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Councillor Paul Harris facebooked & tweeted on Saturday February 23, 2013: “The graffiti in the city is getting out of control. We need a strategy to handle it that doesn't punish the victim. #red deer” This indeed surprised me considering the following:
Approximately 1 year ago, Paul Harris posted on see click fix an issue dated April 21, 2012 against our property, namely issue #176615, tagged “graffiti” and “drug dealing” that showed a photo of our building with graffiti on it and the words “Behind the eclectic bakery. One of the smith properties. This site is often used for drug exchanges and use.”
Paul Harris also more recently posted on September 19, 2012 on facebook the following about our building:
"You'll remember that during the election I committed to deal with 'the hole' beside Gaetz Avenue United Church downtown that had been there for 12 years collecting garbage, making the neighbourhood unsafe and unsightly, and devaluing the properties. I pushed hard for that work to be done. It cost us all money through continual policing, environmental issues, and reduced economic activity. With the steadfast help of our downtown coordinator, and Minister Rock from Gaetz United, the hole is filled and tidied up! Now it’s home to Cool Beans. You should visit them and the other cool businesses on the block. I’ll now turn my attention to the ‘eclectic bakery’ downtown. It’s been like that for over 10 years, boarded over, collecting junk, graffiti, and weighing down economic development. Again…costing us all stretched resources that should be better used elsewhere in our community. Little Gaetz is becoming the place to be; that firetrap has no place in our healthy future."
Please let me paint the picture for you of this area and the block where our building is located on Little Gaetz.
I begin by saying -- Though it was not our choice, who are neighbours are, nor have we ever made it an issue, instead we have just accepted our neighbours and have tried to make the best of the situation as any good neighbour would do.
Our building is one of three buildings on the block. The other two buildings are the Canadian Mental Health building and Potter’s Hand building with low income housing in both building’s on the upper levels. Please note in order to stay in these Potter’s Hand residences you are NOT required to be abstaining from drug/alcohol/ etc. Therefore, you can be using drugs, alcohol, and other addictions when staying there. In addition, there is a box for needles in the back alley behind Potter’s Hands building for those to place their used needles.
Does it seem fair….. that Paul Harris shows a photo of our graffitied building and then say “Behind the eclectic bakery. One of the smith properties. This site is often used for drug exchanges and use." As well as posts on facebook that our building and its owner is the problem in the area and not the other two nor any other property owners, just us?
We were at that time and still are to this day, the VICTIM here. Victim of graffiti on our building, victim of crimes against our property, victim of location and circumstance, due to who our neighbours are and who inhabits our downtown.
And Councillor Paul Harris has the audacity to try to blame us and our building for the problems in the area, trying to make us the criminals, rather than the victims -- Shame on him and those that do this.
The City of Red Deer, the Mayor and City Council need to support and protect the victims/property owners/business owners in our downtown from property damage, graffiti, and the like – not punish them with fines, ridicule them, diminish their value in the community, and try to convince others that we are the problem, whilst ignoring the real problem in our downtown.
We (property owners & businesses in the downtown) are the victims, remember this please, please, please and make the city, the mayor, and council do something about this awful situation property owners & businesses are subjected to and the circumstances our downtown is in and has become.
13 Comentários
Inspections (Utilizador Registado)
Reconhecido Inspections (Utilizador Registado)
Thank you for calling it off the wall. Graffiti is a crime and we work hard to have it removed in a timely fashion. Unfortunately, graffiti removal can take anywhere from two to 90 days depending on the circumstance.
You can also call it off the all by calling the graffiti reporting hotline at 403-356-8908, or visit our website http://bit.ly/15gCj8l
jim (Visitante)
jim (Visitante)
fjguedoud (Visitante)
Inspections (Utilizador Registado)
reddeerlover (Visitante)
fjguedoud (Utilizador Registado)
Read this first please..........
http://www.reddeeradvocate.com/opinion/Anonymous_bloggers_need_to_own_up_or_shut_up_201527311.html
The writer of this column is actually really funny. I submitted a signed letter (with the same words as above Who is the Victim) with my name to the editor over a month ago about a councillor openly trashed us using his own name on See Click Fix which the city removed months later after I found it and made a complaint. There was absolutely no foundation for the lies he typed about us on See Click Fix. The advocate and John Stewart obviously refused to publish my letter as it never reached print. In his opinion column in the red deer advocate, he dares those to own their names along their words on social media...... but I did that and he would not publish it in the Advocate. This is a double standard. As a result, social media, specifically see click fix, was the only way to have my voice heard and opinion in print.... hence the above issue .... http://seeclickfix.com/issues/428290-graffiti-who-is-the-victim ....On see click fix you have the choice to be anonymous and actually see click fix encourages anonymity. I obviously owned my words along with my name.
Thanks See Click Fix!
P.S. I AM JOE RED DEER! AREN'T YOU JOE RED DEER? WE ALL ARE JOE RED DEER!
fjguedoud (Utilizador Registado)
I have submitted another letter to the editor of the red deer advocate this morning. I do not know if they have the guts to print that either...... so here it is just in case:
Who did you vote for in the last federal, provincial, and municipal election? Why did you vote for him/her? What guide did you use to determine your vote?
Contrary to what Cameron Kennedy, John Stewart, Mayor Morris Flewwelling, certain Council Members and Lorna Watkinson Zimmer personal opinions and comments, there is no short and fast rule or anything that prohibits municipal politics and candidates from running and aligning themselves with whomever they choose. Do not be fooled by their comments and shenanigans.
It is not past or present politicians or journalists that will reveal and determine if the group, Red Deer First, is a necessary want and need to reinvent and realign how Red Deerians want to be governed and who they want governing them. It is the voting and democratic process that will determine that outcome.
It is of course quite predictable that these past and present politicians and journalists will do and say anything to stop any group that does not want to play by their rules and support their way of doing things in Red Deer. This is what those do, when their own dictate is challenged. This is what those do, when their status quo is challenged. This is what those do, when they want to preserve things exactly the way they are. But one needs to ask why? Better yet, ask yourself -- to whose advantage will keeping everything exactly the same benefit?
The interesting part of politics and democracy is having one challenge the dictate of a group who believe their dictate is sacrosanct. But the most interesting part of this process, is when it is challenged to its limits in our own backyard.
Remember the Reform Party and Preston Manning, challenging the disproportionate politics of East versus West in Canada. If the time was not ripe, the Reform Party would not have come to fruition. Let’s not forget what the Reform Party did and achieved as an Alberta protest party and how it synthesized the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada into the party it is today. If the Reform Party never had come about, would Stephen Harper be our Prime Minister today? Think about it.
I wish Red Deer First, those courageous trail blazers, the best of luck in forging new pathways in municipal politics.
fjguedoud (Utilizador Registado)
fjguedoud (Utilizador Registado)
UPDATE FROM THE RED DEER ADVOCATE NEWSROOM! ........ Finally, I received a response from the RDA newsroom. Annette advised in a telephone call yesterday April 4, 2013 which is exactly 38 days after I submitted my letter to the editor on Feb 26, 2013 GRAFFITI Who is the Victim?, that the reason why they did not run my letter to the editor is as she says "they could not substantiate some of my claims" in my letter. Well......................the Paul Harris' facebook comments are on his facebook dated September 19, 2012 are still there.
Next if you google the words ..... see click issue 176615 .....Paul Harris' words also come up in the search but the whole issue was removed from see click fee by ? after I sent a copy of the issue #176615 that was posted by Paul Harris on See click fix under his name and photo to the mayor of red deer and each council member back in October 2012 for comment. The issue #176615 was then removed but still is searchable via goggle.
If the RED DEER ADVOCATE has any problem substantiating Paul Harris' words why don't they just simply ask him if he said / typed those words on See Click Fix and what he meant by them.
In fact I challenge and dare Paul Harris to own up to his words and I challenge and dare the ADVOCATE and John Stewart to seek the truth on this matter.
Bob W. (Visitante)
BB (Utilizador Registado)
Hi,
I'm an admin at SeeClickFix. Can you help me understand what the specific issue is here? Is this about an issue at a location or a question about policy?
Thanks,
Ben