxi commission also will play a big role.

The most interesting thing I heard at the press conference Monday was Chief Graham’s explanation of a more “welcoming” police presence. It’s thought that mere enhanced enforcement is not as effective as simply having a police presence that appears non-threatening. The chief said that in Vancouver, his former domain, several officers from England (specifically Manchester) have been hired recently. These new officers brought with them an alternate way of dealing with the late night crowd that made use of the officer’s gift for verbally diffusing potentially difficult situations. In addition, simply walking the beat and making eye and verbal contact with bar-goers ensured that police interaction with the public was more than just wading into melees and breaking up fights.

This is not to say they will go soft. On the contrary, police (with the help of reserve officers) will actively enforce bylaws and hand out tickets and deal with troublemakers, and with four new dedicated Downtown cops they will have the manpower to follow through. But their role will be more than just showing up after the trouble starts.

I be on C-FAX today, November 19, at 12:30-1 p.m. discussing the report.

Victoria to bid for 2014 Juno awards?

A dozen or so local biz-types are discussing the possibility of putting together a bid to host the 2014 Junos. Vancouver hosted them this year and it was a great success by all accounts.

Not merely an awards show, these days the Junos are a week-long celebration of Canadian music where national acts and local musicians find audiences at the numerous stages and venues while insiders and spectators take in the party atmosphere. This year’s celebration included the Westjet Party Tent–a block-long covered street closed to traffic and open to revelers.

Can Victoria pull it off? St. John’s will and they also have a relatively small arena for the awards. It’s true that it is usually held in larger sports stadiums like GM Place and the Saddledome but word is that the Vancouver show was far from a sell-out even at reduced prices. So Victoria can promise an intimate venue packed with enthusiastic fans. The loss of potential ticket revenue will have to be made up in other ways. Perhaps more second stage venues.

How much cash do we need to round up to get the ball rolling? Probably up to two million dollars.

I believe Victoria can pull this off and it will be a success. We have fond memories of the ‘94 Commonwealth Games as well as the numerous concerts on the Legislature lawn over the years that drew thousands. It will be something to anticipate following the inevitable post-Olympic letdown. I want to make sure this great opportunity doesn’t pass us by.

Victoria Vice [updated]

Victoria Police and PEERS did separate canvassing to determine the number of underage sex workers on the Downtown stroll.

Two former sex-workers conducted the survey at various locations and times in the first week of September. They finished the second part of the survey last week.

“It’s been the last while that it’s really skyrocketed,” said Kelly Ransome, 32, a night outreach worker and former sexually exploited youth.

But Victoria police only found two underage youth in a three-week survey they conducted from Aug. 14 to Sept 4.

Both were between 16 and 18 years old.

The numbers don’t agree but both would concur that there are sex workers under the age of 19 working Victoria’s streets. This comes on the heels of the recent conviction of a customer who killed a Duncan-born prostitute in Vancouver. Meanwhile we seem to be no closer to improving life on the streets for sex workers. B.C. prostitutes remain prey for the disturbed, whether it be the simple-minded pig farmer or the international billionaire.

Maybe it’s time to look seriously at Victoria artist Bob Wise’s The Office: A Portable Amenity Kiosk for Female Outdoor Sex Workers.

I discussed Amsterdam’s experiment with cracking down on “vice” here.

UPDATE: Jody Paterson examines our outdated laws on prostitution in an Op-Ed piece in today’s Times Colonist.

Sex work is legal in Canada, yet everything required for a sale to take place is illegal — location, marketing, even the earnings. That renders the work just legal enough for men to be able to acquire paid sex anytime they like in any city, and just illegal enough to continue the pretense that Canadian society is hard at work trying to eradicate prostitution. What exactly IS the purpose of laws like that?
[...]
Read the research. Prostitution doesn’t increase when it’s decriminalized, because it’s already so well-entrenched in every community that there’s no increase in demand just because it’s legal. All the men who buy sex are already buying it.

Troubled bridge over waters

I attended tonight’s special Council meeting on choosing one of the three options for replacing the Johnson Street Bridge.

The event was anti-climactic as only a few hours before, word came that the anticipated funding was not coming.

Fortin vowed to plow ahead regardless, saying any delay would be costly, using the example of the Burnside Gorge Community Centre.

Councillor Hunter highlighted the maintenance problems with the current bridge, mentioning in particular the “obsolete” electric motors. Folks, those motors were presumably built the year Lenin died. The fact that they have lasted so long is an engineering miracle. They have paid for themselves many times over and the fact that we are debating the hardy motors’ usefulness in the year 2009 is astounding. I do agree they need to be replaced. Now, I don’t know if the motors currently powering the bridge are special but a quick Internet search brings up the fact that ordinary heavy-duty 100 h.p. motors cost well under $10,000. It’s comparable to scrapping a car because the old oil filter is dirty.

Hunter also said that the full $63 million cost of the bridge could be paid for without a tax increase, supposedly because of the City’s borrowing power. But it should be noted that this would come at a profound cost. How would this affect other needed projects like the Crystal Pool or new Central Library? Kudos to Councillor Madoff for pointing out that borrowing will indeed impact other needs.

Councillor Young said the City should enlist an engineer with an interest in preserving the bridge to report to Council. This brought an angry rebuke from Mayor Fortin that City of Victoria engineers are unbiased. However, this will not quell discussion that the current dismal state of the bridge is in part due to deferred maintenance. Was Engineering’s efforts to properly maintain the JSB hamstrung by years of stingy City Councils? Or has Engineering been seduced by the once-in-a-career opportunity to build a true world-class bridge?

Councillor Chandler deserves praise for criticizing the poor quality of the bridge renderings, especially the ones on the web. It was only at tonight’s meeting that a more diverse range of drawings were presented. Still, as they appear on the Internet, the renderings are too small to be of much use.

In the end, Council sided with the Community Advisory Committee and chose the Rolling Bascule version (version 2). I concur. It is the design most sympathetic to the Upper Harbour’s industrial aesthetic.

Urinal finally installed

The long awaited permanent urinal was installed this week in Downtown Victoria at the corner of Pandora and Government Streets. I’ve written about this long saga in earlier posts but in short, the automatic pop-up urinals were deemed impractical and a modernized European-style “pissoir” was installed instead.

Time will tell if they are a success. Are they too exposed? Are they in an area that gets enough traffic?

Is the Johnson Street Bridge a “beater”?

Many of us have owned beater cars. A beater is not necessarily a car that needs a lot of repairs. Heck, a Ferrari needs constant maintenance. A beater is a car that has passed the point where preventative maintenance is cost-effective. The owner of a beater acknowledges that the car is on its last legs and only does enough basic maintenance (fluids, filters etc.) to keep the car running until it’s finally sent to the scrapyard.

Back in April, Mayor Dean Fortin said,

“Do we spend $25-to-$30 million to rehabilitate a bridge that in 40 years we’re going to have to replace and spend another $50 million, or do you spend $35-to-$40 million to have a bridge that lasts 100 years? It’s a difficult place to be.”

Now the figure is $63 million including a healthy contingency fund. But why is the bridge a beater? It was only ten years ago that the City said the newly-refurbished bridge had “several more decades” of useful life left in it (providing follow-up rustproofing and painting was done).

Well, it turns out that crucial maintenance was never done. Why? City Engineers Mike Lai and Peter Sparanese told a special meeting of the DRA Board Monday evening that wrapping the bridge (to protect the waters from lead paint) was too expensive, time-consuming and difficult. The Upper Harbour is host to vital ship repair operations and the bridge itself is an important commuter link that can’t be off limits during the time the bridge is repaired and painted (although it apparently wasn’t problematic to close the bridge for a week to film a Alicia Silverstone movie).

Obviously, at some point in the last decade City Hall (Council, staff or both) decided the bridge was past the point of no return. Tough (and necessary) new environmental regulations meant that the old way of painting the bridge is impossible and the allowable method was impractical. So why was this a surprise in the year 2009? Citizens should have been informed as soon as it became known that the bridge was essentially irreparable in order that replacement funding could be planned and budgeted. Mayor Fortin has been at the Council table since 2002. I would be interested in knowing whether this repainting dilemma was ever brought to Council’s attention during that time.

Is the Johnson Street Bridge a beater? It sure is now.

Johnson Street Bridge

I attended a meeting of the JohnsonStreetBridge.org group tonight. Headed by Ross Crockford, Yule Heibel and Mat Wright, they offer sober second thought regarding the rush to replace the venerable and iconic Johnson Street Bridge. You can read more about the meeting by reading the live blog record at the site:

http://johnsonstreetbridge.org/

Ross brought up some questions the City will need to answer. Like why hasn’t the heritage assessment been made public? Why hasn’t the cost of rehabilitating the existing bridge been broken down separate from the total cost? How realistic is the construction timeline? Will it be completed before March 31, 2011 when the government funding turns into a pumpkin? In that scenario, will Victoria have to pay back the two-thirds cost? Would taxpayers be on the hook for the entire $63+ million? Why wasn’t this payback scenario explained in the Spring when Victoria applied for the grant?

The City is going full-steam-ahead on this project despite the lack of public consultation. Recall that the Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre went to a referendum and that a simple cookie-cutter arena that cost half of what the bridge is supposed to cost. Recall also that the arena went way over budget and was months overdue.

Vic News: Needle Exchange location eyed

Victoria News
Needle exchange location eyed
By Roszan Holmen – Victoria News

Published: July 31, 2009 4:00 PM
Updated: July 31, 2009 4:12 PM

A building in the Burnside-Gorge neighbourhood has been singled out as the frontrunner for a new fixed needle-exchange site.

An agreement looks promising for the new pilot project, said Robert Randall, a member of the needle exchange advisory committee.

It’s been 14 months since the needle exchange on Cormorant Street closed. Ever since, the Vancouver Island Health Authority has been on the lookout for a replacement building.

Resistance from landlords has been a major reason why alternative sites fell through, Randall said. The landlord in the Burnside-Gorge building, however, likes the idea. “He supports the idea of harm reduction … To find a landlord OK with this is pretty amazing,” Randall said.

VIHA confirmed that one landowner has come forward with a proposal to house the facility.

“It’s our hope that this will be a viable location,” spokesperson Shannon Marshall said.

But work still needs to be done, she said.

First, the advisory committee needs to make a recommendation. Next, the broader community will be consulted.

Randall confirmed the potential site is in an industrial area.

Ideally, he said, the new location would be downtown, but that’s not realistic given budget cuts at VIHA and high lease rates in the core.

rholmen@saanichnews.com

Find this article at:
http://www.bclocalnews.com/vancouver_island_south/victorianews/news/52222537.html

Needle Exchange Update

VIHA has identified a potential new location for a fixed needle distribution site. It’s in the Burnside-Gorge neighbourhood just north of the Downtown border on Princess Street.

Members of the DRA have been part of VIHA’s Needle Exchange Advisory committee and its spin-off, the Site Selection Subcommittee. We find that this site–while far from perfect–meets many of the requirements a successful needle exchange needs.

The Times Colonist reports on it here, although it weighs heavily on the opinions expressed by members of SOLID (Society of Living Intravenous Drug users). It should be noted that the spokesperson for SOLID may not necessarily reflect the views of the SOLID Board or membership, let alone the opinions of Victoria’s drug users.

In a July 23 letter to the Vancouver Island Health Authority’s Needle Exchange Advisory Committee, a group calling itself SOLID — Society for Living Intravenous Drug Users — said a proposed site on Princess Street was inappropriate. No address was given.

The letter, a copy of which was obtained by the Times Colonist, said the area is known to drug users as “extremely dangerous and violent due to street gang activity,” and any attempt at extra policing would only scare away needle-exchange clients.

The area is a few steps away from Government Street’s prostitute stroll. I’m not aware of any other extraordinary “gang” activity here and I’m certain the Vic PD would agree.

SOLID, listed as a member of the Needle Exchange Advisory Committee, also said that the site was too far from downtown services, buildings were badly maintained and unsuitable for a health service and current tenants would have to be displaced.

The site is relatively close to needed services. The compactness of Downtown Victoria gives the illusion of being far. Superimpose Victoria’s services onto a map of Vancouver or any other large city and the distances appear much closer.

The houses need minimal upgrades to meet requirements according to VIHA–not much more than was done at their comparable Nanaimo exchange.

It’s true that current tenants will be displaced but the landlord assures us accomodation will be made at his other properties. Still, there would be a net loss of low-income housing.

The letter argues 941 Pandora Ave., the site of the old St. John’s Ambulance Society, is still the best site for a needle exchange.

But the exchange, and the accompanying drug trade, would destabilize the 900 block Pandora which is already at critical mass for chaos. The residents (including Our Place) deserve a home free from public disorder.

900 Block Pandora GNA

Times Colonist photo

This afternoon at the Victoria Conservatory of Music I (on behalf of the DRA) signed a Good Neighbour Agreement for the 900 block of Pandora. Other signees included VIHA, the VCM, Our Place, The City of Victoria, the North Park Neighbourhood Association and some of the retailers along the block, including McDonald’s. The Times Colonist reports here.

It was several months in the making and we hope it will help open lines of communication in this busy block.

Any Good Neighbour Agreement isn’t a magic bullet. Many things need to happen to ensure safety and vibrancy in a neighbourhood and a GNA is only a small part.

It does mean that everyone in the block takes some responsibility for ensuring the health of the street, from sidewalk cleaning to informing neighbours and police about criminal activity.