This is a letter that was submitted today to the Whig Standard
Looks like council is trying to kill the Poker Run
While I was at the Council meeting on the 19th of January, I observed various councillors saying good bye to a popular event. – The Poker Run. I am not sure if these councillors think of the economic implications this decision may have. Here is what I observed.
One councillor made a blatant class warfare, racial, sexist comment – His quote ” Poker Run is a rich white man’s event” . Guess what!! People with money will spend money which helps hotels and restaurants (plus other shops) – that means more hours available to work .Some one that spoke to me said ( not a councillor)” It will just be a few days lost work. My comment: If there are more events banned that that is even more hours. and also some people may really need and want those extra hours. Another councillor (paraphrasing) hinted that the reason the Poker Run is being selected was timing. Someone had to be first. So reading between the lines we can expect more.
Some councillors just do not want the Poker Run
One member of council is for carbon offset credits but realizes that if the boats go elsewhere that will not force them to pay for offsets, It is not going to help the environmental cause ( hats off to Councillor Foster for this piece of common sense) . I have to give credit to councillor Hector for asking if just the Poker Run is being targeted. I did also get the impression it is a class warfare among some councillors . While another councillor mentions the cycles of the government scaring us with climate doomsday and he reads off the years 50’s 70’s and 90’s, he failed to mention that the 70’s was about global cooling – nice job leaving that out. There were also a few that wanted to spend more time to determine what effect offsets may have ( at least they do not want to rush into that.) Since one councillor did hint that this could just be a start ( last month they did mention the Snowbirds) I have a question? How much of a “carbon footprint” will be left by the celebrities and people coming to visit for FebFest. . What about the bid for the Memorial Cup. What about all the cars and buses and the refrigeration for ice. Will council end hockey games at the arena for the same reason. We cannot ’Sustain’ a healthy economy if we do not allow event to come here that bring much need money to the economy. The usual strategy when banning things is incremental change because it is harder to notice. Let’s stop this banning things before it gets too late.
Harold Hemberger is running for council this year in the Portsmouth District
end of letter
One item that i would like to ad reference carbon footprint. How do they come up with the calculations. You can not honestly say engine size. If that was the case there would be no need for my car to get hooked up to get tested every 2 years. It gets hooked up because they do not know my emmissions. Right…
