The NEW DNPS (downtown nanaimo partnership society)

[Piper]

Oldtimer I like your post, I to am not in favour of panhadling but it is legal and no one can change that not even the businesses that are asociated with the DNPS Hopefully the DNPS has changed their way of doing things to make downtown a better place for all to enjoy but I have my doubts.

[Piper]

Okay, I read through your links, and I found them to be pretty one-sided. I can answer the one that mentioned Winnipeg's "Draconian" panhandling laws in the 90's because I was living there at the time.

Winnipeg in the 90's was hit pretty hard by a recession and victimized by Mulroney's pork-barrel politics. Lots of businesses were going under. Five companies that I had worked for previously had been closed and I was left without references or a work history I could prove. I also found myself out of work along with many other people at that time. That's when Winnipeg started seeing an increase in panhandling.

Most panhandlers politely asked passers-by once and then left them alone. For many years we saw the same panhandlers on the same streetcorners and my Mom and I gave them money at times when we had a bit to spare. But mainly the problems started with a new and very agressive group of panhandlers on Portage Ave. and the squeegie kids in Osbourne Village. The panhandlers on Portage would follow people around and shout obscenities at them if they didn't give them anything or if they didn't give enough. The squeegie kids in Osbourne weren't homeless. Many of them actually came from very well-to-do families, and had a nice home to go to at the end of the day. They were intimidating people and there were a few who would reach into a woman's car and grab her purse and run off.

I remember one day after I'd been unemployed for about six months. I stuck 50 resumes into an attache case, put on my best interview clothes and took the bus downtown to cold-call potential employers. Every time I came out of an office building, a store, or other place of business, I had these same panhandlers following me around and shouting abuse at me. Finally I'd had enough. When one particular fellow kept following me and calling me "rich bitch" I turned around and screamed at him right in front of everyone on Portage. I told him that I'd been out of work for half a year and was trying to do something about it. I said to him that after I'd walked all around downtown Winnipeg looking for work I was going to walk five miles to go home, because I had less money on me than he had on him and I couldn't afford the bus fare.

I guess I shamed him a little, because he apologized to me and offered me bus fare so I could get home, but I was too angry to take it and stomped off.

Anyway, my point is that there are two sides to every story. Winnipeg's laws may have seemed draconian, but there were reasons for them at the time. Some investigative reporters from the local newspaper, television and radio services followed those panhandlers around for a few days and found they were making more money begging in a day than I was making at my slightly above minimum wage jobs. Sometimes the "rich bitch" is having more trouble holding it together than the panhandler is.

Complicated I believe what you are saying and you have cause to be angry I'm just reading I guess one sided stories from the internet via the media. It's very frustrating when you are trying to do the best you can to make money without asking for it but by working for it such as I have tried to do and I am forced to buy licences and obey all these rules while panhandlers can do their thing all day with no rules to follow. It doesn't seem right to me. My lawyer is one of the ones who is part responsible for elliminating the panhandlng bylaw and I'm sure that the busking bylaw will be a carbon copy of the panhandling bylaw when it gets to court. It will be intresting to see the outcome. I just hope the new DNPS makes better decisions as stakeholders than they did in 2003 or it may come back and bite them.

[queen of the waterfront]

i havent seen any decisions in the newsletter other than the move to Victoria Crescent.

i am still of the mind that the DNPS is reduntant in an economy such as ours. We have Tourism Nanimo as well as the City run Economic development group. The executives in all of these Societies are making huge salaries.
i honestly cannot seee a lot of improvment downtown.
To me the Diana Krall plaza is sterile. i think that Spirit square is hokey and I hate all the stone.
Nanaimo residents have lost parking at their favorite park.

I often hear about how many businesses are moving downtown. I dont hear about how many have left for greener pastures. Downtown is not socially friendly.

Does anyone know what new changes the NEW DNPS has come up with?
How about Safer Nannaimo Working Group?

Granted I have spent little time downtown in the last six weeks. I even missed the Dragon Boat festivities.

[SecurityExpert]

Stop the Real Panhandlers.

Haven House Org.
The DNP INC.
Salvation Army New Hope Centre

This is where the real abuse occurs!

[kickidee]

Stop the Real Panhandlers.

Haven House Org.
The DNP INC.
Salvation Army New Hope Centre

This is where the real abuse occurs!

I am kind of confused here. You are saying that Haven house and the Salvation army are panhandlers? I do not know anything about the Hope Center, but the services provided by Haven for women of all ecenomic means are necassary and I would not consider Haven house remotely associated with pahandling.
The DNP, perhaps Salvation, unlikely, Haven, not.

[chardonnay]

Downtown partnership in disarray
Text By Toby Gorman - Nanaimo News Bulletin


Published: August 03, 2009 3:00 PM
Updated: August 04, 2009 8:01 AM

Old wounds surrounding the Downtown Nanaimo Partnership Society that didn’t heal quite right last winter were reopened Wednesday as stakeholders tried to set the organization back on track.

In response to a review of the society, residents, business owners and society partners argued on the direction the partnership should now take.

The review was asked for by city council after a tumultuous debate that led to a five-year renewal of two Business Improvement Area bylaws in March.

But Camela Tang, the partnership’s former president, went so far as to suggest if the DNPS can’t function as it has in the past, it should be dissolved.

“Provincewide, BIA communities no longer look upon Nanaimo as leader, but rather a disease they hope is not contagious. I would rather see the DNPS die with its reputation intact,” said Tang.

The society is a partnership between the Old City Quarter Association, the Nanaimo City Centre Association and the City of Nanaimo. It was established in 2001 to help promote and rejuvenate the city’s core.

Eric McLean, president of the Old City Quarter Association, said his BIA is healthy and “doesn’t need to change.”

“The OCQA has been dragged into a set of issues that is none of our doing,” said McLean. “The OCQ is a strong brand. At one point it was the only reason customers came anywhere near downtown.”

Bruce Barnard, president of the NCCA, said if the partnership is to succeed, the funding, which as of July 1 goes from the BIAs directly to the DNPS, must return to pass through the NCCA and OCQ associations first.

“This partnership was not established to be a member organization,” said Barnard. “At this point the partnership is no longer. [This] report has made that very clear.”

The report, completed by Allison Habkirk, a former Nanaimo councillor and Central Saanich mayor, was both praised and criticized. It suggests four options regarding how the society’s structure could change by electing at-large board directors as well as representatives from each partner, with the city providing one non-voting board member.

Barnard said if change was needed, the fourth option, which would see automatic membership of all property and business owners, 11 at-large elected board members and one non-voting ex officio member appointed by the city, was best.

Breaths were held, however, as Blake McGuffie, the NCCA’s first vice-president, verbally attacked Barnard, his own president.

“I am disturbed and disappointed that our president has made comments that were not discussed at our board table,” said McGuffie.

Several residents and downtown property owners also voiced their opinions.

Deborah Zorkin, a longtime downtown resident, said she was saddened by the state of the partnership and disappointed in those in charge.

“I’m not willing to let this be blown apart for whoever’s agenda there is,” she said. “I really thought you guys would be battling for this. Don’t capitulate, fight for 10 years of hard work. I’m willing to fight for this, but not if you all fall apart.”

Zorkin also ripped Habkirk’s report for removing the uniqueness from Nanaimo’s structure and calling it Byzantine.

Virtually all other BIA communities in North America are membership organizations, rather than partnerships. Nanaimo’s BIAs, established in 1988, were the first in Canada.

Neil Reinhart, a downtown property owner, said if consensus can’t be achieved, the organization should cease to exist.

“What’s the purpose?” he said. “If all the money is tied up in lawyers, what’s left to do useful things with. All this bickering and fighting. Come on you guys, grow up.”

According to current legislation, if the parties can’t come to an agreement, the structure will likely stay as it is, though any partner can give 90 days notice to remove itself from the partnership, which would then continue without it.

Habkirk said if that is the chosen route, it will spell the end of the DNPS down the road.

“If there is no change, you will meet your maker in four and a half years,” she said, adding that from an objective viewpoint, Nanaimo has a way of “beating itself up.”

“I didn’t make up these concerns,” she said. “These problems exist.”

Coun. Merv Unger, the current DNPS president who chaired the meeting, said it will be a long process.

“Maybe a total overhaul is not as necessary as some tweaking. It’s up to the people who operate downtown to have a say in their own future.”

reporter2@nanaimobulletin.com

[kickidee]

Sounds like a heated, unconclusive and frustrating meeting. I cant believe this can last long with no real direction or outcome in the structuring, the basics are under intense debate. Perhaps there is truley no need for or purpose to this society after all. I sure hope not because it looks close to disolving. I cant believe that buisnesses will still be passing over funds when this society hasnt decided what it is even going to become yet?

[Tenspot]

was an entity formed by the City of Nanaimo to claw back control of the funds relegated to the BIA consisting of the NCCA and OCQ. ....and it failed.

[chardonnay]

was an entity formed by the City of Nanaimo to claw back control of the funds relegated to the BIA consisting of the NCCA and OCQ. ....and it failed.

This Downtown Nanaimo Partnership was incorporated as a Society a few years ago. When the item was discussed by City Council, I recall that the Mayor, (Korpan), said that we, (the City's taxpayers), don't have to tell the Partnership how to spend their money.!!!

(Prior to the Partnership becoming a "Society", it had been a Committee of Council with at least, some transparency!)

Well, due to public outcry, which resulted in the City hiring a consultant to review the governance of this Partnership Society, the taxpayers ultimately had to pay an independent person to provide some transparency to them!

Prior to the consultant's review, City Council had approved funding to the Society for a five-year term, with automatic increases each year of that term.

Apparently, the residents of Nanaimo are the only taxpayers in BC, who have been providing matching funds to its "Business Improvement Areas", aka the DNPS.

Apparently, the DNPS has been run by a group of individuals, aka an unaccountable "Board", accountable to neither those, who contributed the BIA levies, nor to the rest of the City's taxpayers! (Note that the "Board" has always had City Councillors on it, whose responsibility is to represent all taxpayers!!)

Isn't it amazing!! ..... It would have been business as usual, if it weren't for the extensive efforts of those such as Rick Hyne, (on behalf of Crankshaw Holdings Ltd.), Kevan Shaw and other "engaged" residents, who expended their time and money to bring much "out of the darkness".

I urge anyone, who is at all interested in how their taxes are actually spent,(and funding has been provided to DNPS by more than one level of government), to read the Habkirk Report, dated June 30, 2009, which is located on the City's website:

www.nanaimo.ca under the tabs "Residents" and "Downtown Nanaimo"

[queen of the waterfront]

This Downtown Nanaimo Partnership was incorporated as a Society a few years ago. When the item was discussed by City Council, I recall that the Mayor, (Korpan), said that we, (the City's taxpayers), don't have to tell the Partnership how to spend their money.!!!

(Prior to the Partnership becoming a "Society", it had been a Committee of Council with at least, some transparency!)

Well, due to public outcry, which resulted in the City hiring a consultant to review the governance of this Partnership Society, the taxpayers ultimately had to pay an independent person to provide some transparency to them!

Prior to the consultant's review, City Council had approved funding to the Society for a five-year term, with automatic increases each year of that term.

Apparently, the residents of Nanaimo are the only taxpayers in BC, who have been providing matching funds to its "Business Improvement Areas", aka the DNPS.

Apparently, the DNPS has been run by a group of individuals, aka an unaccountable "Board", accountable to neither those, who contributed the BIA levies, nor to the rest of the City's taxpayers! (Note that the "Board" has always had City Councillors on it, whose responsibility is to represent all taxpayers!!)

Isn't it amazing!! ..... It would have been business as usual, if it weren't for the extensive efforts of those such as Rick Hyne, (on behalf of Crankshaw Holdings Ltd.), Kevan Shaw and other "engaged" residents, who expended their time and money to bring much "out of the darkness".

I urge anyone, who is at all interested in how their taxes are actually spent,(and funding has been provided to DNPS by more than one level of government), to read the Habkirk Report, dated June 30, 2009, which is located on the City's website:

www.nanaimo.ca under the tabs "Residents" and "Downtown Nanaimo"

very good points. I just came from the Partnership. i found it difficult to get to as there is not much signage. i have never had such a positive experience as I did today.

Not one person is there from the George Hanson days. The staff was friendly, helpful and had good listening skills. I realise that they are not the mechanism of the DNPS. I wish that they were because they have good ideas and good people skills.

I was totally against the way that the bylaw was passed for funding for this organization. i still am. I truly hope that our tax dollars are not being wasted.

That said, i am so impressed with the new staff.
If we have to have it at least we have some some new blood.