Let’s start out November’s update by thanking everyone who’s been working so hard for our neighbourhood and our League over the years. Special thanks go to Wendy Aasen, our Past President, who is taking some time off from chronic volunteerism to recover and focus on her life. Wendy’s been a huge part of all the great things the League has accomplished over the last several years. Thanks Wendy!

Do you have little ones looking for recreation activities? Would you like to help create programming and spaces for them in the future? Let us know. We need to build up our recreation sub-committee. If you’re interested contact us at: info@mccauley.info.

In a related issue; you may have heard that the League, in conjunction with the Ansgar Danish Lutheran Church (9554 108A Avenue), had planned to provide children’s dance classes starting in November. Both unfortunately and fortunately, we’ve been scooped by the Commonwealth Rec. Centre who will be offering very similar programming. We’ll post details on our Facebook page so go “like” us to stay up to date.

League members participated in a handful of somewhat strange “consultations” in October. One was an EFCL initiative called “Good Neighbours and Community Partnership Research Alliance Meeting” involving a researcher associated with the U of A. The following is from the statement of purpose supplied: “The purpose of the workshop is to establish the parameters for a research partnership that will explore the challenging issues facing neighbourhoods where there exists or where new subsidized housing could be built. The objective is to learn from and build on the experiences across groups in order to lay the groundwork towards developing a research project and funding application for a Partnership Development Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. The Good Neighbour research and demonstration project is a collaborative effort of Community Leagues/EFCL, academics, housing providers and housing funders.” This reads OK but the experience of representatives from core neighbourhoods that attended was frustrating and left a very unclear sense of purpose. Additionally, the Community Leagues with direct experience to these impacts were not consulted initially and were not even directly informed/invited to participate while service providers (not necessarily housing providers) were fundamental organizers.

On a surface level this could seem sensible, but what does “liveability” mean? We don’t know because it is not defined. We asked and did not get an answer. Then we asked what the intent was and were told it was to quickly generate “results.” Again, what does “results” actually mean? We don’t know because it remains undefined.

A second was un-informatively titled “Chinatown Boyle Street/McCauley” in a report that went to the Executive Committee (EC) in September with a summary that reads: “This report outlines a proposed approach to coordinate initiatives within the Boyle Street, McCauley and Downtown areas to better connect those portions of Chinatown located in two distinct areas within Boyle Street and McCauley.” The majority of this workshop did not discuss the topic from the summary but tangential issues dealing with the LRT line through Boyle. Our representatives were, I think, effective in keeping some portions of the conversation on track, countering the “stories” that were promulgated as factual history, and pushing forward the focused research and evidence based urban planning approach that we see as critical.

The third oddity of consultation is the “Improving Liveability in the Southern Part of the Chinatown Business Area” report that went to EC twice. The first time it was comprised of unclear objectives and a list of 40+ items. EC agreed with many of our concerns and sent it back for further consultation and to focus on five items that will generate “results.” In a very compressed timeline, “consultation” was gathered from McCauley, Boyle Street, Central McDougall, Queen Marie Park, and Downtown Leagues plus our BRZ and a new report was generated with five focus items which was then approved by EC. On a surface level this could seem sensible, but what does “liveability” mean? We don’t know because it is not defined. We asked and did not get an answer. Then we asked what the intent was and were told it was to quickly generate “results.” Again, what does “results” actually mean? We don’t know because it remains undefined.

If this report is dealing with “liveability” in our Chinatown, why are all of these other neighbourhoods involved? What is the relationship between this and Revitalization? I’m out of space for discussing the five items themselves but will say that they are all pretty general “categories” rather than focused items with much of the same non-solution oriented activity that we have witnessed repeatedly. Check out our Facebook page for a link to the report.