There is an article in today’s edition of the Telegraph-Journal (T-J) that includes a look back on the year that was with the new Saint John Common Council.  The councillors had a great deal of patting on the back for some key issues (more power to deal with vacant/derelict buildings, water treatment, Long Wharf), noticeable lack of mention for some moves (the laughable property tax cut), and perhaps the least surprising, but most unfortunate, some very pointed gems from Councillor Bruce Court and his brother, Mayor Ivan Court.

Bruce, of course appears to have a beef with Deputy Mayor Stephen Chase, something that he brought up in the T-J earlier this month.  Deputy Mayor Chase has remained civil in this matter, which I very much respect him for.  Bruce however seems more prone to throwing more verbal barbs than providing any productive feedback.

Says Bruce (Via May 13 Telegraph-Journal):

“I don’t have any faith in him; I find that he’s off on his own agenda and I don’t believe in what he’s doing,” Court said Tuesday.

“I think he’s being negative towards the city and he should be promoting the city in a positive way and not the way he’s going.”

And today, in his response to a Telegraph-Journal survey:

Staying united to push water as our number one priority is our biggest accomplishment. My biggest disappointment in council as a whole is when a councillor speaks out against what we’re trying to do as a body and takes his own individual stand. I’m talking about Deputy Mayor Stephen Chase.

I do agree with him that council has taken a very strong stance on putting the water system as the council’s top priority, although I don’t believe that personal attacks against other councillors are really necessary or appropriate given the context of a year-in-review.  Bruce certainly hasn’t done anything to instill any confidence in him as a councillor in me or many others who believe, as I do, that we should dump him and not Deputy Mayor Chase.

Moving along, Mayor Ivan Court has had a rather public beef with the Telegraph-Journal and it’s publisher, Jaime Irving (although Court has been vocally anti-Irving in general), mainly centered around a percieved negative bias in coverage of city issues, at one point refusing outright to speak to the paper and quite publicly cancelling his subscription to same.  While Ivan didn’t achieve his stated desire to get Mr. Irving to debate him on issues facing the city on a media service not owned by the Irvings (CHSJ (Country 94), CHWV (97.3 The Wave), Telegraph-Journal/Canadaeast.com), he has started to grant interviews to the paper.  That does not, however, mean the end of the beef with the paper.

Mayor Court had this to say in today’s Telegraph-Journal:

Listen, I’ve got no comment. I don’t want to comment on anything. I have a strange feeling you guys are going to change a good story into a bad story because I saw the second question and, you know what, we’ve done some great things, and that’s all I’m going to say. I don’t want to see what I saw in the past, and I think you guys are going about this good-guy, bad-guy type of thing, one good question, one bad question. I don’t think that’s fair to this council or to anybody else. My comment is no comment.

All I have to say to that is, I don’t think it’s fair to the people of Saint John that our Mayor not speak to the strengths and shortcomings of council, all because he’s paranoid that the news service asking would place a negative spin on the article.

That isn’t to say that I took issue with nothing but what the Court Brothers had to say.  Some councillors gave either non-answers, or very lame answers.  Councillor Carl Killen, who represents residents in my ward (ward 3), provided a rather vague answer about council’s priorities, as well as mentioning a failure to convince other municipalities such as Rothesay and Quispamsis of the merits of regionalizing services, which was hardly a priority for council.  Councillor Patty Higgins mentioned initiatives in “Priority Neighbourhoods”.  Which neighbourhoods?  What priorities?  It’s hard to say whether I can agree or not when there’s no elaboration.

While trying to be fair, given the effort the council is putting into the push to upgrade the water system, I cannot give Saint John Common Council any greater than a D- for the first year.  A lot more could have been done, some regard for civility could have been given.  Let’s hope the year ahead is better.

I’ve finally returned from my “week-long” break migrating to a new system, but well, I’ve been pretty busy.

Today I’m putting the wrap on pretty much the best weekend ever (and the first vacation I’ve had in a while I might add).  Friday morning I was on a bus to come up to Moncton (where I’m writing this post from), which was pretty boring and horribly organized once we got to Fredericton for our transfer (which I didn’t understand at all, but whatever).  Didn’t do a whole lot that afternoon, aside from getting a little better acquainted with the downtown before heading back to the place I was staying at to have a quick bite and relax a little before Saturday.

On Saturday, the nerves were pretty much kicked up to 10 or more when I got up, since I was going to Skydive Moncton to do my first skydiving jump, but the training beforehand covered all the bases and the people there were always trying to ensure we had the time of our lives.  I can’t quite describe the feeling going back down to Earth, but I definitely had a lot of fun.  I would (and very likely will) do it again, and am making plans to come back up before the summer is out to do at least one more jump.

I’m supposed to be on my way back down to Saint John later today, then it’s back to work and all that fun stuff.