Celebrating and watching the Kingston Ontario waterfront
COMPREHENSIVE PLANNING REPORT for the River Park Subdivision on the Cataraqui River at Counter Blvd is before Council at the February 2nd meeting.
Looking at the document, is there a waterfront park planned for the River Park Subdivision? Not seeing it.
THE POKER RUN is Bill Hutchins' subject in last week's issue of Kingston EMC. (Does anyone cover the Council beat better than Bill Hutchins?)
A "SAFETY AT SEA" SEMINAR is open to all sail or power boaters on April 10, 2010 at the OISE Auditorium in Toronto.
This information-rich, one day seminar, provides the training necessary to handle emergencies away from land and is an asset for offshore or short handed crews.
Presented and endorsed by, among others, the Royal Canadian Yacht Club, US Sailing, and the Lake Ontario 300.
BUD GORMELY, past chairman of CORK, is to be inducted into the Kingston District Sports Hall of Fame later this Spring.
Quoting from the story in last week's Kingston EMC:
Marsha Gormley was happy to hear that her husband Russell "Bud" Gormley had been inducted into the Hall of Fame. She just wished that he could have been there to enjoy the honour.
Indeed. This honour is probably 20-years overdue.
Bud Gormley is remembered as a pioneer of the Canadian Olympic Regatta Kingston (CORK). During the 1976 Olympic Games, Gormley was known as the unofficial mayor of the Olympic Village at the Portsmouth Olympic Harbour. He was a key organizer of many other international sailing events in Kingston. Later in his life, Gormley carried out several humanitarian missions in the Dominican Republic.
Here's more on Bud Gormley.
Have a look at this sortable list of past HOF inductees. Rowing and sailing combined account for just six of 111 inductees. Baseball accounts for 28.
IT'S THE MIDDLE OF JANUARY ALREADY.
Here is the status of online marketing efforts by several prominent waterfront-related organizations for the summer of 2010.
- Poker Runs America: 2010 details online (Aug 6-7-8).
- CORK: 2010 details online, plus tentative dates for 2011 through 2014.
- City Marinas: 2010 rates and dates online.
- Kingston Yacht Club: nothing posted.
- Collins Bay Yacht Club: nothing posted.
- Kingston Dragon Boat Festival: nothing posted.
- K-Town Triathlon: nothing posted.
- Kingston Rowing Club:
not online anymore.
That's pathetic, no?
For the most part, 2010 dates should be posted within two weeks of the end of the 2009 boating season.
It's long-past the point of anybody caring about your Summer 2009 calendar.
HERE'S A LINK to a 44-page pollution report you may be hearing about over the next few days in the mainstream media.
Protecting the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin and Drinking Water Sources.
It's scary what gets dumped upstream and upwind of here.
THE KINGSTON ROWING CLUB let their internet domain lapse and dodgy squatters have taken it over. No link because, well, you get the picture.
K.E.A.F. SPEAKS OUT about the Poker Run on the Council agenda for next Tuesday.
That's another report that's not available online for the public.
NOTHING SAYS "KINGSTON" like the document titled City of Kingston Waterfront Strategy - Past Directions which is part of the upcoming January 7th Planning Committee meeting agenda.
Firstly, the document is borderline unreadable! When did it ever become OK to post unreadable documents for the public? This has been going-on for years.
Secondly, the online document is incomplete.
Exhibit 'A' — 'Waterfront Strategy - Past Directions' which forms part of this report is being circulated under separate cover.
The public needn't concern itself with the specific contents of the "approximately 40 studies and reports (that) were undertaken during the past 30 years".
Thirdly, get this:
RECOMMENDATION:
That the "Waterfront Strategy - Past Directions" document be accepted as background information for the Waterfront Strategy, which will assist in the development of policies and recommendations to conserve and manage the City's waterfront.
Well, duh!
Progress on the waterfront file is here masquerading in the form of this totally obvious "report" from Cynthia Beach (Commissioner, Sustainability and Growth) that supposedly lists the details of 40 waterfront-related studies conducted over the past 30-years, suggesting that the Planning Committee should take time to accept the recommendation to consider recommendations arising from these studies when planning for the waterfront.
And so it goes.
Ever wonder how Kingston ended-up with a wasted waterfront? One reason is we have a Planning Committee that doesn't expect very much from City staff.
This endless visionless wheel-spinning helps ensure that money for the Downtown will indeed be amply available whenever needed. So, over time, we all end-up with, among other things, our fat-cat downtown and a shamefully wasted derelict waterfront.
Skeptical about that? Flashback to January 19th 2009. Read the whole thing.
INTERESTING INTERVIEW with MetalCraft Marine Contracts Manager Bob Clark from the tradeshow floor of the 2009 International WorkBoat Convention in New Orleans, LA.
In the interview Bob talks about the history of MetalCraft Marine, and the boats they design and build. Most people in Kingston don't realize the degree to which MetalCraft Marine is a player in the high-end fireboat and patrol boat markets.
HATTERS BAY PARK is still in jeopardy according to the Portmouth Villagers Association.
You may recall that the Coast Guard wants to shift their base from the west-side to the east-side of POH, clobbering the park, or access to the park, in the process.
Read more on the issue.
SAILBOAT RIDE IN KINGSTON for the Olympic Torch relay on December 15th.
The torchbearer is Olympian and CORK chairman Tim Irwin.
SURPRISE, SURPRISE: more units, less parking requested by the Elevator Bay project proponents.
Here's a roundup of Elevator Bay-related news.
THE BREAKWATER PARK RENAMING PROPOSAL is dead according to a City Staff report.
A NICE UPGRADE to the West Street Launch Ramp is presently underway.
Click here to see what it looked-like before.
THE COMPANIONWAY is the quarterly newsletter of the Kingston Squadron of the Canadian Power and Sail Squadron. The latest issue is online now.
Here's some of what's interesting in this issue:
- The Power Squadron offers a complete range of courses over the winter. There are no downsides to boating-related accreditation, it's all-good. A boating course makes a fine Christmas gift, and it's a nice shared activity.
- You may be surprised to see the number of boating and waterfront-related advertisers in the newsletter. Times may be tough but, around these parts, local businesses are continuing to step-up in support of the Power Squadron.
- Part-two of an interesting article about power boat planing hulls by E.B.(Red) Bowes. The first part of the article is here in the August issue.
HERE YOU ARE LOOKING southwest from a vantage upstairs at the Radisson Hotel. Click here for a much larger version of this photo.
What you see in the middle-distance is the tumble-stone breakwall of Confederation Basin. In the right-foreground is part of the 250 meters of new tumble-stone shoreline around Block-D's Token Park.
In the past this 250m of Block-D perimeter was a corrugated metal seawall where boats could tie-up. It was a pretty good place for boat-passenger dropoffs and pickups when the marina's docks were packed in the summertime. It was a fine venue for model-boat racing. It has been said that many late-summer-night skinny-dips took place there in the hours between closing-time and dawn.
This was, in short, usable shoreline which is in very short supply around here. But that was then.
Let history show that, in the Harvey Rosen era, the City of Kingston transformed this once-usable protected shoreline into severe inaccessible shoreline. Which begs the question: why? All this is on calm waters that are amply protected by the massive Confederation Basin breakwall.
This is another waterfront loss in Kingston, one of many that have recently occurred because of the raving lunatics who lead and manage this unfortunate city.
Thanks to Joanna Bull for the photo.
STICKING-IT to the M.O.E. in the latest Lake Ontario Waterkeeper podcast.
It's about the Lafarge case in Bath, Ontario coming to an end. It's a most excellent 26-minute listen.
THE BROWN'S BAY INN IS FOR SALE.
It's a gem on Wolfe Island, just 4-miles south-east of Confederation Basin by-boat, just east of the winter ferry dock.
THIS is scandalous. Get a load of this:
At the next Council meeting, senior city managers Cynthia Beach and Lanie Hurdle (remember the wonderful, wonderful LVEC project?) want to add $200,000 to the budget for Token Park to cover some glaring planning oversights. Like lighting, and accessibility.
To finance this, these people want to filch $55,000 from the city's waterfront improvement account, $55,000 from the cycling and pathway account, and $90,000 remaining in the City Park splash-pad account.
Because, you know, we're up-to-our-eyeballs in recreational infrastructure here in Kingston.
THE NOVEMBER ISSUE of the Thousand Islands Life e-zine is out.
Of particular local interest: Wolfe Island's Lighthouses.
The St-Lawrence II is apparently due for NEW LIFE RAFTS. They're reaching-out for funding, in this case via the Aviva Community Fund.
The Brigantine always happily accepts donations.
TWO WATERFRONT ITEMS on Tuesday's Council agenda.
- The city wants to renew a 5-year lease with The Crown for POH land and land underwater. The rental rate is ''20% of the marina's annual gross revenue'', or a payment of $75,848 in 2008.
- Kingston & the lslands Boat Lines Ltd. will keep the Island Queen, Island Belle, and Island Star at POH this winter on account of the Lasalle Causeway lift-bridge being out-of-commission for repairs for the next several months.
It looks like a sweetheart deal for KBL. The city is applying the same linear-footage charge they use for non-commerical pleasure boats one-tenth the length of these vessels.
Winter storage fees ought to be a function of area occupied, not just nominal length.
KBL will be storing its three large wedding-cake vessels for about five-months, through April 30th, for the grand-total of, get this, $4,784 plus hydro for the bubblers.
The normal folks paying over $600 in POH winter storage fees for their relatively tiny 30x10-foot sailboats can read that again.
When it comes to selling waterfront short, when is the City of Kingston not a pushover?
PRESERVE OUR WRECKS, KINGSTON was featured on the Discovery Channel's Daily Planet last week.
INADEQUACY of Wind Turbine Noise Regulations and their Application is an interesting paper recently presented by Queen's University Physics professor John P Harrison to the Annual Conference of the Canadian Acoustics Association.
It's an interesting technical read.
As you go through it, keep in mind that the Wolfe Island Wind Farm's minimum setback is only 400m.
The Ontario Government, in its recent Green Energy Act has proposed a minimum 550-metre setback from residences for wind projects involving five or fewer turbines, with greater setbacks — up to 1,000 metres — for projects of more than eight turbines.
Wolfe Island has 86 turbines.
Wolfe Island falls ridiculously short of the Ontario government's own proposed health and safety guidelines for wind industry development.
History already shows that Wolfe Island was a development pushover. Island leaders have a lot to answer for. And who was the Provincial Minister responsible for this? That would be Kingston's own John Gerretsen, Minister of the Environment.
We've been pwned by our own.
FISHING FOR ANSWERS OFF KINGSTON'S SHORES in today's Whig, about an ongoing geophysical survey of Charity Shoal, thought to be a meteor impact crater.
One-mile diameter Charity Shoal is 11-miles due South of Portsmouth Olympic Harbour. Most of the crater is in Canadian waters.
THE FINAL CONCEPT PLAN for Lake Ontario Park has been posted in the City's Arts, Recreation & Community Policies Committee agenda for its October 22 meeting.