Posts filed under ‘media’
Adventures in personal lubricant
Don’t you hate when you finally find something long after you gave up looking for it? In this case it was an industrial size quantity of personal lubricant.
I worked on a TV movie called “Sorority Wars” a while back. One scene that took place in a nightclub called for a partygoer to barrel down a soapy slide into a pool of suds.
The foam party scene. Filmed at Sugar Night Club, Yates Street. I helped with some of the props and painted the big foam party sign.
The art director, wanting to ensure the stuntwoman didn’t end up with a head-to-toe rug burn declared that a vast stockpile of KY Jelly or similar product was essential and went about seeing if any Victoria drugstores carried lube in such quantities. I told him that I had no clue if it was sold by the jug although I confess that if I were aware you could buy bulk lube I probably would not have admitted it to the crew.
The search was fruitless, and he returned to set with a case of bubble bath, the next most agreeable substitute. The scene went as planned and the stunt went off without a hitch, after the stuntwoman determined that the run-up and slide would not actually be slippery enough to launch her straight over the pool into the stage Wile E. Coyote-style. You can see the finished scene here on YouTube by skipping to the 2:30 mark (safe for work–it’s not that type of movie).
Now, Nick Bergus alerts us to the fact that a massive drum of the slick product is available for sale at a reasonable cost, although the shipping would be killer.
One thing I learned working in movies is that if something is really needed, any reasonable effort will be made to get it. For example, I painted these plastic letters that were only on screen for a few seconds, seen from a distance. They were rushed to Victoria by float plane even though any local sign shop could have printed out a similar-looking banner for a fraction of the price.
So the moral is, always be inquisitive, as you never know when that knowledge will come in handy. And if you need a barrel of lube, try Amazon.
CBC’s “As It Happens” on boulevard camping
CBC’s national current affairs show As It Happens talks with me about Victoria’s proposed prohibition on boulevard camping.
As I Happens Part II: Windows Media File
Segment begins at 7:50.
Or listen to the podcast:
http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/asithappens_20100901_37596.mp3
TC: City might ban boulevard camping
City might ban boulevard camping, end Pandora Avenue tent city
By BILL CLEVERLEY, Timescolonist.com August 30, 2010 7:27 PM
The days could be numbered for the makeshift tent city outside the Our Place drop-in centre on Pandora Avenue.
Citing public safety concerns, city staff are recommending city council amend its streets and traffic bylaw to prohibit camping on city road allowances — in particular on boulevards and medians. In addition, the amendment would prohibit occupation of medians between sunset and sunrise the next day.
However, a certain amount of displacement is exactly what’s needed on Pandora right now, argued Robert Randall, chairman of the Downtown Residents Association.
“It will scatter some of the elements that are using that median,” Randall said. “We were talking this morning that it’s getting to be more than just campers. It’s turned into the drug supermarket of the region and all sorts of things that are just not compatible with social calm and order.”
I’m not sure I agree with Constable Pearce. I suspect enforcement of this bylaw will take up more police resources but I bow to the Constable’s expertise in these matters and hope it will not cost more than the millions of dollars already spent on this block. An unexpected side effect could be the dispersed campers could spend more time dwelling in our doorways and side alleys. Condo dwellers are already having to deal with discarded clothes and sleeping bags and human waste on their doorsteps on a daily basis.
Read my article on the bylaw on Vibrant Victoria: http://vibrantvictoria.ca/local-news/council-drafting-no-boulevard-camping-bylaw/
Globe: Victoria’s ‘tent city’ on verge of becoming public health hazard
Lack of hygienic facilities, group of injection-drug users pose potential risk, says B.C.’s chief medical health officer
Brennan Clarke
Victoria — From Saturday’s Globe and Mail Published on Friday, Aug. 27, 2010 8:46PM EDT
Two years ago, a landmark court ruling gave homeless people the right to pitch their tents in Victoria city parks. Now the province’s chief medical health officer says a bustling “tent city” made possible by that decision is on the verge of becoming a public health hazard.
“Any time you have a number of people camped together without hygienic facilities for a period of time there’s a potential for a health risk to those individuals,” Dr. Perry Kendall said.
Robert Randall, chairman of the Victoria Downtown Residents Association, said most nights this summer anywhere from 30 to 60 people have set up tents, tarps and makeshift shelters on the site, including a core group who have either refused shelter or been banned from Our Place.
The result has been an increase in violent crime, drug use, prostitution, used needles and discarded condoms.
“It’s become a drug-buying destination for the region, there are old blankets and sleeping bags and refuse everywhere and people are increasingly using the area as a toilet,” Mr. Randall said.
Similar problems occurred outside the former AIDS Vancouver Island needle exchange on Cormorant Street, less than three blocks from Our Place, Mr. Randall said.
The City is supposed to announce some sort of new initiative soon.
One thing no-one ever mentions is the welfare of the Our Place residents. Don’t they deserve a home where the front door is free from drug pushers? Do the most vulnerable members of our society have to push their way through a gauntlet of drugs just to get home?
Times Colonist: “Aim Pandora gripes at other governments, city councillor says”
Testy e-mail sent to businessman
By Bill Cleverley, Times Colonist August 7, 2010
Robert Randall, chairman of the Downtown Residents Association, hopes Thornton-Joe’s e-mail wasn’t an indication the city is giving up.
“I think we’re throwing in the towel a little soon by just throwing up our hands and saying it’s all in Gordon Campbell’s hands,” Randall said.
Randall believes there are steps that can be taken to stop the Pandora Avenue tent city from becoming a permanent fixture.
Some of the ideas that have been suggested are designating Pandora Green a provincial median which would prohibit anyone from using it to open up other areas of town to camping.
“Once the other neighbourhoods have a taste of what Pandora is experiencing, I think it would be a bit of a wake-up call,” he said.
I was cc’d all those emails, and Matthews ticked me off for refusing to complain to other levels of government. As if he thinks all City Council has to do is plead a little louder to the Province and Feds.
That said, I do think that there may be more things the City can do to break up the tent city and the associated drive-thru drug supermarket. One of the examples I mentioned in the above article was designating Pandora green as a Provincial median. That means no pedestrians allowed and would also reduce the risk of further traffic deaths like we’ve seen recently. Would I support that? No, I see it as a desperate last resort.
I sent Charlayne a letter of support last night after the story was published but I said that the closure of St. Andrew’s school will be a terrible blow to the area and I don’t think we could survive another one like that. This neighbourhood is really teetering on the edge.
Mat Wright asks:
Rob – correct me if this is wrong. Does the court ruling allowing camping say it is permissible only if shelter beds are not available?
What I know is that the Supreme Court ruling allowed camping if the number of homeless outnumbered the amount of shelter beds. However, the revised City of Victoria bylaw does not mention shelter beds, it only has a few restrictions: no daytime camping, not in certain parks or sports fields etc.)
Vic News: Downtown plan being drafted
By Roszan Holmen – Victoria News
Published: June 22, 2010 9:00 AM
Updated: June 22, 2010 9:48 AM
The downtown is a great place to live, said Robert Randall, chair of the Downtown Residents’ Association.
“New shops are opening all the time and new residential buildings are coming online meaning more choices,” he wrote in an e-mail to the News.
“The challenges continue to be related to social issues and making sure problems aren’t simply displaced from one district to another,” he added.
“The loss of St. Andrew’s school and the Village Marketplace (on Pandora Avenue) remind us that when social problems are ignored and businesses falter it has the potential to create a dead zone that takes years to recover from.”
Buy-in from every department is a big concern, Randall added.
“For instance, is the engineering department looking at innovative solutions regarding sewage in Harris Green which is already at capacity? If this area is Victoria’s new high-density neighbourhood we need more than just dreaming from the planning department. Our half-billion dollar infrastructure deficit is a big roadblock to achieving these goals.”
TC: Drug use, camping spiralling out of control on Pandora, businesses and residents say
Article in Saturday’s Times Colonist about the problems on Pandora Avenue. People ask me what should be done (or what I would do).
“It’s like a cancer that grows. We are at that tipping point right now,” says Rob Randall, chairman of the Downtown Residents Association.
Victoria police Insp. Jamie Pearce, who heads the city’s focused enforcement team, says the 900-block of Pandora — bordered by Quadra Street and Vancouver Street — accounts for more of his officers’ time than any other area of the city.
He says drug arrests are made daily and people are regularly ticketed for things like public urination, but as far as camping on the grassy stretch in front of Our Place is concerned, their hands are tied.
“They’re allowed to be there,” says Pearce. “The appeal court has actually said that camping in parks is legal and they are allowed to do so and that is designated as a park area.”
Many of the problems on the street involve 20 to 25 individuals, a number of whom have been banned from Our Place yet continue to hang around in the area because it’s a focal point for street people. They’re well known to police and regularly cycle through the justice system, landing back on the street.
“It’s a very complex social issue,” Pearce says. “We’re talking mental health, addictions and homelessness issues that we’re dealing with at the crux of the issue. You’re not seeing this in any other part of town. Unfortunately, it’s now centralized.”
Randall is sympathetic to the police and agrees that in many respects they are caught between a rock and a hard place, but warns the 900-block of Pandora is dangerously close to being lost.
“I think there is a push to ghettoize it and make that the dumping ground for all the city’s social problems,” Randall says, adding a VIHA proposal to put a fixed needle exchange in the block, which was subsequently quashed, “would have been the last straw in writing off that whole neighbourhood.”
“The people who think that was merely NIMBY concerns are simply not understanding the issue and the dynamics of how a neighbourhood changes,” he says.
As it is, the combination of Our Place, the provincial Ministry of Housing and Social Development — which delivers income assistance — and a pharmacy dispensing methadone within the same block has the neighbourhood teetering on the brink of “total oblivion,” Randall says.
The most evil part of all this is that the more the City does to fix homelessness, the more the other levels of government offload their responsibilities.
In addition to more treatment and housing, we need a community court system so that criminal activity can be dealt with–instead of ignoring it. It will work here.
Monday Magazine: Place your bets
Posted By: Jason Youmans
06/02/2010 8:00 AM
With councillor Sonya Chandler’s announcement she’ll be leaving City Hall at the end of August, let’s get right down to some old-fashioned speculation about who might run to replace her.
Monday caught up with the top three runners up from the November 2008 election to determine who might take another kick at the electoral can. They were Rob Randall, Wayne Hollohan and Rose Henry.
Randall, first runner-up last time around, says he’s already networking with people to determine whether they will back him at the polls.
“I’m in the process of speaking with folks who follow civic matters and if I feel that there’s enough support there, including a lot of the kind folks that supported me last time and some new folks too, I think I might just take a stab at it,” says Randall.
Wayne Hollohan—in addition to consulting his family to see how they feel about it—wants to know whether the federal and provincial political electoral machines that helped push certain candidates over the top last time around will be sticking their noses in Victoria’s upcoming by-election too.
“At the last election, things were going quite well up until the point that the federal MP endorsed a slate, and that really kind of destroyed the efforts of a lot of the other people who were running,” he says. “It’s almost like you either have to endorsed by the NDP or the Green Party right now to stand a chance of getting into office.”
Anti-poverty activist Rose Henry finished 300 votes behind Hollohan in 2008 and says she’s joining the race for sure.
“My commitment to Victoria has not changed over the past few months,” she wrote in an e-mail. “I just wished that I could have had the honor of being on council with Sonya. I believe she brought with her to the council table a lot of representation from the youth and health community.”
Stay tuned to find out if the Team Dean election machine fires up again to draft another sympathetic member for the council ranks.
I’ve been getting some good honest feedback the past week from people who would like to see me run in the Civic By-election this Fall. I’m taking the suggestion quite seriously.
St. Andrew’s Elementary to close
By Robert Randall
A version of this article originally appeared on Vibrant Victoria.
St. Andrew’s Elementary School, at Pandora Avenue and Vancouver Street, will close. Photo © by St. Andrew’s Elementary School.
St. Andrew’s Elementary, a fixture in Victoria’s North Park neighbourhood for decades, will shut its doors and amalgamate with St. Joseph’s school on Burnside Road according to a statement by the Bishop of the Diocese of Victoria, Richard Gagnon.
The announcement, part of a briefing outlining a new strategic plan for Victoria Catholic schools, comes three years after the closure of another urban Christian school, the Greater Victoria Christian Academy. The GVCA had classrooms in The Church of Our Lord in the Humboldt Valley and Central Baptist Church on Pandora Avenue until 2007. The school faced declining enrollment linked to parental concerns about social problems surrounding the needle exchange on Cormorant Street, a block north of Central Baptist.
St. Andrew’s principal Keefer Pollard denies the move is precipitated by the street community that gravitates toward the 900 block of Pandora and Harris Green, saying the school’s mandate is to respond to the needy. St. Andrews participates in the Pandora Green Good Neighbour Association and is an active participant in improving conditions in Harris Green and North Park.
Pollard cites declining enrollment as one factor in the decision to close the school, saying both St. Andrew’s and St. Patrick’s (located in Victoria’s Jubilee neighbourhood) have too many empty seats and are unable to balance their budgets. Saanich’s St. Joseph’s, on the other hand, is at capacity with 200 seats. A planned expansion in five years will double the current number of students at St. Joseph’s.
St. Andrew’s, rated highly in the C.D. Howe Institute’s rankings of local schools is located at 1002 Pandora Avenue, in a 1931 heritage building. The building is not seismically upgraded to current standards, a point of great concern to Pollard and one he feels will be rectified by a move to a new state-of-the-art facility.
Left unanswered is the question of what happens to the school building when it is vacated in five years. Owned by the Roman Catholic Diocese, the property encompasses the main school building, an annex containing a gymnasium, a playground and playing fields. The Diocese will begin a series of consultations with parents, teachers, the Catholic community and other stakeholders over the next several years before coming to a decision on the fate of the property.
The school made headlines in 2008 when it spearheaded a protest against the Vancouver Island Health Authority’s bid to relocate the Cormorant Street needle exchange to the former St. John’s Ambulance building at 941 Pandora, a short distance from school grounds. The neighourhood, already reeling from an increase in social disorder exacerbated by a high concentration of social services in the area, was chosen as the new location for the exchange in a surprise move that caught parents, residents and business owners off guard. Many felt the addition of a needle exchange so soon after the Cormorant Street debacle would be the tipping point that would lead to an irrevocable change for the worse.
Copyright © 2010 by VibrantVictoria.ca.
Madrona Farm buyout nears deadline
An article I wrote for Vibrant Victoria.
Madrona Farm buyout nears deadline
Madrona Farm is a few days away from the end of a $2.5 million fundraising campaign aimed at purchasing the property. If all goes according to plan, the Land Convervancy will own the farm which will in turn be leased back to the Chambers. This, claims Nathalie, is the best way of securing the farm’s future as an ecological reserve and agricultural food source, going beyond mere inclusion in the Agricultural Land Reserve. Chambers cites examples of local ALR farmland used as hobby farms, “gentlemen farms” and vineyards; large estates with little, if any food production.
The farm, a 12-minute drive from Downtown Victoria, is one of the few remaining working farms left in Gordon Head, a Saanich neighbourhood that
has been extensively developed with single-family homes over the past half-century (aerial photo).
Click for full article.
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