Kingston waterfront news for 2012

The 2012 PRIORITY MATRIX - Q2 update is presented to Council at the July 17, 2012 meeting.

Before reading further, please see my comments on the 2012 Priority Matrix as presented to Council in February 2012.

Disregard that the table on Page 3 of the latest report is festooned with glaring naming and tallying errors.

As in the February report, there's nothing waterfront-related in Exhibit A - 49 (actually 52) initiatives due for completion by 2012 year end.

Exhibit B - 27 (actually 67) initiatives due for completion by year end (sic) contains the same two waterfront items as in February, no progress to report. These are:

• Item #1 labeled "Study: Lakefront/waterfront plan" and has STILL has no due date or shows any comments.
• Item #38 labeled "Visioning for Douglas R. Fluhrer Park" and has a compeletion date of Q1 2014 which is a ridiculously long timeline. You can tell there is no will to do this.

Question: how does the 2012 priority matrix Exhibit B, mislabeled and mistallied as it is, grow from 42-items in February to 67-items in July?

Answer: because nobody at City Hall has any balls, and because nobody really vets this shit.

Exhibit C - 33 (actually 77) initiatives due for completion in 2013 and 2014 contains the same singular waterfront item, Lake Ontario Park. This projet is minimally about its waterfront, addressing there some grievous deferred maintenance more than anything truly new or better since 1950.

So there you have it. An out-of-control priority matrix that, on balance, has fuck-all for waterfront.

REMEMBER LAST YEAR?

That was then.

The latest LAKE ONTARIO WATER LEVEL FORECAST now predicts relatively low water throughout the summer.

Which is to say, at least a foot lower than last summer through the end of July.

Overall the bad news persists: the big lakes upstream -- Lakes Huron and Superior -- are still far below long-term averages.

KINGSTON'S 2012 MAJOR REGATTA PICTURE is much heavier this year than last.

One World Championship and four North American Championships are booked.

This summer's premier event, the Shark Worlds, is hosted by KYC at the end of August.

Our last Worlds' was the Byte CII Worlds in 2009. So it's been awhile

CORK still lists the Byte CII World Championships in June but that regatta won't happen.

More details in our list of major regattas in Kingston.

ALSO AT COUNCIL this week: $60,000 for the Kingston Inner Harbour Sediment Remediation Initiative.

The 2012 PRIORITY MATRIX is presented to Council on Tuesday's (February 21, 2012) meeting.

The matrix is presented in a new format this year, segmented in three exhibits. It's too bad the exhibits aren't properly labeled.

Exhibit A lists 49-items due for completion in 2012. We find nothing related to waterfront in Exhibit A. There's also nothing related to bike trails or parks unless by "park" you mean parking.

So don't hold your breath to see waterfront accessibility improvement this summer.

Exhibit B lists 42 initiatives for completion between 2012-2014. Those of waterfront interest:

• Item #1 is labeled "Study: Lakefront/waterfront plan" and has no due date or shows no comments.
• Item #38 is labeled "Visioning for Douglas R. Fluhrer Park" and has a compeletion date of Q1 2014 which is a ridiculously long timeline. You can tell there is no will to do this.

Exhibit C lists 33 all initiatives from the Corporate Work Plan in Kingston's Strategic Plan that are due for completion in 2013 and 2014. Just one item has a waterfront component:

• Item 14 is "Upgrade and complete construction of the Lake Ontario Park rejuvenation plan" and it's listed as Q4 2013.

That's it. Three items out of 124, and two of those are studies with either no due date or a ridiculously long horizon.

This is all very disheartening, of course. Kingston's relationship with waterfront continues to suck.

More importantly: Why aren't stages of the Great Cataraqui River Trail Project not listed as priorities by 2014?

SURPRISE! You would think that a winter with negligible snow accumulation would have negative impacts for Lake Ontario Water Levels come springtime.

The latest LAKE ONTARIO WATER LEVEL FORECAST predicts higher than normal water levels into the summer.

This makes little sense because the big lakes upstream are still well below long-term averages.