Wednesday, February 25, 2004
The Chronicle Herald

Aftermath: Mayor’s best not good enough

By Brian Lee Crowley

SNOW AND political change often go hand in hand in North America’s cities. And given the bumbling manner in which the leadership of the Halifax Regional Municipality has handled our snow crisis, the only thing that may save them is our too-common attitude that “things could have been worse.”

Mayors and municipalities do many things that appear obscure to most people. When Peter Kelly flies off to hobnob with other city grandees to talk about cadging money from Ottawa, it doesn’t mean much to the man or woman in the street. No one understands the minutiae of how sewage treatment plants get built. Most of us would rather shovel snow than watch a municipal council meeting on television.

But, speaking of snow, how a city handles a major snowfall affects everybody directly. HRM’s residents lost forever many tens of millions of dollars in income, as businesses shut and stayed shut for days. Vulnerable citizens lived in great anxiety as their streets remained unplowed for longer than any time in most people’s memory. Schools are still closed, as of this writing, because the snow removal hasn’t been good or quick enough to enable kids to get safely to and from school buses, disrupting life for many families trying to return to normal.

Snowstorms can be powerful politically because they focus attention on something everybody understands: Cities keep the streets open, and people are harmed and angered when they can’t get where they need to go. Scent and lawn-chemical bans, long debates about whether cats should be leashed and absurd foot-dragging on cleaning up the damage in Point Pleasant Park merely leave most people bemused. But no one is unaffected when, overnight, your street is turned into an impassable bog and remains that way for days.

Montreal’s hapless mayor, Pierre Bourque, was tolerated until it became clear he couldn’t get the streets properly cleared after major storms. In Chicago, one of America’s most powerful political machines was shaken to its roots by snow. In January 1979, a mere 20 inches of snow fell on the Windy City. That was a godsend for Jane Byrne, who had been regarded as a hopeless challenger to the “unbeatable” incumbent, Michael Bilandic. Then Byrne ran campaign ads of herself standing atop piles of uncleared snow, and she went on to best Bilandic in the Democratic primary and to capture the mayor’s chair. People vibrated to her message that if the city can’t keep the streets cleared, then it is failing in its most primary duty to its citizens.

Here, such a campaign would have a lot to work with. How about interviews with the unwell senior citizens in the north end of Halifax who were being threatened by HRM inspectors with tickets for not clearing the mountain of snow on their sidewalk when the same HRM would not be able to clear the street in front of their house for days? And while Moncton didn’t get quite as much snow as we did, by Saturday the streets there were largely cleared and businesses were open as usual.

Our municipal leaders were slow to accept offers of snow-clearing equipment from other jurisdictions, thereby unnecessarily prolonging our agony, inflicting further damage on our economy and running the risk the snow would freeze into immovable ice while they dithered.

Yet at the same time as they were praising residents’ co-operative attitude, they were seizing absurd and disproportionate police powers, imposing curfews and threatening us with $1,000 fines if we went outside at night. All that was necessary was barriers at either end of streets that needed clearing. But even after the imposition of these draconian measures downtown, the snow-clearing effort there was more ceremonial than effectual for days.

Communications were a disaster. Curfews were threatened and cancelled with dizzying speed, and the story changed hourly as to what employers and employees were to do as the new week began.

As of yesterday, several main thoroughfares in the downtown remained narrow, two-lane tracks. Even where businesses can open, no one can park, bus service is disrupted and traffic is a mess; so businesses, their employees and their families continue to suffer. HRM employees worked tirelessly, but the confusion and poor direction from management meant that we had too little to show for all that hard work.

Yet many private businesses such as shopping centres and supermarkets were able to deal quickly and efficiently with the snowfall. Lots of other cities deal quickly with major snowfalls with a minimum of fuss. Our municipality bumbles through with a minimum of efficiency and a maximum of confusion, and then claims a moral victory because HRM’s residents are all so nice to each other while we meekly wait for things to improve.

The mayor’s defenders will say he did the best he could in difficult circumstances. But that’s precisely the point: If this is the best he can do, it isn’t good enough. In a place with higher expectations of their government, heads would be rolling.

Times and Transcript version

The Moncton Times and Transcript
Opinion, Wednesday, February 25, 2004, p. D7

Snow reflects on mayors

Brian Lee Crowley Atlantic Affairs

Monctonians annoyed about the traffic hazards that still persist after last week’s storm can at least be assured that their snow clearing performance leaves Halifax’s in the dust.

While the storm wasn’t as bad in Moncton as in Halifax, and it certainly fell short of the doozie of 1992, by Saturday most roads were passable and businesses were open. Not so in the city with pretensions to being the sophisticated metropolis of the Maritimes.

Is snow that important? You bet. Snow and political change often go hand in hand in North America’s cities. And the bumbling manner in which the leadership of the Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM) has handled our snow crisis means that political fallout here is a very real possibility.

Mayors and municipalities do many things that appear obscure to most people. When HRM’s Mayor Peter Kelly flies off to hobnob with other city grandees to talk about cadging money from Ottawa, it doesn’t mean much to the man or woman in the street. No one understands the minutiae of how sewage treatment plants get built. Most of us would rather shovel snow than watch a municipal council meeting on television.

But how a city handles a major snowfall affects everybody directly. HRM’s residents lost forever many tens of millions of dollars in income, as businesses shut and stayed shut for days. Vulnerable citizens lived in great anxiety as their streets remained unplowed for longer than any time in most people’s memory. Schools are still closed because the snow removal hasn’t been good or quick enough to enable kids to get safely to and from school buses, disrupting life for many families trying to return to normal.

Snowstorms can be powerful politically because they focus attention on something everybody understands: cities keep the streets open and people are harmed and angered when they can’t get where they need to go. Matters that preoccupy the local Council, such as scent and lawn chemical bans, long debates about whether cats should be leashed and absurd foot-dragging on cleaning up hurricane damage in Halifax’s Point Pleasant Park, merely leave most people bemused. But no one is unaffected when overnight your street is turned into an impassable bog and remains that way for days.

Montreal’s hapless mayor Pierre Bourque was tolerated until it become clear he couldn’t get the streets properly cleared after major storms. In Chicago, one of America’s most powerful political machines was shaken to its roots by snow. In January 1979 a mere 20 inches of snow fell on the Windy City. That was a godsend for Jane Byrne, who had been regarded as a hopeless challenger to the “unbeatable” incumbent, Michael Bilandic. Then Byrne ran campaign ads of herself standing atop piles of uncleared snow, and she went on to best Bilandic in the Democratic primary and to capture the mayor’s chair. People vibrated to her message that if the city can’t keep the streets cleared, then it is failing in its most primary duty to its citizens.

Halifax’s municipal leaders were slow to accept offers of snow clearing equipment from other jurisdictions, thereby unnecessarily prolonging our agony, inflicting further damage on our economy and running the risk the snow would freeze into immovable ice while they dithered.

Yet at the same time our municipal leaders were praising residents’ co-operative attitude, they were seizing absurd and disproportionate police powers, imposing curfews and threatening us with $1000 fines if we went outside at night. All that was needed was barriers at either end of streets that needed clearing. But even after the imposition of these draconian measures downtown, the snow clearing effort there was more ceremonial than effectual for days.

Communications were a disaster. Curfews were threatened and cancelled with dizzying speed, and the story changed hourly as to what employers and employees were to do as the new week began. As of yesterday, several main thoroughfares in the downtown remained narrow two lane tracks. Even where businesses can open, no one can park, bus service is disrupted and traffic is a mess. Employers, their workers and their families continue to suffer.

Yet many private businesses such as shopping centres and supermarkets were able to deal quickly and efficiently with the snowfall. Even if their performance isn’t flawless, lots of other cities, like Moncton, deal energetically with major snowfalls with a minimum of fuss. After last week’s storm, Halifax bumbled through with a minimum of efficiency and a maximum of confusion and then claimed a moral victory because HRM’s residents are all so nice to each other while we meekly wait for things to improve.

HRM’s mayor’s defenders will say he did the best he could in difficult circumstances. But that’s precisely the point: if this is the best he can do, it isn’t good enough. In a place with higher expectations of their government, heads would be rolling.