Idle Thoughts

Interesting to see Mayor Mike's youth committee devolve into a high school civics class. I would have thought that council would be prepared to define 'youth' somewhat more broadly than 13 to 18? What about those young people, say up to 25 to pick an arbitrary age,with real skin in the game – committed to living here, working, paying off mortgages and city taxes, or lookin' for work. Ah well this too will pass.
Speaking of committees I hear that sawmill Jack wants no city staff on them. Whats with this? Afraid of oversight? New ideas? Some old skeletons, esp in the McLean Mill case. If IHS get control of that committee we can expect more of the same – what is they say about expecting different results ...
 
Meanwhile the ever enthusiastic John Mayba has ideas to spend city taxes on a new bridge to Brooklyn. My gang here all dutifully put their $100 into John's pot when Christy dished it out to us. Years later and nothing has happened. So as soon as WCA come up with a sensible idea, with the possibility of some fish benefits as well, what does John and his gang do – get on board? You gotta be kidding me, no they decide bigger and higher is better and push for some bank to bank structure.
 
Walked the new trails on the fair grounds side –obvious that river is a flashy one and will clearly swing about in the future has it has done in the past, cutting new banks as it goes. Any low level bridge will be an engineering challenge, probably requiring some from of rock berm to armour the pier against erosion, but those fish farm pen structures are quite long. In my opinion Mayba et al would be better off pushing for a decent bike friendly path and street type lighting to make the route safe for all – ah well I don't get a vote.
 Property Assessments - unexpected great news
My assessment went down with a very nice hiss and a roar, esp the land, and far more than the 0.75% claimed by BC Assmt as the city wide average. Could I for once be ahead of the game, after last years June surprise of a $400 extra bill? Anyone go on to the Assmt Auth web site? They joined the 21st C with google earth, interactive map, past sales data and a wonderful opportunity to snoop on all and sundry.
All far too much fun at my advanced age and we don't even have to live in Saanich to enjoy it.