Thorns

An article written on December 8, 2007 and never published.
I disagree with the Tribune's nominated "THORNS" award to our city council for not seconding councilor Alexander's motion to develop a downtown partnership. The council should have been awarded "ROSES" As the councilors knew from the past this motion would not hold water. How many times have such ventures been tried with little success? How many plans, suggestions,, and ideas are there sitting on the shelves in city hall collecting dust that were never used?
I attended a similar gathering back in 1996 hosted by former mayor Reuter for the local business people, professionals, some of the public , and a gentleman from Toronto who was to put on an excellent presentation of revitalization in a Toronto area. There were a lot of good ideas, most of them sitting on a shelf collecting dust.Things were changing in the core as noted by the numerous businesses that continued to start up and than close. Another similar meeting was held by former mayor Forster at the city market where a young architect presented some very intriguing drawings depicting the downtown core centred around the proposed civic centre. The civic centre became a reality but not too much more out of that architects vision and of course the core was still having businesses opening and closing. I believe a few years later the Tribune tried to create some interest by inviting the public to submit suggestions on how to improve the core. The suggestions were published but the core businesses were still opening and closing.
Maybe councilor Alexander should get together with councilor Belcastro and BIA chair D'Amico for the purpose of going to those dusty shelves and study the suggestions, As I recall there were some excellent ideas.