Garlick Runs Again

Coldstream Mayor Jim Garlick has now indicated he will seek a third term as mayor, reported in The Morning Star today.

He describes himself as a pragmatic socialist, a label that provides an Aha! moment to irate residents who feel this mayor's focus and policies--to pull a quote from an unrelated story in the same issue: "smack quite decidedly of bullying of the worst governmental kind".

To others, it's an oxymoron.

Pragmatism, simply defined, is a practical approach to problems and issues.
In Coldstream, it has come to mean a mayor who appears to grudgingly recognize that his idealism isn't enough to make a community sustainable.
Socialism, on the other hand, is a way of organizing an entire society, which can run the gamut of no privately-owned land and everything including production being controlled by government, to choosing what a modern, educated electorate will actually allow government to control.  Or the majority--non acreage owners anyway--on voting day.

Where am I going with this?

Well, incumbent Garlick says he'd:

 "like to continue with the progress made so far in areas such as parks management, the sports facility which is expected to be completed in spring, water, OCP housekeeping, some regional land acquisitions and a contentious issue in Lavington..." (the pellet plant)

No, this entry isn't about the proposed pellet plant.
It is about the deceptive phrase "OCP housekeeping" in the list.

Yes, it's deceptive.

Last year, a consultant was hired to overhaul Coldstream's Official Community Plan.  After several months--and near completion of the plan by the consultant--it had been rumored that the consultant--and the plan--were shelved, ostensibly because Coldstream had now filled a vacancy whose role included reviewing and rewriting OCP's.  I say rumored because nothing official was released by Coldstream; it was only discussed among residents, including the thought-to-be $40-60,000 fee for the consultant's work.  Shelved, with the new bureaucrat now proposing to council his thoughts on what should and shouldn't be in the OCP review....a second review within a few months.
Both paid for.

How can Garlick call a virtual re-write (or two) of an OCP housekeeping? 
How can Garlick call that kind of wasted money housekeeping?

Unless he wants to downplay some of the OCP's changes.
The socialist changes.


Coldstream Acreage Owners (the association formed to fight the sinister--yes, sinister--changes to the OCP) can tell you what the socialist changes are.

Or I can tell you.
Remember RU10/RU30?
Refresh your memory here.  And here.  And here.  And here.

Yes, RU10/RU30 is being pushed through by Garlick's administration.
That's socialism, not housekeeping.

Garlick says it's important to "see the positives".
But only if positives exist.

Again quoting from the same unrelated story in the Morning Star today, I'll add a succinctly phrased paragraph that exactly mirrors the thoughts of Coldstream Acreage Owners:

"For most of us, our home and property is our primary asset and financial nest egg necessary for comfortable retirement living...(but) to have the property values of any number of ... properties ... destroyed just to serve the interest of...(blog insert --> "socialist leanings of local government"...defies any definition of fair play and common sense." 

 

That's the pragmatist Garlick relying on the numerical majority for his socialist ideals.
Acreage owners' property values will be destroyed.

"He's counting on the larger group--residential residents--to help him push RU10/RU30 through," suggests Kia.   

Coldstream's Acreage Owners aren't asleep, Mr. Garlick.