This Strong Towns PDX post

Councillor Mitch Green’s Motion

The agenda page with links to all of the transportation utility fee reports: https://www.portland.gov/council/documents/ordinance/establish-new-transportation-utility-fee-1-2

And where to watch the meeting/keep up with this committee, if you, like me, are now invested in this sideplot: https://www.portland.gov/council/agenda/committee-whole

Want to know what else is entertaining? Book club. Which is meeting May 3 at the Old Triangle in Halifax at 2:30p. We will be talking about The Score: How to Stop Playing Someone Else’s Game, by C. Thi Nguyen 

In the second half of the show Matt goes over last Thursday's TSC meeting and even though concerns remain about the IMP there is some good news in the back half of the show

But I did throw this together for reasons I explain in the show.

Book club May 3 at the Old Triangle in Halifax.

The book: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/735252/the-score-by-c-thi-nguyen/

This week starts off host Matt Stickland's opinion of this year's budget.

And then after the ad break there's a recap of the the final budget debate and last week's (mostly deferred) council meeting debates.

Also the book club book is The Score: How to Stop Playing Someone Else's Game by C. Thi Nguyen.

Please note: there will be no show next week (might re-run a classic for algorithmic gaming purposes).

Enjoy?

Enjoy might not be the right word, but listen to the show sounds vaguely like a threat.

Listen to the show... or else.

Even by our lax standards these show notes are sub standard because there's just too much on the go in real life this weekend for a more fullsome show notes. Soz.

The big moves by Cleary at the end of last week's budget debate, as well as the police budgets, are not in this episode. They are in the paper this week, and will be in a later episode of the show (probably), respectively.

That's all for this week as Matt fills up on fluids and heads back to bed to try and beat this fever.

After the ad break, Matt recaps the Board of Police Commissioners passion for violence, and also two days of budget committee meetings.

If you are a subscriber and notice this episode is about 6 minutes longer, you can hear the new stuff at the 30 minute mark.

As always, a reminder about the book club meeting on March 1 at 2:30 at Celtic Corner in Dartmouth. Please email matt(at)GrandParade(dot)news if you are planning to attend. I won't hold you to it, just trying to get an idea of numbers.

See you next week when we talk about the bus.

Halifax is in dire financial straights and a win for bike lanes on Tuesday was caught an L on Friday as the just saved bike lanes are now back on the chopping block.

Also in this show, city staff 💩🛏️ on the taxi bylaw update, there's a really greasy vote and Matt breaks down why council is probably lying (to themselves) when they say they have the political will to make change in this city.

It seems like a book club is a popular idea, so we will be reading Killed by a Traffic Engineer, by Wes Marshall and meeting to talk about it on Sunday, March 1, at 2:30 pm at Celtic Corner in Darmouth. Please email matt@grandparade.news to let us know if you are planning on coming by Valentine's day. We won't hold you to the RSVP, the pub just wants a better idea of the numbers to know where to put us.

In the second half of the show, we cover the Board of Police Commissioners meeting and go over Halifax's new stupid parking policy. And give Fillmore his due flowers from the debate.

If you're a subscriber please note that Matt from the future did pop in at the 43 minute mark of this show and please go read Monday's paper for more details, but TL:DR, it council's fault, again (and also city staff and/or city processes as described in this episode, but I'm still digging into the story because I now think I'm missing a bit of context and have a media request in to get it. Stay tuned for updates.)

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScMPuDQyt7L2027BBCjQ2MA4_0yz-Xt2j5TwV8kFClqC_Xx_Q/viewform?usp=sharing&ouid=112504436461387338909

Otherwise, have a good one and I'm gonna take a nap

https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/157-on-drugs/episode/15521363-s2-e2-cannabis-from-prohibition-to-legalization

But in the rest of this episode host Matt Stickland goes over the meetings last week. What did Halifax's auditor general say about rec programming? Will deputy mayor Patty Cuttell be on the next season of Nathan Fielder's show? What was up with John Young last Thursday? Find answers to these questions and more in this week's episode!

Also in this episode, last week's board of police commissioners meeting happened and Matt talks about Eastern Passage's new police expense.

Built to Fail YouTube Video: https://youtu.be/l8kCed6o4Bc?si=9BjkcecFQJAQbtCH

The city's housing strategy survey: https://engagehalifax.ca/housing-strategy

As promised, here is the piece by Josh over on CPL.ca: https://www.canpl.ca/news/healey-madness-and-late-playoff-magic-at-the-wanderers-grounds

Here's one of the articles about the Parisian cyclist that was murdered: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2024/10/18/cyclist-killed-in-paris-this-case-is-stirring-up-a-great-deal-of-emotion-among-people-who-travel-by-bike_6729762_7.html

Here's a safestreetblog (an American road safety news outlet) article about that famously incorrect crosswalk study: https://usa.streetsblog.org/2016/02/12/traffic-engineers-still-rely-on-a-flawed-1970s-study-to-refuse-crosswalks

Here is Ottawa's road safety Strategy: https://pub-ottawa.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?documentid=27362

Here is Hoboken's: https://www.vzhoboken.com/_files/ugd/365b92_c415cf40a108488d981e0609bd9a19f9.pdf

And here is Hoboken's vision zero driver pledge: https://www.vzhoboken.com/

And here is Helsinki's plan: https://www.hel.fi/static/liitteet/kaupunkiymparisto/julkaisut/julkaisut/julkaisu-25-23.pdf

And here is Halifax's: https://cdn.halifax.ca/sites/default/files/documents/transportation/streets-sidewalks/attachment-1-road-safety-strategy.pdf

So now that you have seen the other student's homework, would you give Halifax a passing grade? No seriously, would you? Let us know, info@grandparade.news

Here are the links promised in the show notes from the ep itself:

The rise of Canadian Women's Rugby: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Foq1rCWiYuA&t=1041s

Get involved with your city planning here: https://engagehalifax.ca/2025-planning-changes

And when you get to the end, let me know what you think about a Grand Parade meetup and/or faux council award ceremony.

In the paper this week we've asked our reader for some feed back, check it out in store.

Don't forget to rate and review this show and share it with your friends, and to the three of you who are reading this, hey, thanks for paying attention to the details.

I know I promised real show notes, but it turns out that was a lie. I find these hard to do and so far the feedback I've gotten on show notes is that no one reads these things anyway. You read this thing? Shoot me a message (matt(at)grandparade(dot)news, first one to do so gets one month's free subscription to the paper.

That said, if you're looking for the text of the amendment I've suggested for emails-to-councillors purposes, here it is from the script:

And I think it’s as simple as amending clause 21 from quote (1) Staff shall prepare a traffic calming plan for each project on the annual proposed implementation list and shall consider the physical characteristics of each street. End quote to read quote (1) Staff shall prepare an evidence based traffic calming plan in line with Intergrated Mobility Plan and/or Vision Zero’s and/or HalifaACT’s desired outcomes for each project on the annual proposed implementation list and shall align council priorities and the physical characteristics of each street when trying to determine how to reduce the danger of car traffic.

By way of apology for the rougher than normal edit, here's the world anvil page for the D&D world my friend and I created. It's a North American pre-European contact-inspired world.

https://www.worldanvil.com/w/nd26dp-landofsticks

In this week’s episode of The Grand Parade podcast, Coast reporters Matt Stickland and Martin Bauman chat with economist Deny Sullivan about Halifax’s HAF blunders and why a labour shortage isn’t to blame for the city’s housing crisis. Plus, they delve into Halifax’s deferred plans to abandon its Strategic Road Safety Framework in favour of a new plan that is worse than the old one.

It would be beneficial to get rid of the TCAO all together so road safety money could be spend on more efficient strategies, like the Integrated Mobility Plan, however, since politicans seem to want to keep it, clause 21 of the TCAO should be amended (changes in bold) to read

“staff shall prepare an evidence based traffic calming plan, in line with the Road Safety Strategy and Integrated Mobility Plan, for each project on the annual proposed implementation list and shall consider the physical characteristics of each street.”

That's it. That's how we could save money and make roads safer in the process. Write your councillor and ask them to change the TCAO.

There's a development on a heritage property, Halifax is making slow progress police reform thanks to an unlikely hero.

And there's also a pop quiz!

We trust you can find any legislation yourself, and if you can't, you should be able to, but otherwise here are the sources mentioned in the show:

https://timharford.com/2023/07/cautionary-tales-the-v2-trilogy/

https://www.smithsonianbooks.com/store/aviation-military-history/the-rocket-and-the-reich-peenemunde-and-the-coming-of-the-ballistic-missile-era/

https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/f229e86a-a3f0-4899-9631-71335f654f79/content

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0094119020300899

https://news.mit.edu/2021/ride-sharing-intensifies-urban-road-congestion-0423

https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/ride-hailing-makes-road-congestion-worse-study-finds-again

https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/uber-lyft-traffic-congestion-car-ownership-study/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959652621042694

For more info about city hall, head over to www.grandparade.news

To follow Matt on Social media, find him @landofsticks

Tootles

See ya next week, don't forget to grab a copy of the first issue of the paper this week at Atlantic News in Halifax and The Dart Gallery in Dartmouth

Here's the promised study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1361920919314026?via%3Dihub

Councillor Janet Steele is trying to get the city to protect and create more heritage districts. Councillor Cathy Deagle Gammon is trying to remove parking spots in land use bylaws because toddlers don't drive cars.

All of that and a deep dive into the difference between Halifax's transportation planning and that of the Dutch.

Here's a link to the YouTube video referenced in the podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpo98dhpgZI&t=2s

Please consider becoming a paid subscriber over at www.grandparade.news.

Halifax now has a budget, and thanks to Mayor Andy Fillmore, next year’s budget will be wildly different from this year's. Also, last week, Halifax once again found itself standing in the long shadow of its more than slightly racist history.

This week there were only two meetings of consequence, which allowed the Board of Police Commissioners to do a deep dive into intimate partner violence and the Envrionment and Sustainability Committee to learn about the failures of the green network plan.

This weekly recap show takes a whirlwind rip through all of council's meetings (except budget committee) from the past week.

The budget itself was a political victory for our new mayor, Andy Fillmore, who promised to keep Halifax’s property tax rate flat, which the council did. However, property values went up by 4.7 percent, and so will property taxes.     

Those property taxes will pay for Halifax’s $1.3 billion operating budget and $318 million. Thanks to the final debate day in Halifax’s budget playoffs, we learned more about our new council's politics than we did about the budget. The city doesn’t care for its workers, but it does care for its sports heroes and biodiversity. Some rookie councillors showed some expected inexperience, and a veteran councillor earned their first wooden spoon. 

The Board of Police Commissioners meeting on Wednesday, December 8th, was one of the best meetings in HRM's recent history, which included five little piggies and some light-hearted civil disobedience.

Matt's been doing a lot of research into road safety and tells Martin all about how much liability the city might have been putting itself in for the past few decades.

Also, in this episode, a Grand Parade exclusive: Did Andy Fillmore think he would win the vote to de-designate encampments? And a debute of our new segment, Question Period.

Plus, we also have a new show format! Except for the any other business segment at the end your listening experience should be largely unchanged but we'd like any feedback if you have any. Please send it to matt@thecoast.ca

In this episode, the two talk about how the council is shaping up three meetings into their term. Which councillors are making mistakes? Who's looking promising?

The conversation then turns to the HRM's committees and the upcoming budget season. Matt explains why he's mostly optimistic about the city's future, even if some shakey debate performances have sown some early seeds of doubt.

All of that plus traffic planning, boomer assumptions and sneaky good provincial legislation in this first episode of Season 2 of the Grand Parade

Chris will be sitting down the candidates of District 7 to interview them and find out who would be the best candidate for his district and wanted to advice.

Happy to oblige, Matt explains how he and The Coast are vetting candidates for the fall election.

In this episode of the Grand Parade, Matt talks through his research to date from a 2014 Halifax Transit oil spill to today. The conversation covers the big things like Halifax’s risk management team being the wrong people for the job to the minutia, like taxing under-utilized parking lots near transit terminals. 

The long and short of it is that this city is not taking Risk Management seriously, and your future is in jeopardy in the most boring possible way. The next crop of councillors needs to do a better job of addressing these risks, which means we need to do a better job of vetting them when they come to our doors. This, unfortunately, requires you to consume the civic education version of your least favourite vegetable and gain a baseline understanding of what risk management is and how it affects your life. You can do this by listening to the latest episode of the Grand Parade here.

Also, if you have any issues you want Matt to look into for the upcoming municipal election please email them to hfxvotes2024@thecoast.ca

After a break, Matt gives each councillor a rating for their performance during Halifax's budget season

In the first half, Matt gives Martin the lowdown on the civil unrest growing in rural parts of the HRM. Also a look into the frustrating parts of municipal planning.

Not to be all doom and gloom, in the second half, Martin learns about all the genuinely good things taking shape for Halifax's future.

The Macdonald bike connection is moving forward, but there are some issues with the design, and how the design came to be in the first place.

After the ad break, Matt pitches a test for local government to see if they're ready to respond to the climate emergency.

In this week’s episode of The Grand Parade, Coast city hall reporter Matt Stickland presents two paths for council to consider—both of which would add millions back to the city’s coffers, he argues, if only councillors could stomach the blowback they’d face. Coast reporter Martin Bauman wonders if the same issues plaguing Canada’s inability to build high-speed rail are what hinders the HRM from making meaningful—and swift—strides toward its goals.

And what’s a New Year without a sprinkling of hope? The two talk about why the HRM has real reason for optimism—and what platform priorities they’ll be paying attention to in the next municipal election.

Also covered in this meeting, the potential of the Board of Police Commissioner's new budget process. Martin also asks Matt about the new study he's one of the authors of, and Matt discovers Martin rode his bike really, really far one time.

Matt fills Martin in on why John Lohr's housing power play is a recipe for abuse—if not by the current housing minister, then by his eventual successor.

Also, the two discuss one of the biggest cracks in the foundation of the HRM's governance: Really bad minutes. That's right: Minutes.

There's also discussion about the end of the pizza wars, some transit critiques and building in flood zones. Unlike your boss, sometimes we even give you a bonus!

Warning to Wanderer Ground listeners who (like me) get annoyed at hearing the same thing over again, Matt (also me) repeats an anecdote, that lasts about a minute. Sorry!

The two talk about last week's council meeting where Shawn Cleary tried to make the housing crisis worse, and Dave Reage's lack of answers on tap pay.

All that and more in this week's episode

In this episode of The Grand Parade, host Matt brings on a fellow City Hall reporter named Matt—Matt Elliott of City Hall Watcher in Toronto. The two Matts spend an hour in the weeds of municipal politics comparing their respective city halls. One Matt explains how his city is getting tap-pay for transit in a few days, and the other Matt explains how his city forces parking into areas that are zoned without parking minimums.

You can find Matt Elliot's reporting over at cityhallwatcher.com

After Sullivan leaves, a round of up council's mistakes and answering listener questions with this map (map only available on the linked story)

They talk about the regional plan review, the upcoming carbon tax, and then answer audience questions after the add break in the last half of the episode.

Full list of works cited/referenced by Matt (and Martin) except for the 2003 report, which will be added to this list once the story I'm working on is done.

https://www.thecoast.ca/news-opinion/how-a-simple-poll-about-snow-explains-atrocities-30116345

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/wildfires-in-northern-alberta-visible-sign-of-annual-spring-dip-1.5135449

https://www.safeco.com/blog/new-construction-fire-risk

https://www.firefightingincanada.com/proper-protection-10994/

https://www.thecoast.ca/news-opinion/halifax-beefs-up-fire-spending-in-musquodoboit-30395147

https://www.thecoast.ca/news-opinion/the-suburbs-are-a-ponzi-scheme-29827137

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2015/03/05/sprawl-costs-the-public-more-than-twice-as-much-as-compact-development/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/03/10/amazon-library-ebook-monopoly/

https://halifax.citynews.ca/2023/06/01/firefighters-from-u-s-south-africa-to-battle-canadas-unprecedented-fires/

https://www.halifaxexaminer.ca/morning-file/officials-have-known-for-years-about-the-wildfire-risks-in-tantallon/

https://ideas.ted.com/truth-about-coffee-impact-on-environment-planet/

https://library.bsl.org.au/jspui/bitstream/1/2039/1/Exploring%20the%20impacts%20of%20social%20isolation.pdf

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jan/22/irish-council-rural-drink-driving

https://www.pdcnet.org/ijap/content/ijap_1984_0002_0001_0001_0021

https://climatetippingpoints.info/2019/10/14/fact-check-will-2c-of-global-warming-trigger-rapid-runaway-feedbacks/

https://www.thecoast.ca/news-opinion/the-politics-of-imagination-29123006

https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/209-front-burner/episode/15989275-as-fires-rage-canada-urged-to-get-on-war-footing

https://repurpose.global/blog/post/why-is-most-plastic-not-recycled

https://committeetrawler.ca/2020/12/08/behind-the-plastic-bag-ban/

https://www.commondreams.org/news/carbon-capture-utilization-tax-credit

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/many-of-worlds-poorest-countries-are-the-least-polluting-but-the-most-climate-vulnerable-heres-what-they-want-at-cop27

https://www.amazon.ca/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193236496X

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/634461/paved-paradise-by-henry-grabar/

https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/g-11.55/

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/38180

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/40819222

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/the-shelburne-race-riots

The first bit of the episode is devoted to Matt telling Martin how foreign policy theory can explain why our streets suck.

Then in the last half of the episode Matt puts on his red hat and tried to exploit the new short term rental legislation. Spoiler alert: he may have found a new loop hole.

The depressing topics have lighthearted interludes this week since EPAs are on strike, the show also featured a return of it's special guest co-host who's five years old.

Matt also gets emotional talking about the lack of RCMP accountability and the boys dive into what policing could look like in the HRM in the future.

Also, if you're one of the 10 keeners who got the wrong episode, very sorry about that. This should be the right one.

Also in this episode we picture a world in which High School Hockey can be a utopia

Matt and Martin also tease some big news about a local sports team.

Also linked below, as mentioned in the intro, is the city's housing strategy public engagement survey. Have a safe and dry Halloween

Built to Fail YouTube Video: https://youtu.be/l8kCed6o4Bc?si=9BjkcecFQJAQbtCH

The city's housing strategy survey: https://engagehalifax.ca/housing-strategy

Here are the links promised in the show:

https://thehappyurbanist.substack.com/p/more-cars-in-body-shops-less-kids

The video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNSgmm9FX2s

https://cdn.halifax.ca/sites/default/files/documents/city-hall/boards-committees-commissions/231116atac921pres.pdf

https://cdn.halifax.ca/sites/default/files/documents/city-hall/boards-committees-commissions/231116atac921waleshandout.pdf

https://cdn.halifax.ca/sites/default/files/documents/city-hall/boards-committees-commissions/231116atac921.pdf

https://nation.cymru/opinion/20mph-one-year-on-welsh-road-casualties-falling-considerably-faster-than-rest-of-gb/

https://www.mylondon.news/news/south-london-news/london-hits-historic-clean-air-32584488

The Halifax Wanderers put on a bus to Quebec City. Grand Parade reporter Matt Stickland embedded with the fans and watched the game.

This is that story.

For this bonus episode I invited Kevin Wilson aka HFX By Bike and the two of us work through fixing the BRT. Over on his YouTube Channel, Kevin does this sort of thing on a regular basis in his let's fix video. Recently he took a look at the Halifax Commons. Check it out:

https://youtu.be/iwIj95vOHpY?si=_mZ6A-pb-O1zzqkV

In this episode, we talk a lot about pedestrian safety, and the more you look into it, you'll realize that crosswalk safety is mostly a convenient lie. Check it out for yourself though, here's what I'm basing my opinion on:

https://ggwash.org/view/40788/traffic-engineers-still-rely-on-a-flawed-1970s-study-to-reject-crosswalks

https://pubs.lib.uiowa.edu/driving/article/id/28343/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1369847821002503

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332300079_Eye_Contact_Between_Pedestrians_and_Drivers

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0361198118790645

The conversation bounces around as the two try to answer as many questions as possible. There are a bunch of simple questions like “Does Halifax have enough parking?” that have relatively simple answers like “Yes.”  

But some questions sparked more interesting and nuanced conversations, like ‘Should Halifax reduce the size of its bureaucracy?’ and ‘What makes a suburb?’ There is also a definitely real award given out to the listener who asked the best question. 

But this will not be the last episode in the series, I heard back from the infrastructure expert I was trying to interview, and we’re in the process of setting up the interview. So stay tuned for that in your podcast feeds.

In this episode, Bruce explains to Matt how the city should be thinking about Risk Management and the problem with the city moving its risk management team from the accountants to the lawyers back in 2021. This conversation moves around a lot, from crashing ships to various levels of government approving the building of death trap subdivisions.  

This conversation also launched Matt into the rabbit hole of the municipal Enterprise Risk Register, and it looks like how the city identifies risks in the first place is fundamentally flawed. More on this when Matt finishes reporting it out, but subscribers of The Coast will get a little preview of what Matt is investigating in City Hall Insider, which hits inboxes at 10:30 on Monday mornings.

For a little bit of history, the RWAB had a predecessor, the Dartmouth Lakes Advisory Board, which started in the 1970s. At the time, there was a lot of development going on and very few, if any, environmental assessments of procedures. But what was noticeable was the increase in silt in Dartmouth Lakes. 

So, the city of Dartmouth helped form this board, which was filled out with scientific, environmental, and local experts and organizations. Once formed, the board advised Dartmouth’s city council and the city of Dartmouth listened.

In the intervening years, the city has professionalized its bureaucracy and added some in-house environmental assessments to the development agreement process. This led to the city trying to disband the RWAB last council term, but councillors voted to keep it because they deemed independent oversight as important. Now, thanks to some provincial legislation, the RWAB is gone for good.

In this episode, Matt and Céo take a deep dive into what the city of Halifax has lost in losing its independent environmental oversight. Just an administrative note: We got sidetracked, so Ceo never finished explaining the issues with blue-green algae. When plants and/or blue-green algae die, they fall to the bottom and decompose. That takes up a lot of oxygen and makes the lake anoxic, which kills other lake life, like the eels mentioned.

His book is a meta analysis of traffic engineering studies, and he tells Matt how to determine if Halifax's traffic engineers are doing a good job.

Just one note: In the episode Matt says that the HRM has made it's traffic impact statements better, and Wes points out that if they were an improvement they would consider safety. The good news is that the new traffic impact statements consider non-car modes of travel, but only consider safety in the context of car on car collisions. Not driver vs pedestrian. There's still a long way to go before Halifax's traffic impact statements are good, even if they are slightly improved from 2017

In this conversation, Christine Saulnier the CCPA’s Nova Scotia director, explains how the city could save a lot of money by bringing services, like snow clearing, in-house. She also explains how the way we do snow removal might be a little bit sexist.  

The other other, Kyle Buott, gives some practical solutions to the city. Did you know there’s a way the city could make more revenue *and* get Canadian National Railway to let us use their tracks for light rail? 

Two administrative notes: First, in the episode I say that the land lord registry is coming into effect, that’s not true, it’s been in effect since April 1, 2024. And second, you may notice that citation 169 has me as an author, please calibrate your critical thinking appropriately.

Dexter makes the case that if a city needs money then it’s incumbent on councillors to use the other tools at their disposal to make their budget make sense. As part of this discussion, Dexter also talked about the philosophy behind policy-making and how to anticipate outcomes.  

After thinking about this conversation over the Canada Day weekend there I have my first question for The Coast’s I now have that will continue to inform my municipal coverage: 

If the city needs money, which we do, if you (candidate) want to freeze or lower property taxes, then what revenue tools will you be using to cover the shortfall of lowered or frozen taxes?

The two get sidetracked a little bit when the conversation veers into the new road safety framework and how it demonstrates a lack of fiscal responsibility by the city. Deny explains his property taxation philosophy and how council could be doing more to fix city finances while also getting housing built in a housing crisis. 

As it turns out, keeping our capped property taxes low benefits land lords a lot, and doesn’t really help anyone else. Sure homeowners save a little bit a tax time, but it costs us way more in the long term when the city can’t afford to build for a better future. The two also spend some time coming up with some potential property tax fixes to afford the better world we want. 

Do you still have questions you want Matt to look into? Send them to hfxvotes2024@thecoast.ca.

For example, in yesterday's episode It's More Than Busses' Douglas Wetmore proposed that Halifax Transit would be better served by switching to a headway bus service instead of a scheduled one. Reece Martin explains why a transit service would want to use headway, and also what a headway is.

For everything you ever needed to know about transit for the upcoming municipal election, here's HFX Votes 2024: How to fix Halifax Transit

In part one of a two-part series Matt finds out what exactly's going wrong with Halifax's beleaguered bus system. Wetmore explains the issues facing transit, some of the issues created by Halifax Transit, and some potential fixes.

It's everything you need to know about why your bus is late.

In part two which will be out later this week. Matt will sit down with an expert to find out what transit would look like if it were well run. Between these two episodes, you should have everything you need to know to ask your candidates about transit.

The Wanderers CEO has pledged that his club would be prepared to contribute "substantially" to the costs of building such a permanent stadium. To that end, he has also proposed a 30-year tenancy agreement with the HRM to help cover the expenses. He sees the future Wanderers Grounds as a venue that can attract outdoor concerts, host international sports competitions and also be used by the Citadel High School's sports teams.

What does "substantially" mean? And how might a new stadium satisfy the mandate of remaining a public good? In this week's crossover episode of The Grand Parade and The Wanderer Grounds, Coast reporters Matt Stickland and Martin Bauman put their burning questions straight to Wanderers CEO Derek Martin for answers.

The reason, according to the legal letter linked above, is they believe the Wanderer’s Grounds have been defacto privatized without public consultation, which goes against rules dating as back as far as the Crown grants from the 1700s. Their argument is that since the 1700s, this land has been public, and more recently and specifically, the commitment to make the Wanderer’s Grounds public has been codified in law as recently as the 1990s. So, they argue, this land is supposed to be public.

They also argue that this land, even though it is, in theory, public there are a lot of restrictions as to who can actually, practically, use the land. So many restrictions that it is defacto private, and the only beneficiary is the Wanderer’s ownership. This privatization was done without public consultation and extended (in the new lease) without public consultation. This breaks more rules, and so the Friends of the Commons are planning on suing the city to make them follow the rules they are supposed to follow in the Charter and demanding all operations cease on the Grounds.

In this crossover episode of The Wanderer Grounds/The Grand Parade, Matt and Martin take a deep dive into the weeds and imagine a future where the Wanderer’s Grounds plays an integral role in forming a community, all the while being a public good in the beating heart of a Wonderful city.

Also covered: the game that happened on the weekend.

Doors will open at 7pm, recording will start at 7:30 and last about an hour. After than we'll open it up to a Q&A until the library kicks us out at 9pm.

We will have a question box, for those that don't feel comfortable asking questions on the mic. And we'll have a box if for questions about the regional plan, if you have anything you want Martin and I to dig into.

Look forward to seeing you all out on the 27th at 7:30pm at the Paul O'Regan Hall in the Library on Spring Garden Road.