The Illusional Drost Effect

The team waits for their flight in Edmonton

I am sitting with two members from the Greater Vancouver area and their already exhausted by travel dogs. One dog, Wrangler, a two year old English Springer Spaniel has his head resting on my foot as I type this.

Wrangler's owner is a 24 year old Graphic Artist, named Krista Drake and this is their first real mission. Krista admits she is  frightened about being in Haiti. She realizes that it won't be pleasant and that it will be a live changing experience.

Wrangler is mostly a calm passenger but when the plane was taking off, he jumped into Krista's lap with a very worried look.

There are four dogs in total, all different breeds, all wearing SAR harnesses complete with their own photo ID.

The dog to my left, Zack, is a four year old shepherd cross rescued from certain euthanization at a Burnaby pound. Now he goes into danger to rescue other people.

Zack's owner, Mark Pullen (55) is a Burnaby area fire fighter. This isn't his first mission. Mark and his former rescue dog Jake worked in New Orleans during hurricane Katrina.

Wrangler and Zack

This team’s mission is primarily the location of live human victims, although these dogs have been trained to do cadaver work. They locate, notify the other specialized teams who dig, to the location to dig and they move on.

Mark said, "It's very easy to get sidetracked. The suffering is the hardest to take. We have to remain focussed on our task."

Mark also voiced frustration and concern about the difficulty and delays in getting there. Vancouver to Calgary to Houston to the Dominican Republic is not the most efficient way to get on the ground in Haiti where they are urgently needed. Time is of the essence and every hour delayed results in diminishing returns.

I was shown an OCHA (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) e-mail dated late last night 01/13/2010.

As of then worldwide, 18 different teams deployed, 26 additional teams mobilizing, 23 monitoring plus and additional six which have already been put on stand-down.

The American military already has mobile air traffic control equipment set up and operational at the Port Au Prince airport. The airport is now officially open for all humanitarian air travel.

The CASDDA team will stand-by in the Dominican until space is available for them to fly on military transport to Haiti. Once there, they expect to spend two days searching.

The human team members are already dressed in bright orange reflector strip jumpsuits. They, of course, must bring all of their own food and supplies with them. Whatever they do not use, they intend to leave behind.

Finally, the team arrives in Houston

These are impressive people and more importantly, they are volunteers. They have taken time off from work to go on this rescue mission. They operate strictly on donated funds or, in many cases their own funds.

Team leader, who is based in Edmonton is Silvie Montier. Silvie grew up in Algiers and came by SAR naturally as her dad was a SAR expert.

Silvie's talented canine is Cramique, a three year old male Belgian Lackenois. These dogs are known for their excellent SAR talents.

The fourth team pair consists of Trish Riswald and her seven year old Golden Retriever, Piper.

These pairs train two to three times a week and  must keep their international vaccinations up to date in order to be able to deploy on a moment's notice.

Godspeed and good luck to this and all Canadian SAR teams!

I have given my e-mail address to my seat mates and they have agreed to send me an update when they can. So will try to provide more detail later.

Should you wish to help this group in their relief efforts, please visit their web site.




Taxpayers Association Stands On Guard For Us

The St. Albert Taxpayers Association supports moderate, well planned growth that is revenue positive and does not burden current taxpayers with the cost of development. Much of the Erin Ridge North Area Structure Plan could meet that test depending on how it is executed. It exceeds the 80/20 split for residential/commercial and raises the average density of dwellings per hectare which moves us away from urban sprawl.

At the same time we have concerns about the approval. First, the financial analysis requested by Council was limited because of its methodology and assumptions. The methodology resulted in an estimate of municipal revenue in 8+ years at full-build out. We don't know what happens in the years in between so have no idea whether over that period the city coffers gain or lose.

Second, the assumption that Council priority of Commercial or commercial/residential first would be met is also critical as more municipal revenues flow from commercial/high density residential. If only low density residential moves forward first (the developer as much as said this), then the revenue streams in the early years are significantly lowered. In addition, Council priority for a 80/20% commercial/residential split is delayed as is the shift away from urban sprawl. If high density residential and medium density institutional housing does not go ahead, the municipal revenue streams could be negatively affected by over $900,000 annually (based on shifting acreage to low density residential with its lower revenue stream).

Third, the fact that off-site levies negotiations were not concluded prior to approval, lends uncertainty to the analysis. If Council does not hold fast to its commitment that taxpayers won't bear the $92+ million burden of annexation infrastructure costs, then the estimate's positive impacts could disappear. This is even more important as uncertainty about necessary storm water infrastructure could balloon this figure even more. We congratulate Administration for requiring the developer to conclude storm water negotiations before building starts, but we wonder what the additional costs will be, and trust it will be the developers who bear the burden. Taxpayers will watch this with interest given the “hint” to the developer that they could ease this requirement by an amendment to the ASP by-law.

Why does all this matter? One reason is that we could have more development that doesn't improve the commercial/residential tax split which eventually will ease the burden of taxes on the residential taxpayer. Another reason is that development brings about city obligations and expenditures, including provincial/federal grants. This makes these funds unavailable for other needed infrastructure projects which then must be financed from the taxpayers pocket. Remember that St. Albert lacks dollars for hundreds of millions of needed infrastructure over the next 10 years. A third reason is that the goal of curbing urban sprawl in St. Albert is unmet.

Our Association will continue to monitor this development as it moves forward. We will also support Council in its view that taxpayers should not pay for the costs of development in the annexed lands. We encourage individual taxpayers to make their views known to Council and to participate in the continuation of the public by-law hearing in offside levies to be held January 25th at 5:00pm in Council chambers.

Lynda Flannery
President
St. Albert Taxpayers Association