Poverty

The mayor-elect Ivan Court wants to tackle poverty. Good on him. According to News 889, Court plans to work with housing and poverty groups under a Mayor's task force to address poverty issues. Hopefully after this next 4 years serious improvements have started.

Our outgoing mayor was an advocate for housing, hopefully the new mayor will use his term to continue improving the services provided to the poor of the city.

Saint John deserves it

So Ivan Court appears to be the incoming mayor.

His "tough on business" stance could easily be a real headache to the energy boom and could very well cause the paper mills to pack up and leave town.

The two things I like about Ivan are that he is very ethical (I think his motives are pure, he and I just disagree on where the city should be going) and that he was not one of the councilors who opposed the North of Union development.

Ivan good luck.

At least Hooton is gone! This isn't to say Hooton couldn't have done a good job, but I would hate to see the Telegraph Journal succeed in swaying the electorate with horribly skewed election coverage.

Mixed feeling regarding medical school building

I was excited to read earlier this evening that a local business person has offered a building to the province for use for the local medical school (which needs a building before it can open).

I then got a knot in my stomach when I read he was doing this as a political statement with our Deputy Mayor Michelle Hooton at his side. Hooton is running for mayor against incumbent Norm McFarlane who is very supportive of the medical school and against Ivan Court the councilor who has worked on the health portfolio. Not only is she an odd choice for that, Ms. Hooton ran a nasty campaign against the current Minister of Post-Secondary Education when she was supposed to be acting as deputy mayor.

Hopefully this offer is legitimate and Hooton's sorted political past won't put a taint on this if the idea is a good one.

Nasty

Politics in town are getting very nasty.

I was driving to pick up a friend after work today and heard an ad saying "Do not vote Stephen Chase." This wasn't just "be aware of the issues" or "beware of Stephen Chase's ideas" it was directing people on who to not vote for. I was surprised. Chase has a pretty complete platform at his website. His opponents are most upset with his plans to consider public-private partnerships for water treatment.

"Journalists" and the election

I have a theory that started becoming clear when I listened to the CBC this morning featuring a "journalist" giving her opinions of the upcoming mayoral election.

The theory flies in the face of the conspiracy theorists that think the Irving Empire is using a newspaper it owns to sway voters in a certain direction. The theory is this: when a chardonnay sipping elitist out of touch candidate runs for mayor, journalists will support her because she is their kind of people.

Even if the publisher of the local paper was trying to win an election for a candidate, when that candidate goes to the same gallery openings and laughs the same forced laugh as the sort of people writing our news, it can't be very hard for him to convince them.

I know several journalists and at least one of them is a hardworking honest person, however; I think it is time for reporters to report and editors to steer conversations in the way of public interest. I don't think the news should always be unbiased, but I think the bias has to go toward something and someone far greater than the personal taste of journalists.

When in Rome do as the Vandals

Generally whenever I am told that if one doesn't vote that he or she has no right to protest I feel the need to respond that the opposite logic must hold; if one doesn't protest he or she shouldn't get to vote. I don't agree with either of these extremes, but I think the same logic is in both: to participate in any element of democracy you have to participate in all.

I respect protesting and non-institutional expression as well as traditional expression of discontent with politicians and the political system, still I don't know if thuggish vandalism is something I can get behind.

I noticed today at the entrance of Rockwood Park that two mayoral candidates' signs appeared to have been plucked from the ground, while other signs seemed untouched. Expressing oneself by putting up signs or changing the messages of signs is one thing - it adds to the expressive landscape and dialogue, but removing someone else's signs doesn’t add it subtracts.

This is not the way to win an election or a strong way of getting a point across.

Add to the discourse, don't take from it.

Less Poverty

I saw this story on the Country 94 news blog and thought it was a good sign.

[STATS CANADA DATA SHOWS POSITIVE SIGN FOR POVERTY]
18:49:04

POVERTY LEVELS IN SAINT JOHN ARE SHOWING IMPROVEMENT. NEW DATA FROM STATS CANADA SHOWS AN IMPROVEMENT IN BOTH THE LOWER SOUTH END AND OLD NORTH END. THE PER CENTAGE OF PEOPLE LIVING BELOW THE POVERTY LINE HAS DROPPED FROM 27 PER CENT IN 1996 TO 20.8 PER CENT IN 2006. URBAN RESEARCHER WITH UNBSJ, KURT PEACOCK, TELLS CHSJ NEWS THE NEWS ISN'T SO GOOD FOR THE CROWN STREET AREA. THE 2006 STATS SHOW PEOPLE LIVING THERE ARE ACTUALLY POORER THAN THEY WERE FIVE YEARS AGO.

PEACOCK SAYS THE GENERALLY POSITIVE DATA IS A RESULT OF THE GROWING ECONOMY IN SAINT JOHN.

Saint John Graffiti

I have a new blog at http://sjgraffiti.blogspot.com that features pictures of various graffiti around the city that catches my eye. I think a lot of it is neat and adds to the make up of the public landscape and discourse.