Cool Underground Tunnel and Nanaimo's Old Mine Shafts

[Peter Roosen]

I have been meaning to ask you what ever happened to the problem you were having and now we know. I can see why, the RDN supervisor is a "Dick".. ha ha ha couldn't help my self. Sorry Al

I think we should have a recreation of the Ladysmith union vs scab shoot out at your place. We can use paintball guns.

Anyway seriously, all of this over dried up ditch probably 70% of the year?

Good point about the ditch Ace. It runs less than half the year so doesn't even meet their definition of "watercourse". It ran more 10 or so years ago before the District-approved developers and road crews diverted most of the water when they put in a new subdivision. A ton of taxpayer money was also spent a couple years ago shoring that alternate waterway further to the northeast. I suppose calling the District's Dick and asking him what their motivations are would be an option. Might be more fun to let him and the rest of the District carloads plus officeload of imbeciles spend a couple hundred thousand more taxpayer dollars playing games in Court. I can set aside a few dollars to play these silly games. Sitting these people down one by one for day long discovery sessions and so on.

Ironically, there is a group that includes someone from the District who have been soliciting my involvement in a proposed plan to put in a plant in the District to recycle 10,000 to 20,000 tonnes per year of old gypsum wallboard into new products through the company I currently run (Castagra Products, Inc.). Unfortunately, this is still a dirty place to do business in as Nanaimo / Wellington has been since the Dunsmuir union vs scabs era. I sent an email today about this to one of them who came to Alberta last month to check out what we were doing there. We have helped our Alberta affiliate increase from from 24 to 38 employees at that location in the last four weeks! Expecting that number to go to 50 in the next two months. We'll keep the jobs in the US and Alberta where the bureaucrats don't have as much power and influence as they do in the District.

My preference, as I have written before, is to have them buzz off and not torment my almost 80 year old father who I hear called these people some pretty nasty names and ran one of them down in his wheelchair. That is what I have been hearing anyway although it might be an exaggeration. All of this was apparently recorded on taxpayer-funded District video so I should remember to bring popcorn for the courtroom viewings. I hope they don't kill him in the meantime. He says he felt good after booting them off the property. I think he gets a kick from all the attention. I'd hate to see him getting bored just building dozens of those masterpiece ship models (worth $40k-$100k each) that are ending up in museums and institutions all over the world as donations. I am surprised that taxpayers don't seem to care at all about this type of waste and abuse of their money by public officials. Am I wrong about that or are we a bunch of sheep?

[Bunky]

You are wrong. Just tell people who to phone, or what to do. I don't live in Nanaimo anymore, so I am probably of no help. But let folks who do live there, know how to light a fire under the apropriate asses. ( Sorry for bad spelling.).

Good point about the ditch Ace. It runs less than half the year so doesn't even meet their definition of "watercourse". It ran more 10 or so years ago before the District-approved developers and road crews diverted most of the water when they put in a new subdivision. A ton of taxpayer money was also spent a couple years ago shoring that alternate waterway further to the northeast. I suppose calling the District's Dick and asking him what their motivations are would be an option. Might be more fun to let him and the rest of the District carloads plus officeload of imbeciles spend a couple hundred thousand more taxpayer dollars playing games in Court. I can set aside a few dollars to play these silly games. Sitting these people down one by one for day long discovery sessions and so on.

Ironically, there is a group that includes someone from the District who have been soliciting my involvement in a proposed plan to put in a plant in the District to recycle 10,000 to 20,000 tonnes per year of old gypsum wallboard into new products through the company I currently run (Castagra Products, Inc.). Unfortunately, this is still a dirty place to do business in as Nanaimo / Wellington has been since the Dunsmuir union vs scabs era. I sent an email today about this to one of them who came to Alberta last month to check out what we were doing there. We have helped our Alberta affiliate increase from from 24 to 38 employees at that location in the last four weeks! Expecting that number to go to 50 in the next two months. We'll keep the jobs in the US and Alberta where the bureaucrats don't have as much power and influence as they do in the District.

My preference, as I have written before, is to have them buzz off and not torment my almost 80 year old father who I hear called these people some pretty nasty names and ran one of them down in his wheelchair. That is what I have been hearing anyway although it might be an exaggeration. All of this was apparently recorded on taxpayer-funded District video so I should remember to bring popcorn for the courtroom viewings. I hope they don't kill him in the meantime. He says he felt good after booting them off the property. I think he gets a kick from all the attention. I'd hate to see him getting bored just building dozens of those masterpiece ship models (worth $40k-$100k each) that are ending up in museums and institutions all over the world as donations. I am surprised that taxpayers don't seem to care at all about this type of waste and abuse of their money by public officials. Am I wrong about that or are we a bunch of sheep?

[Peter Roosen]

They are now asking for a meeting on March 14 at their offices while threatening removal orders and other nasty stuff. I have no intention of leaving Arizona or Texas to come up and meet with them. They sent another letter, conveniently ignoring the "watercourse" aspect altogether since it is not supported by the facts while putting new false information into their latest salvo along with escalating threats. I figure these bureaucrats might be reading these posts and shifting positions relative to it. I'll post their letter of today's (Feb 20) date that they had a courier deliver.

They seem to miss the point that there has been no work done since sometime before they sent that October 14 letter I posted earlier on this forum. I will not ask you to do anything specific since they would probably find a law that makes it an actionable offense for me to do that. However, I don't mind posting their material for discussion. I welcome your suggestions, having received many private ones and a few posted ones from among the numerous forum visitors. We are now over 250,000 visits, up from under 200,000 when they started this recent fiasco.

Managed to get a better colour scan of the Stop Work order and am posting it here.

P.S. I am giving serious thought to packing up the railway and bringing it here to the US or over to Alberta where these anti-business and anti-history imbeciles have no jurisdiction. I am in Midland, Texas today where I met with Sam Baker who is very interested in history and has built several hundred trucks for the US and foreign armies years ago. He now works with thousands of oilfield trucks and other pieces of rolling stock on a daily basis. He found the whole District thing silly as I do. Here in west Texas, nobody would even think of coming around telling him what to do or not to do on his land. Sam and others suggest I should move to Texas. Back on Vancouver Island, my father is very unhappy with these people coming in and trying to harass and intimidate him. He was born in Holland in 1936 shortly before Hitler's nazi's came to town and after having gone to war fighting communists in Korea does not like now finding himself being subjected to taxpayer-funded State-sponsored tyranny in his own home. We talked about it today and he wants to fight it out and publicly embarrass these asses. I don't. PPR

[Peter Roosen]

Here is their February 20, 2012 letter delivered by courier earlier today. It was scanned and emailed to me. Again, there has been no work done since before they sent their first (re-posted) October 14 letter.

It is clear from the letter distribution lists that they have several taxpayer-funded people involved in this charade (at least 8 counting just those named in the two letters). They seem to be artificially trying to create a sense of urgency. In the Oct 14 letter, there was no specified instruction although there was a request to "cease any further work" in the DPA (watercourse) area. There was also a request to have someone contact the "Planning Department", with no specific time frame. I figured this was not an emergency situation. There has been no work done, as was requested in the first letter, so what gives?

These three carloads and office full of inconsistent bureaucrats are turning an historical gardening project into a highly-staffed taxpayer-funded emergency. Is there a hint of an effort to not waste taxpayer dollars somewhere in here? I am not sure why they feel the need to add, to the current staff tally, District planners and engineers who likely know little or nothing about 1800s Wellington mining history or garden railway projects. They probably shouldn't need to become interested or involved in landscaping and gardening projects such as this is.

This looks like a clear case of a bunch of District bureaucrats heading out on a pointless fishing expedition paid for by taxpayer dollars through increased property taxes, fees, etc.


P.S. The opening of this second letter is a lie. As I wrote in the earlier posts, there was no formal complaint made by anyone at the time. There was an inquiry by the next door Ranch Point Road neighbour related to noise levels which led to one or more District staff using Google satellite imaging to view the site from above. What she/they saw got them excited and motivated enough to make an official visit. This was discussed in this forum at the time. My understanding of their operating rules is that they need to have a valid reason for engaging in this sort of formal activity and that the preferred reason is to be acting in response to a formal complaint. Look at the first (Oct 14) letter to see a glaring inconsistency. In that letter, they admit it was, as I wrote before the date in which they sent the letter, an "inquiry" and not a "complaint" that got the ball rolling. PPR

P.P.S. Seems I was right when I posted on October 8 (prior to the Oct 14 letter) "I suppose they could go back and manufacture a more formal complaint to cover their butts if they are going to step this up.." Looks like I have them busted on that one so they'll need to come up with something even more sneaky or clever than the phoney "complaint" they allege in the beginning of today's letter. However, we should never underestimate the ability of these types of bureaucratic weasels to cover their butts. PPR

[riverrat]

Hey, gwyneth posted some great material in the "Guess Where this Photo was Taken" thread (vol.4); here is the link to where it begins:
http://www.nanaimoinformation.com/fo...olume-4/page13
It's about "The Perry Shaft" up on Extension Ridge, and also the time that -- well, I'll let y'all read it.
I was tempted to move it here but the content is entrenched in that thread...

[dpill]

@acemcool
It does suck this thread has died off. I really dont care much about this big kids train set or his inability to comply with the city officials.
What I do care about is sharing a picture or two.
This comes from a fantastic little copper mine tucked into the mountains.
I DO own this picture

[CHUBer]

I agree dpill. Too bad the moderator couldn't split the forum or create a new one with all the RDN battle about the little train, and keep the underground tunnel theme pure! I love reading about the history.

re a previous reference elsewhere on the forum: Some of my GOLD and DICK relatives were coal-mining types who came from Ayrshire, Scotland. Through searching various branches of the family tree, I have learned a lot about the coal mining days in Nanaimo and surrounding area. John Dick served on the first Nanaimo City Council. Archibald Dick was Inspector of Mines for B.C. I will see if I can dig out an article I wrote on Isabella Dick Sayers, the last surviving child of John Dick. I went to Seattle to interview her, and it was a real treat.

[dpill]

@CHUBer
I would be interested in reading your article. John Dick has come up in my readings several times.

[riverrat]

The topic of historic artifacts used to create a mine-relevant installation in Peter's yard does belong in this thread (or rather, I don't think it's so irrelevant as to warrant being offensive).

With that said, perhaps I will move the posts about the trouble with the bylaw enforcement to their own thread (just not tonight; I'm watching Braveheart).

[Peter Roosen]

The topic of historic artifacts used to create a mine-relevant installation in Peter's yard does belong in this thread (or rather, I don't think it's so irrelevant as to warrant being offensive).

With that said, perhaps I will move the posts about the trouble with the bylaw enforcement to their own thread (just not tonight; I'm watching Braveheart).

I think the District problem is going away - or the collection will move to Alberta or the US. As for the Nanaimo underground pics, I'm wondering if the theme has been played out?? I'm quite familiar with much of the mining historical stuff in the Wellington area and am starting to think that all the more interesting locations have already been visited, photographed and posted during this thread's run. It is unfortunate that GR74 bailed and took out the best of the photos when he did. I was pleasantly surprised at the photo dpill put up of the copper mine but am fairly certain it did not come from the Nanaimo / Wellington area. The suburbanators have been doing a good job burying much of the evidence of the old mines. The Douglas portals have been eradicated within the past few months as a typical example. Here are a couple photos I found on the net - Morden then and now - one of the few sites that the developers have not yet ploughed over.