Yule Heibel's Post Studio © 2003-2014

Plans for Salem’s Harbor Power Station: Realpolitik or Missed Opportunity?

Last year, when I was still in Victoria BC but considering a move back to Boston’s North Shore, I read about the impending closure of the Salem Harbor Power Station and immediately thought,”Wow, what a fantastic redevelopment opportunity!” Suffice to say that my optimism may have been premature.

Bedeviled by a Dirtball

The Salem Harbor Power Station is one of the region’s dirtiest coal- and oil-burning power generators. For six decades, the plant has occupied sixty-two acres of prime waterfront real estate, cutting residents off from all other historically and economically significant maritime uses on shore. Its hulking facility, topped by two smokestacks that pierce the skyline, has visually dominated the coastline not only for its Salem neighbors, but also for folks in Beverly and Marblehead.

(Photo, above, from Dominion’s website)

Zombie Infrastructure

And it has spewed tons of pollutants into the air. As the Denver Post put it in an article about these many long-in-the-tooth dirty power plants, “Utilities dragged feet”:

These plants have been allowed to run for decades without modern pollution controls because it was thought that they were on the verge of being shuttered by the utilities that own them. But that didn’t happen.

Indeed. The Salem station was one of those zombie economy necessities that refused to die: a lot of people shrugged and accepted it as an unavoidable evil that had to be borne. After all, the region is famous for being bedeviled, right? The struggle to force either a clean-up or a closure of the Salem station was epic – but now it’s finally happening.

Or is it?

There’s a dearth of information about how the situation went from “the plant is closing” = “really new opportunities” to “the plant is dead” = “long live the plant,” but some weeks ago, the latter option grew in strength when the station’s current owner, Dominion, began negotiations to sell the property as-is to New Jersey-based startup Footprint Power. The latter wants to operate a natural gas-burning power plant at the site. Admittedly, natural gas burns cleaner than coal or oil – but wait! There have been hints that the backup fuel could be …diesel oil. Because, you know, depending on the markets, natural gas might become too expensive and we’d have to go back to something a little dirtier.

It seems zombies are hard to kill dead.

Why has there been no recent public input on the plans?

On June 26, Andrea Fox of Green Drinks of Greater Salem moderated a discussion of current plans for the station. The three presenters – Healthlink‘s Jane Bright, State Rep. Lori Ehrlich, and attorney Jan Schlichtmann (whose work has often focused on environmental issues) – questioned the plans now on offer. Schlichtmann in particular pointed out that, while there was a surge of interest initially in what would happen to the site, the recent negotiations between Dominion, Footprint, and Massachusetts politicians have effectively put a kibosh on any further public input. The Green Drinks discussion was essentially meant to breathe some life into the conversation. It seems that as soon as the corporation(s) decided on a course of action, the people rolled over and went quiet.

The lone voice speaking in favor of Footprint Power’s plan was Shelley Alpern, a Salem resident and member of SAFE – the Salem Alliance for the Environment (but she made it clear that she wasn’t speaking on SAFE’s behalf). Alpern’s cred as an environmentalist goes way back, so it was surprising to hear her question the vision for a sustainable redeveloped waterfront site and instead pleading Footprint’s case.

The arguments at Green Drinks revolved around the following:

• how much will it really cost to clean up the brownfield site? Some put the price tag at $75m, others argue that this number is inflated and meant to scare people into accepting Footprint’s option, lest the alternative be “the padlock” (meaning the site just gets shuttered and turns into a decaying eyesore versus a toxic waste spewing eyesore). See also Speaking alternatives to power
• is the lifecycle of natural gas really that much better than coal or oil? Sure, it’s cleaner (somewhat) and currently cheaper (somewhat), but no one knows how the markets are going to shape prices in the future, near or far. And what about the externalities and costs consumer don’t directly see when the natural gas is extracted, such as the enormous environmental cost of fracking? What about the dangers of putting pipelines, which will inevitably break down and leak, through watershed areas? There are already pipelines running from Nova Scotia in Canada, through Beverly, and into Salem. What’s their “lifecycle”?
• will Footprint Power keep its promises? Some stakeholders have been told by Footprint that a natural gas-burning plant might need to use diesel fuel as a back-up; some were told that the existing plant might have to stay on for some time (vs being dismantled). Other stakeholders have heard no such thing when they sat down with Footprint – but we’re dealing with corporations, and with energy corporations, to boot …not exactly always the white-hat guys.
• what of the missed opportunities to develop something truly amazing?

That last point – missing opportunities because vision is lacking – strikes me as the most compelling. Rep. Ehrlich made the case in a Marblehead Reporter op-ed on May 14, 2012, Vision still lacking at Salem power-plant site (also available on her website, here). The column sparked a flaming letter-to-the-editor in response, Get over the aesthetics; think clean energy, whose author compared opposition to off-shore (and backyard) wind turbines to a kind of la-la-land NIMBYism that wants a “pretty” picture without facing the inescapable reality of our energy needs. His point was that Ehrlich and those who think like her are in la-la-land because we pussy-foot around the fact that we still need to get our energy from somewhere, while he is a realist who understands that Footprint’s proposal is the region’s best bet.

I think it’s a false choice.

Macro / Micro

Consider for a moment perspective. What the critics, especially Ehrlich and Schlichtmann, have is a fine-grained, close-view perspective. It reminds me of Jane Jacobs‘s analysis of neighborhoods at the street level. She looked at the details and decoded what she termed a street ballet, understanding that how people use a thing (a street) – and how they are able to use it – determines the whole, irrespective of how much planning-from-above tries to predict outcomes. This was pretty much in opposition (at the time) to the thinking of professional planners, who believed that streets must be rationally planned (preferably according to the needs of the automobile) and that buildings, placed according to mostly “ideal” reasons, would determine uses. If Jacobs had a micro view, the planners of the day had the macro view.

It strikes me as ironic that the micro-view is actually the Big Picture “vision” view, and that the macro approach, which tries to account for a larger perspective, has a blind spot about the “users” or people on the ground. The Realpolitik view defaults to the macro – and I count Alpern’s approach here. Expert knowledge about hydro-fracking regulations in Bulgaria and Pennsylvania is good to have, but it’s not enough to impel local people to act differently. Local inertia is a strong force, and if you build another power plant, you will have another power plant. For another sixty years. But if you give the people who actually want change the power to control their destinies, they can move the rest of us out of our inertia. That’s the claim mocked by the letter writer who thinks a power plant alternative is la-la-land thinking – but what is the alternative? Another planned-from-above mega-project that repeats many of the same patterns established by the old project?

Deep waters, old uses

Schlichtmann made the truly relevant point that Salem’s history was built on maritime industry. The current site of the Salem Harbor Power Station is Salem’s only deep-water port – what passes for the city’s tourist harbor is a shallow pond, incapable of harboring bigger vessels. The original coal-burning plant was built on that prime spot because of the deep harbor, which allowed ships to offload coal. It’s an incredibly shortsighted move willfully to dismiss an opportunity to reclaim that harbor for what it represents (Salem’s fantastic seafaring history). All around the industrialized world, cities are reclaiming waterfront that was savaged by mono-uses (waterfront freeways, power plants, factories, etc.), and reintegrating them into a more sustainable urban fabric. Why should Salem shut itself out from that renaissance?

Well, because we need energy. But consider this: ISO New England has said that there’s no longer any need for a power plant in Salem. As Ehrlich noted in her column, “The old plant is barely running, and ISO, the region’s reliability-cautious grid operator, said that power production on that site is no longer needed. Why such an enormous plant?”

More references

For more images of the Salem Harbor Power Station, see Healthlink‘s photostream, here.

For an informative PDF, see Repurposed Coal Plant Sites Empower and Revive Communities.

Sierra Club, Victory! Salem Coal Plant Announces Closing.

ArchBOSTON forum discussion (brief) here.

Tea Party? Sweet Potatoes are better

Some heartening signs.

First:

Read the Salon.com article, Tea Party people less popular than many other hated minority groups (subtitled: They may want “their country” back, but their country doesn’t really want them):

This tiny band of fanatics is largely distrusted and despised by regular Americans, but a terrified media coddles them and pretends they’re harmless. I am speaking, of course, of the Tea Parties, a group now officially less popular among Americans than Muslims.

Listening to the mainstream media, it’s easy to think the Tea Partiers set the tone, …and yet (among real people) they’re “officially less popular among Americans than Muslims”? What the hell?

Did I miss something about Muslims trending in popularity in America…?? No? Didn’t think so. Apparently, atheists are hated, too…

But look on the bright side: we Americans despise the moronic Tea Party bigots!

Next:

On Monday August 15, Jon Stewart aired this zinger segment: Indecision 2012 – Corn Polled Edition – Ron Paul & the Top Tier (subtitled: Even when the media does remember Ron Paul, it’s only to reassure themselves that there’s no need to remember Ron Paul). Stewart really rips the mainstream media, which has ignored Ron Paul even though he placed second in Iowa’s straw poll.

You have to wonder what the hell is going on.

Daniel Ratigan has some ideas – see Dylan Ratigan, Mad as Hell: His Epic “Network” Moment. I can’t say I’m steeped deeply enough in the issues to assess his theories. But, for what it’s worth, his main point is an attack on the financial institutions:

We’ve got a real problem…this is a mathematical fact. Tens of trillions of dollars are being extracted from the United States of America. Democrats aren’t doing it, republicans aren’t doing it, an entire integrated system, banking, trade and taxation, created by both parties over a period of two decades is at work on our entire country right now.

But best of all is a segment I heard on NPR this afternoon: Amid D.C. Squabbles, A Look At Life At A Restaurant. Do yourself a favor and listen to this 4+ minute segment about Sweet Potatoes, a Winston-Salem, NC restaurant, and its very smart and articulate owners, Stephanie Tyson and Vivian Joiner.

When Vivian Joiner called out the financial system, DC, and public “servants” (whom do they serve?, not the people, not the people) in this NPR segment, I found myself yelling, Tell it, sister. She is soooooo right. Why don’t we have people like her running the country? Why do assholes like Perry or Romney or Bachmann or Palin or even puppet Democrats (like… fill-in-the-blanks?) get all the coverage and all the money? Why?

More like this, please.

Chef Stephanie Tyson (r) and her partner Vivian Joiner (l), the dedicated (and smart!) owners of Sweet Potatoes in Winston-Salem, NC

Parenting. Such a riot.

I want to tell you a story of parenting, as I’ve observed it among my Canadian peers. I’ll try to convey how and why this parenting style shocked me. It’s just a story (albeit a true one), but perhaps it illuminates a small part of the dynamics at work in this Wednesday’s Canucks Riot that erupted in Vancouver.

It happened about seven years ago, when my daughter, then ten years old, was singing in a local Victoria BC children’s choir. If it was seven years ago, it was only two years after my family and I had left the US to move to Canada.

The parents of the children in this relatively expensive and well-regarded choir often hung around during evening rehearsals, or else they returned early to wait for their children, which allowed for a lot of casual chit-chat among the parents. One night, the father of a pair of kids in the choir – a girl around 14 and a boy around 11 or 12 – complained to another parent about his son’s school.

I’ll call the dad Don and his kids Caitlyn and Ted. These aren’t their real names, but it makes telling the story easier. I want you to focus on Don, a reasonably educated and relatively feisty man – the kind who knows what he likes – and his son, Ted, a somewhat clunky pre-teen who was often sullen and not particularly co-operative about being in a choir.

But his parents had paid for the privilege, and by gum, he was going to sing and learn about music and about being part of a group, because everyone knows that sort of stuff can give you social advantages.

Don, who had choir pick-up duty that night, was telling another mom about Ted’s troubles at school. Apparently, Ted often caused disruptions in class. There was nothing “wrong” with him: he wasn’t labeled with any of the alphabet-soup-style afflictions so often ascribed to boys – no ADHD, no ADD, and none of the Autism Spectrum Disorders. He was just ill-behaved.

That week, the school had phoned Don to say that Ted had again disrupted the classroom (which meant that every other kid in that class was denied an opportunity to learn), and the teacher had marched him to the principal’s office. From whence came the phone call to Don, asking him to pick up his offspring, whom the school wanted to suspend for the day.

Well! That didn’t sit well with Don, who didn’t want his brat child at home. As he told the story to the other mom:

I let them have it. I told them, “You have to keep him, it’s a school day and you HAVE  to keep him in school, you can’t send him home!”

You have to keep him. I-the-parent can’t be forced to deal with him.

What struck me about his story:

• he was puffed up with pride at having told the school “off”
• he was indignant that the school was asking HIM to discipline HIS child
• he was absolutely convinced, without any shame WHATSOEVER, that it was indeed the school’s obligation to deal with his brat child
• the school CAVED and acquiesced to Don’s demand

I can’t say I was so much in sympathy with the school. Hey, we were homeschooling our kids, and considered schools a mixture of toxic peer pressure, jail, and industrial-style conveyer-belt rote “learning,” armed with massive budgets and an arsenal of institutional power to shore up their status. Hooray for a tiny David who aims his slingshot at that Goliath. But Ted didn’t strike me as any sort of tribe worth defending, that’s for sure. He needed parenting, from parents who acted authoritatively (not authoritarian). He didn’t need palming off on authorities (eg. school) – yet that’s exactly what Don thought was the right thing to do: the school should deal with him.

Amazing. Don’s little conversation made my jaw drop. He was serious: he wanted the school essentially to do the parenting of his child, a job that he and Mrs. Don should have been doing.

Fast-forward seven years, and Ted is now about 19 years old. He’s a hockey fan, but most of all, he still hasn’t learned about accountability. Sure, the schools have tried to drum it into his head, but what the fuck does he care? His parents insist they’ve spent good money on him, made sure he had advantages, and made sure they always sent him to schools where they could expect other people to exert the heavy-lifting authority that they themselves shunned.

Ted breaks a few windows along Granville, helps tip a car over, sets a few newspaper boxes on fire.

I blame the parents.

They’re probably the ones screaming for more police action, too. It fits with their earlier demand for more school action. Anything to get them off the hook.

I’ve seen some amazing parenting around here. People with the patience of saints, making a difference and helping to shape their kids into terrific young adults. I’ve also seen some outrageously bad parenting here, made worse by a (imo) crazy belief that it’s somehow the responsibility of others (institutions, cops, schools, CCTVs, television, Ministries, governments, Health Authorities, etc.) to provide authority in their children’s lives.

We boomers mostly hate authoritarianism. I know I do. But the one Big Thing that becoming a parent taught me is that there’s a huge difference between being authoritarian and being authoritative. Some of my selfish boomer peers have let others be the authorities. In my experience of raising kids, that doesn’t work so well.

See Identify the Rioters for images of Wednesday night’s event.

The Times-Colonist also has a page, called The 40 most dramatic photos of the Vancouver riots, which kind of smacks of salaciousness, as if there’s a competition to find the photos that drip with the most mayhem. Includes dramatic, if representative, shots. This video (also linked to in the first paragraph) is graphic in showing the ugliness of the crowd. Another good read: Vancouver Riot: Psychology (Not Hooligans) Responsible for the Chaos by Bobbie Brooks. See also 2011 Stanley Cup riot “worse” than 1994 in the Vancouver Sun.

Update 6/19 – More links: On Youtube, A Billion Dollars Worth of Bad Publicity for Vancouver, says 94 Riot Investigator, worth a look; and a historical video, from 1968, of Vancouver Mayor Tom Campbell calling out “the hippies” (historical and somewhat hysterical), Mayor Tom Campbell versus the Hippies.avi. This video is of interest to some people critical of the current mayor, Gregor Robertson, who has tried to paint the 2011 rioters as isolated “anarchists” and louts, a tactic that resonates with then-mayor Campbell’s. One additional link (newspaper article), View from Calgary: Seedy side was there before Cup riot in Vancouver, can’t say I disagree, having lived in Vancouver in the early 80s.

What I said about Victoria BC municipal elections in 2008

Here’s an article I’d like all candidates for the upcoming Victoria municipal election in November 2010 to read: Simplicity of Losing, Complexity of Winning (September 2008 – link goes to Scribd). I wrote this for FOCUS Magazine in the run-up to the 2008 municipal election. Oh, how prescient – yet also how optimistic – I was. I couldn’t imagine the magnitude of FUBAR we ended up with.

Below, the full text of the article as it appeared in FOCUS:

Simplicity of Losing, Complexity of Winning
by
Yule Heibel

This fall, we’re electing new local governments, and the people we elect in Victoria will shape our city’s development.  We need to be talking about leadership, teamwork, and our collective attitudes toward winning, success and failure.

If you read Victoria’s “alternative” publications (for example, Sid Tafler’s Monday Magazine opinion pieces) or listen to some of the candidates emerging from Community Associations, you’ve probably noticed a rhetoric of heightened partisanship.  In some ways, this is to be expected.  After all, if you stand on a street corner and shout, “Sunshine!”, no one will pay much attention.  But shout “Fire!” and everyone comes running – even if that “fire” is the sun shining up in the sky.  Wolves, fires, bad news: they always get attention.  And as surely as newspapers need attention to sell, candidates need attention to get elected.

Incumbent politicians know this, too.  At a recent Committee of the Whole meeting, Councillor Pam Madoff warned that the current Council has developed (pardon the pun) a reputation for being developer-friendly – as if this were a dirty and dangerous flaw.  The message was that some councillors weren’t doing enough to protect Victoria from developer predation.  Rifts on council – and possibly among staff itself – are becoming painfully obvious.

It’s easy enough to repeat the meme of “pro-development” councillors rubber-stamping proposals.  But how can you draw attention for positive discourse that strengthens respect, listening, teamwork?  Local papers report on council meetings where development proposals fail to pass, and the stories are peppered with quotes from community association members who skewer the city for even considering these proposals.  Their solution?  Prevent proposals from ever reaching council in the first place.  Declared candidate and Fairfield Community Association rep Wayne Hollohan, responding to a recent tabling of a proposal to develop the Crystal Court Motel site, stated, “I don’t know what policy exists that this [building] doesn’t violate.” (Times-Colonist, Aug.15/08)   This is a language that brooks no conciliation or teamwork.  “Violation” draws a curtain on conversation, for it suggests that some councillors collude to violate an undefended city.

Cities should, however, be robust enough to venture forth unchaperoned.  But what’s a city?  We must address that question and figure out what we are as a city.  I’ll reveal my hand by stating what to me is obvious: a) we are a Canadian city of significant size as well as this province’s capital city; and b) failure is not an option for cities today.

Cities compete.  This is why they must be robust.

They have to compete regionally, nationally, and internationally.  Victoria shouldn’t pull up the drawbridge or get out of the game, as cities are far too important to regional and national economies.  They are productive hubs where large numbers of people of all ages, with complex needs and contributions, gather, live, and work.  This also means that their built form must maximize resources and extract the best efficiencies in land use, so that ecological benefits consequently are a byproduct of density.

Density in turn supports complexity.  That’s what cities do best, and it’s how they contribute to the well-being of economies and ecologies.  For cities, change (as a function of complexity) is a constant.  If they’re smart, change means they develop; if they’re dumb, they stagnate and decay.

As a voter, I have to ask how comfortable our municipal leaders are in addressing urban growth and creative development.  How familiar are they with the work of Jane Jacobs, who argued against centralized planning and in favour of organic growth as well as “webby” or networked economies that deal flexibly with import replacements and growth?  Or the work of Alan Broadbent, who writes about the need to fund Canadian cities properly and to give them the tools that allow them to run with greater autonomy and independence?  Or Richard Florida or Ed Glaeser, who make the case for creative economies?  Consider, for example, that your purchase of gadgets like iPods validates not the metals and plastic in the device, but the design — its embodied creative, intellectual value.  What this means is that the “creative class” or “knowledge workers” who create that value are more important than the raw resources that went into the product.  These knowledge workers live in cities, including Victoria, as our growing technology sector proves.

As a voter, I want to know what sort of competencies our elected municipal leaders demonstrate with regard to understanding regional  economic contexts; understanding information and knowledge economies; understanding the potential of the creative classes, green urban development, and the need for density?  How many are stuck in yesterday’s thinking, which says that density is equal to “slum” or “blight”?

During a meeting between mayoralty candidate Dean Fortin and the Downtown Residents Association, Councillor Fortin declared that each additional storey on a building raises the crime rate and social problems.  When pressed, it turned out that his opinion was based on reading just two University of Toronto reports about an out-of-date public housing project – hardly the stuff of contemporary urbanism!  Councillor Fortin then volunteered Councillor Sonya Chandler’s opinion that high-rises are not a workable urban form because Peak Oil means that elevators will grind to a halt.  This rather fanciful, and hardly realistic, view of urbanism just isn’t helpful.  A more creative, versus fear-mongering, approach would foresee elevators running on alternative energy sources, generated by the high-rises themselves.

One wonders: have some of our municipal leaders missed the message that densely built-up cities are in fact far “greener” and better for residents than low-density development?

It seems that the provincial government “gets it,” as shown by Bill 27 (see my August 2008 article), which explicitly asks cities to encourage density and compact growth.  Unfortunately, in BC there’s always the danger that if “they” get it, then “we” have to oppose it, because partisan politics rule.  But the fact is that at the local government level, partisan politics are simply stupid, and not smart at all: if you want to run a city, grow up and leave partisanship at home.

And yet, consider our culture.  Victoria has always attracted eccentrics.  Whether they’re newcomers or homegrown entities, the city has attracted its fair share.  That’s a good thing if you believe that eccentricities contribute to a city’s vibrancy, and that our ability to attract them speaks volumes about Victoria’s potential.

But, and this is a huge but: Victoria fails to nurture respect for team-players.  Look into our history and note how many creatives ended up leaving Victoria because the climate here wasn’t supportive.  If someone wants to build a winning team, he or she will likely run a gauntlet of gainsayers who find reasons to nitpick the Great Idea until it lies in tatters on the ground.  The cheering section for failure in this town is huge, and that needs to change.

What’s wrong with winning, anyway?

Well, winning usually means increased complexity and change.  It’s that simple.  Losing, on the other hand, means simplification, stasis, stagnation.  Obviously, my support goes to complexity and change, which is why I would ask those who want to win in our next election whether they’re certain our city won’t lose.

What I wrote about “Victoria fail[ing] to nurture respect for team-players,” and that people who want to build a winning team have to “run a gauntlet of gainsayers who find reasons to nitpick the Great Idea until it lies in tatters on the ground” because “the cheering section for failure in this town is huge,” still stands. I was referring to the difficulties encountered by change-makers, not to Old Boys or to partisan politicos – those guys always seem to “work together,” albeit not for change, but for the status quo. Then I wrote, “and that needs to change”; three years on I doubt it will.

This is Part 2; read Part 1 about my foray into the archives here.

DNA quadruplex formed by telomere repeats

What I said about social media and political engagement in 2008

Social media mavens, Victorians: take note. We have a municipal election coming up this fall, and I just re-read a piece I wrote for FOCUS Magazine in the run-up to the last municipal election in 2008, published in October of that year: Smart Twits? (the link takes you to Scribd).

Below, I copy and paste the entirety of the article. It pains me to say it, but I was way ahead of my time here – underscoring that “here” is not where I belong.

Smart twits? A user guide
by
Yule Heibel

The scenario: municipal elections approach, but you haven’t managed to get excited enough to pay attention.  One candidate says, “our backs are up against the wall,” while another suggests affairs are trundling along as always.  Which one gets your attention?

My bet is on the one who tiddles your panic button (even if you don’t like it).

But wait…  Don’t they say that once you’ve panicked, it’s already too late?  Who manages smart decisions when panicked?  But when you’re voting, choosing smartly is important.

So maybe that’s why you decide not to vote?   You leave the panic-mongers to their wide-eyed, sputtering friends, and you don’t like the “career politicians,” either.  Face it, bud: you’re an alienated citizen, …although we both know you’re smart.

What should politicians do to engage you?  It’s not an academic question.  Locally, I’ve overheard the “our backs are against the wall” statement numerous times in recent weeks, and simultaneously I’ve watched more temperate players struggle to develop a message that gets people’s attention.  There’s definitely a chance to run a dumb race to the bottom, where candidates exploit fear instead of explaining opportunities.

Can we google this problem?

I spend lots of time online.  Believe me, the holy grail of many web developers is to create applications that make users feel empowered and smarter.  Smart is powerful, and it’s in our DNA to learn: we’re a monkey-see, monkey-do kind of mammal, and we want to feel like smart apes, not dumb chumps.  I’m convinced that in the aggregate, web technologies make users smarter.  Since it’s election season, let’s see if politicians are learning here.

Online, I’m immersed in a river of information and feedback generated by an array of sources, from individuals to organizations to traditional media outlets.  That web-based informational flow is as real to me as daily mail, newspapers, and chats by office water coolers were to previous generations.  By using technology, I gather flows of information without relying on just one or two broadcast sources.

Savvy politicians have figured out that they, too, can’t afford to ignore how users are actively re-organizing information, as opposed to being its passive recipients.  Look, and you’ll find that nearly all the local politicians are on Facebook, “conversing” with their social networks.  Look further, and you’ll find that those with national aspirations and an adventurous bent use even more immediate social networking tools.  Twitter, for example, is a microblogging platform where users “tweet” (and can tweet each other) in a constant ping-pong of real-time informational back-and-forth.

We’ve seen a persistent migration to online social media in politics.  The goal?  Relationships with other users and with potential voters.  Politicians need voters to win elections, but first they need to communicate with them.  At the national level, Jack Layton and Stephen Harper “twitter,” Stephane Dion and Elizabeth May don’t (yet).  All are on Facebook, though, as are many of our municipal candidates.

Mainstream media and information sources have migrated to social media, too.  CBC journalists, Macleans Magazine, the Vancouver Sun, the Globe and Mail, the National Post all twitter, as does the Vancouver Library and many individual librarians (who typically are early adopters).  Businesses small and large twitter (AirCanada, anyone?), and customers can tweet complaints (or kudos) directly to a business’s stream.  If the business tweets you back, that conversation is visible to anyone. WorkSafeBC twitters new guidelines, updates, and more, all in real time.  Even BCLegislation twitters (“Automated alerts for legislative changes …Published by Quickscribe’s BC Legislation Portal”).  Facebook and Twitter are just two platforms.  There are others: blogs, Tumblrs, Flickr, MySpace, Identica, FriendFeed, etc.  The list will grow.

Many smart users are online, skinny-dipping in a river of news.

Except not so much at the local level, where information flow is often turgid, dependent on broadcast media, or on having access to the “right” individuals (who may or may not be online).  Local politicians and the civic institutions they represent aren’t using social media to talk directly with “users.”  There’s no VicCouncil twitter-stream, …unless you consider the actual experience a tweet.  While quite a few candidates are on Facebook only a tiny minority of incumbents are.

At the same time, it seems improbable that the lessons of social media technologies aren’t having a powerful effect on local politics.  Online mavens know that VibrantVictoria.ca’s discussion forum has opened up the city’s conversation on urban development and politics (along with many other things) to anyone with access to a computer.  Ask a question, get an answer.

Candidates who face the icky choice of either getting your attention by panicking you, or boring you because they have nothing attention-worthy to retail, should talk to users (potential voters) directly: open the conversation and engage alienated voters.

Just don’t try to get our attention by panicking us.  That’s so dumb (read: not-smart).  Smart should be empowering and make YOU (the user) better.  As one of my Twitter friends noted, “Don’t focus on making your BOOK better… focus on making the READER better.”  She also wrote, “[It] NEVER matters how good YOU are. Only how good USERS can be.”  Substitute “election platform” for “BOOK,” and substitute “citizen” or “voter” for “READER” or “USER,” and we can start talking.  …Or tweeting.

Of course it’s inevitable that we’ll eventually meet offline.  As someone twittered recently: “All my batteries are dead.  Talk to me in person.”

Well, that was my take on public engagement in Victoria THREE YEARS AGO. How have things improved?

PS: This is part 1. Next up, Part 2, about my September 2008 article, which is another piece worth reading, considering that municipal elections will soon be upon us again…

Canada, Vote for the Internet.

We have an election coming up in Canada. Vote for the internet.

A toast, mistress!

In yesterday’s entry I mentioned that I went way outside my comfort zone the other night.

What could that mean?

…Probably not what some may think! I attended my very first meeting of Toastmasters International, specifically the Niteshifters chapter that meets at the University of Victoria. I’ve been interested in knowing what Toastmasters is all about for a while – but their usual early morning meeting times really didn’t ring my chimes. Then I found Niteshifters and saw that they meet at 7:45pm. That’s way better than 7:45am in my books.

And so I’ll give it a go. This is truly way outside my comfort zone. First, it’s a group. I’m joining a group. Second, it’s all about public speaking – something that to this day scares me. It’s not like I’m a bad public speaker (if I’m prepared), but I’m not comfortable with it. I fear it.

And I’m completely mortified by the notion of extemporaneous Table Topics speaking: if I haven’t had the time to research and write a treatise first, I’m inclined to freeze in fear. How I would love to get over myself…

I haven’t had to prepare and give lectures for a long time, and now I realize that I’m completely out of the practice of public speaking even when I have prepared material. I’m hoping Niteshifters will help me find my public (speaking) voice – the one that’s been tap-tap-tapping out of the keyboard here for years. I don’t think I’m a totally stupid person, but lately I’ve let myself get sidelined when it comes to public spoken voice – and that’s just dumb.

Oh, interesting side note: while New Westminster, BC was the first non-US city to express an interest in starting a Toastmasters chapter outside of the US (an interest which prompted Toastmasters to add “International” to its name in 1930), New Westminster apparently didn’t follow through and therefore wasn’t the first to start a non-US chapter. That distinction goes to Victoria, BC, which in 1935 became the first Toastmasters club chartered outside the United States. How about that? 😉

On re-reading Biophilic Design: Taking Love to the Street

Since I’m fuming in a conversation over on Facebook about the City of Victoria’s Department of Engineering (which seems to me benighted), I was reminded of my 2007 article, Biophilic Design: Taking Love to the Street (the link goes to the Scribd version).

Not to sound too much like I’m tooting my own horn, but that was such a good article, and such a great idea – and it was instantly shot down in a committee meeting of council without so much as a second thought by then-Director of Engineering Peter Sparanese, who told Councilor Pamela Madoff that the scheme floated by me in the above-linked article would be too expensive: as far as anyone could tell, he quoted a $12million price tag seemingly on the spot – amazing, how quickly that particular variation of a Class-C estimate materialized…

In the Director of Engineering’s mind, it was seemingly more expedient to build yet another paved road, …and that’s exactly what happened. And how did the Director get his way? By conjuring a figure that was 3 times more expensive ($12million) than what his conventional fix would cost ($4million). No one ever questioned him on how he came up with his numbers, and from what I’ve seen he has been given free rein ever since: “…Coun. Helen Hughes pointed out the last time the council looked at the project [to fix the View and Vancouver Street intersection] the cost was estimated at $1.55 million, less than half the $4,080,000 of the latest estimate.” (source) and let’s not forget how mercurial the Department of Engineering’s financial estimates regarding the Johnson Street Bridge refurbishment and/or replacement have been…

That this city has no imagination is something I’ve suspected ever since, and my suspicions have been proven again and again in every twist and turn regarding the Johnson Street Bridge fracas – where the only imagination shown is in quoting increasingly bizarre budgets for either option.

For the record, here’s my August 2007 article in full:

“Biophilic Design: Taking Love to the Street”

We know that regular exposure to nature is good for us, and yet we perfect designs that keep nature out, sometimes even erase our awareness of it. Protected from nature, we control and limit our exposure – we stay warm in winter, cool in summer, which affords us greater productivity and increases our comfort. Like most people, I’m happy to enjoy central heating and storm windows. But an over-armored life isn’t ideal, either. Think of dinosaurs or giant turtles next time your car has you imprisoned in a traffic jam or your office window won’t open because that would disturb the air-conditioning.

Today’s eco-conscious designers point out that excessive barriers to nature produce lowered quality of life as well as boring, mediocre built environments. But designing with nature, they argue, contributes to health, creates excitement, and even fosters love. Love of nature, termed biophilia by E.O. Wilson, refers to a deep-rooted need “to experience natural habitats and species.” Wilson’s colleague Stephen Kellert writes of biophilic design: a conscious bent to design access to nature into what we build in cities. It’s a mandate that can shape buildings, parks, …and streets.

Earlier this spring, the City asked for the public’s input at several Parks Masterplan workshops. Planners wanted to know how we use parks, and where we might create new ones. During one workshop, there was an electric moment when a participant suggested turning part of View Street into a linear park. She noted that traffic volume on Fort and Yates (both one-way arterials) is heavy, while it’s relatively light on View. While still allowing cars, the city could nonetheless create a linear park – which would function as a badly needed beautification project, too – and, she added, let’s incorporate exercise stations for seniors.

View crosses Vancouver Street, already blessed with an unparalleled canopy bestowed by majestic chestnut trees whose massive trunks suggest outdoor sculpture. Under the trees, wide grassy boulevards suggest to the many pedestrian commuters that here, indeed, is an urban park – or should be. The intersection of View and Vancouver is sinking, however, and presents a major engineering conundrum. But this problem could become an opportunity.

As we know from Jennifer Sutherst’s research (“Lost Streams of Victoria,” map, 2003), that intersection is built on what was a wetland fed by seasonal streams and rainwater run-off. The wetland in turn fed a stream that coursed along Pandora (accounting for Pandora’s odd bend, between Douglas and Government): the stream marked the boundary between Chinatown and “white” Victoria. It was treated badly even in the 19th-century (apparently turned into an open sewer), was soon contained, put underground, paved over. Its remnants still drain into the Inner Harbour.

Sutherst’s map shows the wetland directly at View and Vancouver. Today, its asphalted surface is impermeable, while drainage codes mandate that run-off from roads and neighbouring buildings diverts to storm sewers, versus flowing back into the marsh. Consequently, the now-hidden wetland is drying up, and as it dries, its layers of peat shrink and compress, causing the roadbed to sinks. To “fix” that problem, we’ve in-filled additional layers of asphalt, making the surface even heavier – and contributing to increased compression of the underlying stratum.

It’s in many ways a classic vicious circle, and a lesson in living peaceably with micro-ecosystems. In effect, by building yet another protective barrier between nature (the wetland) and us, we have also paralyzed the wetland’s hydrological functioning. If the land were a body, what would the wetland be? Perhaps kidneys, absorbing fluid, treating it, discharging it. By putting impermeable asphalt over that natural organ, we’ve desiccated it, and now it’ll cost a pretty penny in engineering surgery.

Since we have to throw money at it anyway, what if we did something truly innovative to that diseased organ? What if we practiced biophilic design to restore its ecological function – and gained a unique urban focal point in what could be a fabulous linear park project? Imagine, for example, an intersection with a permeable steel-grid “road-bed” suspended slightly over a daylighted wetland, the latter slowly restored to full hydrologic function. In the restoration field, daylighting typically refers to excavating and restoring a stream channel from an underground culvert, covering, or pipe. In the case of the View/Vancouver wetland, it would more appropriately refer to removing an impermeable surface, and planting appropriate vegetation that allows the wetland to resume its normal function as a water filter. Restored urban ecology also provides both an educational tool for stewardship and an aesthetic community amenity.

The art-technology-engineering challenge lies in marrying restoration with normal urban functioning: traffic (automotive and pedestrian) has to flow. But consider the value that could accrue for Victoria with a project like this. If Dockside Green, locally the symbolic heart for sustainable development, attracts worldwide attention, perhaps a brilliantly restored kidney could turn a few heads, too.

Open Government, Transparency: it’s what we need

As residents of Victoria British Columbia continue to struggle with a closed, secretive city council that (with the exception of one councilor, Geoff Young) prefers to do its business behind closed doors or from a lofty perch of Sonya Chandler- or Lynn Hunter-style “know-it-all-ism,” here’s a story from the local daily that illustrates just how far Canada (as a country) has to go before it reaches the level of transparency and open government that the people of the United States have come to expect from government: Washington leaves Campbell red-faced, by Times-Colonist reporter/ columnist Les Leyne.

Excerpt:

On Jan. 4, the NDP opposition submitted two identical freedom of information requests. One went to the state of Washington, one went to the province of B.C.

The request was for records relating to joint cabinet meetings held a few months earlier, led by Gov. Christine Gregoire and Premier Gordon Campbell.

The B.C. government issued a fairly detailed news release after the October meeting headlined “B.C., Washington State Partner on Cross-Border Opportunities.”

But the NDP was curious about the framework and some of the intricacies of the various policies discussed.

On Feb. 3, the New Democrats got a note back from Gregoire’s office. It offered all the requested documents for a grand sum of $63.60.

The NDP paid the bill and on March 3, two months after filing the request, it got 300 pages of documentation from the state government.

The striking thing, for a B.C. observer, is that not a single page has been whited-out or censored.

The 10-centimetre stack of documents contain everything you’d want to know about the work that went into discussing Olympic readiness, climate-change initiatives, border issues, H1N1 plans and more.

There are e-mails, minutes of meetings and “confidential drafts for discussion purposes only.”

The governor’s response even includes the expenses of the state officials who worked on meetings leading up to the joint cabinet session.

What did the Opposition get from B.C. officials when they submitted exactly the same request?

Absolutely nothing.

In the US, data is owned by the people because the government is by the people, for the people, of the people. The people paid for the production of the data in the first place, and the people have a guaranteed right to access it. In Canada, data is not owned by the people. It’s owned by the Crown (the Queen), and we have to beg for it. Sure, we can have it, but the bureaucratic culture isn’t on board.

.

It’s scary to me just how backwards City of Victoria staff in particular and local politicians in general are when it comes to embracing openness and transparency – and genuine public engagement.

For a shining alternative example, click on image (above) – link goes to a great Youtube video with Anil Dash, currently with Expert Labs.