Councillor sour on trip to Sweden

[Will]

Halifax city hall should not send a full delegation on a study tour of Sweden, a veteran regional councillor said Saturday.

And Coun. Linda Mosher (Purcells Cove-Armdale) isn’t too happy with the way senior municipal staff brought details of the "junket," planned for October, to the attention of Halifax regional council.

Most councillors learned of the trip through an internal email sent to them after The Chronicle Herald contacted a city staffer Friday afternoon to ask about the administration’s plans.

"The purpose of the tour is to expose staff, key decision-makers, local developers and consultants to excellent examples of sustainability in action," the email says. "Participants will be able to see first-hand what a sustainable community looks and feels like."

About a half-dozen employees of Halifax Regional Municipality and at least one councillor are to be joined by private-sector representatives and Dalhousie University staff looking at sustainable environment issues in Sweden. The group will be in the country for about 10 days.

City hall intends to issue a release on the trip early this week.

Ms. Mosher said the fact-finding journey to various Swedish communities, at a cost of about $20,000, is unnecessary for many municipal officials. She said that at most perhaps two city employees should go.

Why do we even have an elected council? Staff makes the rules, runs the city....

[oogie-v2.0]

Send the mayor , chief city planner , and perhaps a few deserving high school students instead.

[Will]

Meanwhile, back at sewage central, the crap is still floating in the harbour...

[oogie-v2.0]

Council as a whole got us into this mess - be damned if they all get sent on a trip.

That's why I am saying we send the students - hopefully they can learn from the mistakes and make a better future for the region.

[Angie]

The first thing I thought when I heard this on the radio this morning was that she was just pissed off because she wasn't going.

[Gravitas]

The first thing I thought when I heard this on the radio this morning was that she was just pissed off because she wasn't going.

Me too. The focus of the exchange is sustainability. Something at which Halifax sucks, and at which Sweden (with the same climate-related challenges) excels. It's a good investment, and I think her complaints are just sour grapes.

[GreyEyes]

What I want to know is why our council feel it necessary to travel to any other city in order to find out how to do their own jobs. Why are our council members too stupid to be able to figure this out on their own? Successful sustainability can be achieved obviously. So did the people of Swedish municipalities have to travel elsewhere to learn how to do it? Or did they just figure it out on their own?

[TimO]

GE,

Some of us are not stupid. In fact, some of us are educated, experienced, successful, and well-traveled. LOL

That being said, this issue should have come to council prior to being announced, and I believe that we should be sending a SMALLER group. These trips can be useful, and $25K out of a $700M budget is fairly small. I expect those participating to provide a full report to those left behind!

Through my work at novaknowledge, we have investigated how HRM and NS are doing with solid waste diversion. We have actually done a pretty good job of it and we should be proud. We are presently finalizing a novaknowledge Report Card on the subject of agricultural sustainability in NS.

My first reaction to the Swedish story, was that some provincial representation would also be worthwhile on the tour. We are a small in both population and geographic size, so the province and regions must work together.

Best,
Tim

[GreyEyes]

Sorry Tim, I should have been more specific and named the names of those I feel are the stupid ones. Your name wouldn't have come up simply because I still don't know a lot about you yet...

But really, I don't see a whole lot of progress in the HRM despite reams of studies and reports and commissions and fact-findings.

[TimO]

I share your frustration with reports, and I hope to stay off your stupid list!!

Cheers

[kp]

Just more evidence of HRMs spending problem. Cut budgets 20% across the board. We ratepayers are tired of this neverending profligate waste.

[haggis]

Tim O-agricultural sustainability in this case would mean spreading poorly composted chemical laden HRM sewer by products on farmer's fields now that the cost of fertilizer has tripled right?  If not can you please expand on your thoughts?  You sound like a pretty reasonable guy and I hope you can answer my questions.  Thanks.

[TimO]

Hello Haggis,

What we are looking at for the novaknowledge report card is how green are the practices and systems used by NS farmers. I am familiar with the pilot project in which human waste was used as fertilizer, but we are not discussing that pilot nor are we advocating for it. Have a look at www.novaknowledge.ns.ca.

In the past we have done report cards on immigration, workforce issues, access to venture capital, education, and the environmental economy. So, it is a bit of a step out of the box for us ...other than there is some overlap with our work with innovation and the environmental or green colar economy.

We wanted to do a report on the state of agriculture in NS (ie, 2 days of food in the province, and 70% of farmers now have jobs off the farm to supplement their income) but government wouldn't fund it!

[haggis]

Thanks Tim.  Why should the government fund such a report?  If you tap into the right source people are normally happy to share their knowledge and help construct such reports.  People like Dirk van Loon, DvL Publishing.  Is he a member of novaknowledge?  Yes I have already read through the website. 

OCNS-Organic Council of NS

Personally I think that NS has gone past the point of being able to sustain our ag industry.  Too much bureaucracy,  too much fertile land has been lost,  too many farmers are broken. 

[TimO]

Unfortunately, you may be right.