Posted in General, Rants, tagged hypocrisy, public sector, salary, vancouver, wasting my money on June 21, 2010| Leave a Comment »
The Vancouver Sun‘s got a great new database of the salaries of private and public sector employees across the province. Most of these numbers truly disgust me.
Just in case anyone’s curious, Mrs. Carlene Robbins from the Property Use Inspection branch at City Hall got paid $98,076 last year. And that’s down 7.2 percent from her 2007 salary of $105,690.
Of course, that pales in comparison to the city manager, who made an appalling $568,448.
Stay classy, City of Vancouver.
Posted in Farmhouse Farm, Garden, Projects, Rants, tagged ander, city hall, fight the power, Food, Garden, greenwash, miranda, permaculture, sara, sustainability on April 27, 2010| 1 Comment »
Hello beautiful community!
First, a quick note. News 1130 contacted me last night about the imminent destruction of our yard. The story is currently the most popular story on the site! Thank you so much to Graham for putting them in touch with me and to Renee for writing the article.
Also, there has been an incredible outpouring of support for our yard from the general community. So many people have let me know they are writing letters to council in favour of our project. I really couldn’t have imagined so much support and encouragement from Vancouver residents. It’s really helping during this tough time. Thank you and many Farmhouse blessings to each and everyone one of you who has taken the time to write to the City and passed our story around!
Sara, Ander, and I met with Mrs. Carlene Robbins, manager of the Property Use Inspection branch and Property Use Inspector Tom Hamilton this morning. There were many things said, the most important of which is that we have until May 15 to get the yard together. Wouldn’t concede us an inch on planting the boulevard (“It’s City land! Who said you could use it?”).
This is growing just in the space between the sidewalk and the street in July 2009. We were growing borage, kale, and poppies. The dandelions we used for tea.
The City says it has had three neighbours complain over the last two years (two complaints this year, two complaints last year, with one was a repeat complaint. Part of the City’s “evidence” were photos of our yard from last summer. Remember when it was really dry and most yards were dying? We put straw and other materials over the soil in our yard to keep moisture in (permaculture!) so our plants wouldn’t die. Yep, taking photos during the driest part of the year is surely going to include a little ugly. And it’s funny that the city’s photos don’t match the photos I took myself during that time.
The other photos the City presented us with were from March. MARCH. It’s not March anymore! We’ve done a lot of work on the garden in the last week! You can’t use old pictures from the off-season against us.
This weekend, we collect over a page worth of signatures (I’m guessing at least 20) from residents of the block who are all in support of our yard. Why does the word of three complainants outweigh the rest?
When asked if she would speak directly to the five points contained in the legal notice we received, Mrs. Robbins completely refused, stating she “isn’t going to plan [our] yard for us”. Then she said if we built a fence two feet into our yard, we’d be free to do whatever we want within the confines. Um, how is that fair? You think we can afford a fence? She also pointed out the container garden at City Hall.
“Why can’t you make your yard look like that?” she asked. Maybe because we don’t have thousands of dollars for pressure treated lumber, an in-ground irrigation system, and fancy plaques delineating what garden belongs to whom? Part of the reason we grow our own food is because we are POOR!
Mrs. Robbins admitted to us that if we lived on Commercial Drive, our yard wouldn’t be an issue. Hypocrisy, hello? I asked her why she didn’t see the larger issue at stake—a vaguely worded bylaw that is selectively applied to a subjective notion of beauty and order. She asked me why I was continuing to be argumentative.
Why am I argumentative? Because it isn’t fair. We can’t afford to live on Commercial Drive. We can’t afford to build container gardens. In fact, we don’t want container gardens because we think they are ugly. Plants grow better in a natural state. You put different kinds of plants together for support, to improve the soil, to mimic the natural growing system. Most of our supplies are donated. We have to haul a wheelbarrow eight blocks roundtrip to get free woodchips. We had wonderful people donate their time and energy to help us last weekend. This is not a money-making enterprise. This is about food security. This is about food as a right. This is about a hypocritical city that brands itself as some sort of green leader yet won’t support five hippies who want grow their own food.
So much irony is coming out of this process. The City of Vancouver has
Guidelines for Planting City Boulevards program where residents are ENCOURAGED to use the boulevard for planting!
Planning to Plant
* There must be reasonable pedestrian access between the curb and the sidewalk. If there is no City sidewalk, access must be provided so pedestrians are not forced to walk on the road.
* Plants should be perennials or shrubs that will grow less than one metre (3′ 3″) in height to ensure good sight lines.
* Several of the plants should be evergreen or have winter interest for those months when the rest of the plants are dormant.
* Contaminants from the roadway may affect consumables, therefore vegetable gardening is not encouraged.
* No trees are allowed other than City-planted street trees.
* No structures or ornaments are allowed since they can interfere with public safety and the City’s ability to quickly access underground services.
* Permanent installations such as in-ground irrigation systems are not permitted.
* Plants should be set back at least 30 cm (12″) from a) the sidewalk to avoid overgrowth and b) the curb to allow for car door opening.
* Fire hydrants must be easily visible and accessible from both the street and the sidewalk. A clearance of 1.5m (5’) must be maintained around hydrants for access, visibility and to ensure that plants do not interfere with the operation of the hydrant. Outside of the Fire Department, Waterworks and Sewers staff use the water from hydrants for a number of purposes.
I can totally 100 percent get behind those guidelines. Last weekend’s work project was all about getting the boulevard presentable. Nowhere on that Web page does it say you need City permission to grow anything in the boulevard.
But the extension is a goodness. The legal notice we were served is dated April 15 but we didn’t receive it until April 19. There goes one weekend. May 1 is Saturday. There goes another weekend. So, with the May 15 extension, we get two more weekends to get things together.
Here is a list of e-mail addresses for Vancouver city councillors if you have the desire to lodge your opposition to the city (via Christina).
Also, if anyone wants to contact the Farmhouse about this, please call 604-628-9509 (the house), 604-762-6557 (my cell), or e-mail farmhousepress@gmail.com.
We love you!
Posted in Farmhouse Farm, Rants, tagged bullshit, liars, unfair, vancouver on April 26, 2010| 24 Comments »
Apparently our efforts mean jack all to the City of Vancouver.
After telling us that if we got enough of our neighbours to support our yarden, they’d ignore the complaints (four in two years, one repeat complainer) we’ve received from three of our neighbours, the City is now saying they won’t accept a petition. We have to remove everything from the boulevard (which we spent hours turning into orderly rows this weekend), take out everything in our yard that’s within two feet of our sidewalk, and remove all our mulch.
Landlord is sending a crew on Wednesday to tear everything up. I could cry right now.
Here’s the link to the bylaw we’re breaking: UNTIDY PREMISES BY-LAW NO. 4548
Every owner or occupier of real property shall maintain the said property in a neat and tidy condition in keeping with a reasonable standard of maintenance prevailing in the neighbourhood.
Seriously vague, no? Reasonable standard of the neighbourhood is MEANINGLESS because you can’t apply it to the entirety of Vancouver. There are many MANY neighbourhoods where growing food is the norm.
An owner or occupier of any real property must not allow any accumulation discarded materials, garbage, ashes, or filth upon such real property.
Yep, this isn’t the case at our house. The disgusting part is that the ENTIRE yard was trash before we moved in four years ago. Part of the reason we have to sheet mulch is because former tenants left so much bloody trash in the yard.
Every person who commits an offence against this by-law is punishable on conviction by a fine of not less than $250.00 and not more than $2,000.00 for each offence.
FUCK YEAH CITY OF VANCOUVER! Ever think that maybe we grow food because we’re POOR?
Posted in Rants, tagged bc politics, carbon tax, electricity, hybrid vehicles, nuclear energy, rant, society on May 4, 2009| 2 Comments »
So, today I heard someone suggest that the solution to the climate change crisis (the clever euphemism for “global warming”) is nuclear power.
My initial reaction? “That’s a GREAT idea! Why didn’t we think of that sooner? I’m really looking forward to when the sites begin to leak radioactive waste into the ground and major water systems!”
[For fun, here’s a story about the decommissioned Hanford Site in Washington State, that released nuclear waste into the Columbia River and caused all kinds of negative health effects: Downwinders’ court win seen as ‘great victory’.]
Maybe I don’t just know enough about nuclear power. I’ll admit that most of my knowledge about these matters comes from Homer Simpson and the horror stories of meltdowns at places like Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. I’m sure there are a lot of people who would crawl out of the woodwork to tell me not one person died after these events (I’m not bothering to look those things up at the moment).
But there is no way you can convince me that nuclear power and its RADIOACTIVE WASTE is 100 percent safe for the planet. You can’t tell me that it was a good idea for the Hanford Site to toss its waste in one of the major watersystems in the Pacific Northwest. And you will never convince me that nuclear power is the solution to climate change.
Maybe the key isn’t to find a magical source of unlimited electricity. Maybe the key is to stop using so much electricity in the first place.
Maybe the solution is to stop bailing out industries like the automotive industries and let them crumble. Cars make pollution. Less cars = less pollution.
I know the pro-automotive arguments: the industry creates jobs, you can’t get anywhere without a car, hybrid vehicles create less pollution. What about the counter-arguments though? Why don’t we employ people in different industries? If North American hadn’t had cars in the first place, would we even have suburbs? Would we have urban sprawl or would we dense, compact cities like in Europe?And since when did hybrid cars become environmentally friendly? You still have to MAKE the cars; you don’t just create them out of thin air and fuzzy feelings.
(And when did owning a vehicle become a right anyway?)
You know what the real problem is? The sense of entitlement that permeates modern society. People think they have rights to vehicles and food imported from halfway across the globe and all sorts of ridiculous luxuries that consume fossil fuels and electricity. You know what? We don’t. Humankind endured despite all those things for thousands of years.
This isn’t some bullshit, New Age, touchy-feely hippie thinking, either. I’m not going to claim that I’d be able to survive in the wilderness with nothing but my wits and a knife. Modern society has crippled ALL of us. Mine is likely the least-skilled generation I’ve ever encountered. We’re used to prepackaged food and entertainment from the idiot box and yes, even my beloved Internet.
But you know what? I wouldn’t be afraid to let it all go. I wouldn’t be afraid to move to a cabin in the woods and learn to chop my own wood and grow my own food and do without the thousands of modern conveniences that society now takes for granted—those conveniences to which society believes it is entitled.
The worst thing that happens is I die and return to the earth—and that’s something that is inevitable to the human condition anyway.
The only way to lessen the effects of climate change is to completely change societal thinking and eliminate that sense of entitlement. Create liveable, walkable cities and eliminate the “need” for automobiles. Start growing your own food in your own backyard instead of importing bananas from Central America or paying jacked-up prices for organic lettuce.
Things like B.C.’s current carbon tax are a joke. Instead of decreasing the amount of emissions, you turn pollution into a commodity. If you can afford to pollute, you will. It’s as simple as that. A $5 a tonne charge is nothing to the big corporations. The only way to make a carbon tax effective is to make the tax prohibitive! Charge $50-$100 a tonne to industry polluters! The corporations can afford it and, if they can’t, maybe they’ll change the way they do business. Maybe then we’d have enough money in the provincial budget to provide universal child care and a liveable wage to workers living in poverty.
Okay, that’s enough for now. I’m sure I’ll get more riled up in a few minutes here.
Farmhouse Blog by Miranda Nelson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Canada License.
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