With the expiration of the first naming rights contract for our downtown arena, we say goodbye to the name “John Labatt centre” and hello to “Budwieser Gardens”. The name change has brought some sounds of displeasure and unhappiness from some of the city’s residents, and I understand their dislike of the new name.It isn’t a great name, and certainly has no historical or cultural connection to our city. The local Labatt brewery (which is owned by Belgian-based mutli-national brewing conglomeration Interbrew) does brew a lot of Budwieser (a brand originally brewed in the U.S. and still strongly identified as an American beer) but that’s hardly a great wellspring of civic pride and identity.

You might argue that the citizens have a right to decide on the name of the arena: the city did invest a considerable amount of taxpayer money, directly and through reduced costs to the builder, towards the building.  The argument is valid, as long as you keep in mind that the naming rights are worth a lot of money. To keep the right to name the facility would cost the community upwards of a million dollars a year (a very rough estimate). With a tight budget and an aversion to raising taxes, that million dollars is sorely needed revenue.

But consider this: what if the citizens had a way to buy the naming rights themselves?  The online funding platforms like Kickstarter and indiegogo making it possible for anyone to organize and start raising money for a project. The idea itself is an old one-communities used to fund almost every capital project through the issuance of municipal bonds.In this case, you set the goal amount and a deadline, and start asking for cash. If you hit the goal, then the naming rights are yours. If not, then the community has spoken.

This might be an idea to consider for the various capital projects that are being talked about around the city, like the construction of a new performing arts center. A kickstarter project that raised 25% of the total cost would speak more loudly about the community’s desire to have the facility built than any one meeting or rally could.

 

Here is a scenario: a by-law, unpopular with a small group of business owners and general citizens, is brought up for review and change by city council repeatedly, even though there was a thorough community consultation less than 3 years ago.

If this was a by-law concerning zoning laws, and the business owners were developers, there would be outcry that council was ignoring the civic engagement process by re-visiting the issue again and again. In this case, however, the by-law is the noise by-law.

Strangely, the same people who spend countless hours arguing that the city has to respect the decisions and output that comes from community consultation, are hellbent to keep challenging this by-law, and by doing so, ignore the voice of their fellow citizens.

As to the 3 specific arguments that the pro-noise lobby holds to, I have a hard time accepting them. They are:

1) Later and louder concerts will increase downtown business. Here’s my problem with that: aren’t  most of the businesses that are open after 11PM bars, and wouldn’t later concerts mean less time for people to drink after the concert?

2) people who live within earshot of the concerts should expect loud noise past 11 o’clock, and they were aware of that when they moved there. If you’re talking about someone renting an apartment above a bar, then I agree with you. But when the largest and louder outdoor festival (Rock in The Park) is directly across the river from single family houses, I can’t accept your premise that those families, some with young children, knew that there would be late night rock concerts in the public park next door. The same thing goes for the Granite House Retirement Apartments a block away from Victoria Park. I’m sure “high decibel, late-nigh concerts” isn’t a selling feature for the seniors looking to live there.

3)Keeping the noise by-law as is will discourage young people from locating here. If you can show me the Western or Fanshawe exit survey where the students cited ‘outdoor concerts too quiet and end too early’ as a primary reason for leaving after graduation, I’ll concede this point to you.

You can’t pick and choose when engagement is valid. The consultation process was followed, the community spoke, and they rejected the idea of louder and later public concerts.  If you decide that the process should be different for changes you support, then you’re not a champion for civic engagement, you’re a special interest group.

 

 

 

“Every creative act is open war against The Way It Is.  What you are saying when you make something is that the universe is not sufficient, and what it really needs is more you.  And it does, actually; it does.  Go look outside.  You can’t tell me that we are done making the world.”-Jerry Holkins, writer/co-creator of “Penny Arcade”

I found this quote a little while ago, and it’s stayed with me and made itself applicable in a number of situations. Naturally, I think of it when I’m writing, but I’m also realizing how it makes perfect sense in the context of leadership. In both situations, there’s no clear instruction from above you, mapping out your next steps and scooting you along if you doddle. When you decide to insist to the universe that something should be different than it is, you’re on your own. Turning your vision into some semblance of reality takes a level of commitment and persistence that’s impossible to teach. Only the experience of trying to change the world and failing lets you learn how to fail less spectacularly the next time. Eventually, you fail at failing and end up in a strange place.

Along with the commitment and persistence, you need an ample supply of self-esteem to fuel all of this audacity. Insisting that the world needs a little bit more you takes a robust ego, especially when the worlds begs to differ with your insistence. And, not to belittle the commendable efforts of Mr. Rogers and the world of feel-good PBS/TVO programming, but you can’t instill self-esteem into a child. You can encourage them to develop it, but too much encouragement without legitimate accomplishment creates a fragile creature who expects to be fantastic at everything. Avoiding the sting of failure is impossible, and the more effort you put into it, the worse it will be when you finally trip and fall. The best support a parent or educator can give a child is brushing off their wounds, giving them a hug, and sending them back out into the world to try again.