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UPDATE: Jody Paterson examines our outdated laws on prostitution in an Op-Ed piece in today’s Times Colonist.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

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

I weigh in on public urination and the opinions flow.

I was asked about the revised urinal idea on C-FAX today (it’s also today’s poll), specifically if I thought it discriminated against women.

I said first that there are devices that would allow women to use a urinal but really it is the fratboy/lager lout crowd that is primarily responsible for the unacceptable behaviour downtown. I was also asked whether this was catering to law-breakers (Murray Langdon’s editorial) but I pointed out that in daytime there are many washroom opportunities but practically nothing at night, so it’s a needed service.

Phillipe Lucas appeared via phone and he thought public toilets should take into account the disabled and parents with babies (but that adds another level of complication in my mind). I don’t think you need any special apparatus to change a baby in public and I seriously doubt any parent would take a baby into a urinal even if it came equipped with a change table.

Rob on C-FAX

Thursday, April 9 from 12:30 to 1 p.m., I’ll be a panelist on the Ryan Price show on C-FAX 1070 AM talking about random Downtown things. Click the link to listen live.

Taylor Report? What the hell is the Taylor Report?!

I really wanted to use the Interrobang in the title above.

The existence of the heretofore unknown “Taylor Report” has tongues a-wagging amongst the local community Associations. I’ve discussed the Cuff Report in previous posts but we assumed the relationships Victoria’s Community Associations have with City Hall and the development community would have been discussed the the Cuff Report which was released early in March. At that time we were told that CA concerns were addressed in the Cuff Report spinoff. Even the media weren’t aware of this Taylor Report until that morning’s briefing.

We understand the Taylor Report will be released early in April. I look forward to seeing a frank disclosure of the inner workings between the community and the Planning Department.

The old Mozart lot (Yates St.)

The former Mozart site in the 700 block Yates St. has been an eyesore for years. Currently little more than a drained swamp, the site was supposed to be a mixed use (office/residential/retail) building. Council, in a rare fit of generosity, granted the then-ailing former realtor and long-time arts supporter Eric Charman permission to construct a substantial and unique building. Charman recovered but the economics of the project took a turn for the worse and Charman sold the property to Concert Properties, ending his 20-year dream of constructing a “Mozart tower”.

It appears Concert has done some lot consolidation as they now plan to expand the site all the way to Millie’s Lane (aka Odeon Alley) in order to construct an 11 storey office tower. The businesses that currently occupy the one-storey building along the alley were shocked to receive notice from the City about the DRA-sponsored community meeting regarding this proposal. They were dismayed that they didn’t learn of this through the landlord (many of these businesses have multi-year leases).

The public meeting will be at 1740 Douglas on March 23, 7 pm. This will be an opportunity for neighbours to learn about the proposal and its implications for the neighbourhood.

MetroCascade

MetroCascade is live. This Victoria-based aggregator should be part of your daily read.