Oct 132011
 

Old Susannah looks back at the week that was and wonders who’s up to what and why. By Suzanne Kelly.

Old Susannah is having trouble sleeping at the moment for several reasons. Firstly, there is the sheer excitement over the UTG design competition – which design will I fall in love with?  What will be built that will make the world beat a path to Aberdeen for coffee, baguettes and monorail rides? Will Paris, New York and Rome empty as people come to Union Square and the new UTG?
Secondly, I am worried about Ms Aileen ‘Homalone’ who has dropped out of the public eye, and refuses (to date) to answer questions about the finances needed for the phase 2 attempt to plant trees on Tullos, and the money to shoot those extremely hungry deer.  It looks as if there isn’t any money, but no one’s talking to the public just now.

I did email to say ‘C’mon Aileen’ – and she replied that ‘an officer (if not a gentleman) would get back to me’.

I gently reminded Homalone that she had at least a little responsibility for the scheme to rid Tullos of vermin deer and plant 89,000 trees where trees had failed before, as she’d taken a wee bit of the public relations credit for this great scheme to begin with.  I expect as soon as she turns her razor-sharp mind to the task of analysing all the facts and figures regarding the tree planting, deer and slaughter, she’ll revert to me asap.

I don’t think I’ll hold my breath though.

You may recall the deer are under the death sentence because we must be cheap when using ‘the public purse,’ and Aileen being a good Lib Dem can’t stand any waste of public money.  Quite right.

No such restrictions apply to buying crucial carriage clocks and expensive pens from the Common Good Fund.  

If you are in Inverness, you have to apply to use the common good fund there, and a committee decides if your charity should get a bit of the fund. They seem to have helped quite a number of deserving causes, and the application procedure is the same for the rich and the poor, believe it or not.  It is not quite as easy to get a handle on who has their fingers on Aberdeen’s CGF sporran strings. But I digress – again.

Thirdly, I can’t sleep now that I know it’s OK to shoot small mammals and birds on Tullos Hill whenever you want – you just need a permit and the right kind of gun. I am amazed that no one’s been shot there yet. I am also amazed that people still like to hunt living things, but I guess I need to acknowledge that the law allows this.

So do keep walking on Tullos, but keep in mind bullets can travel long distances, and wear your bright clothes and your bulletproof vest.  And for goodness sake, don’t wear any of those novelty deer antler headbands.

Vermin:

(noun) 1. insects such as lice, ticks or fleas (or the more fashionable bedbugs plaguing New York at present) which can lead to infestations. 2. birds and mammals that eat other animals / game. 3. animals which are after the same food as people or domestic animals (How dare they!).

The police sent me some detailed answers about the gunman spotted on Tullos Hill in early September after I did one of my little FOI requests.  The hunter would not legally have been after the roe deer – but the police made it clear that such ‘sportspeople’ are allowed to shoot ‘vermin’. The police definition of what constitutes vermin seems to include deer. So the next time you and a roe deer are trying to nibble the same 2,000 trees, just kill it – as long as you have a permit and are using the right kind of bullets and rifle.  Result!

But if the deer aren’t after the same quarter-pounder you want, and the squirrels (red, black, grey – I don’t discriminate) aren’t after your chocolate shake – then are they really vermin? The vermin label put on these wild animals justifies the gamekeeper poisoning the birds of prey, the snare-setter (snares are still legal for some reason) who kills indiscriminately, and the council targeting the Tullos Hill deer.

Speaking of the council (well some of them anyway), I’d best move to another definition before someone comes gunning for me.  And for some reason, a related word comes to mind now that I’ve mentioned our City Council.

Parasite:

(noun – English ) an insect or other creature which feeds off of a host animal to the host’s detriment. 

Let’s consider bloodsuckers, worms, leeches and ticks. These are some of the parasitic vermin infesting your city council. You do have the right ammo to despatch them – or at least you will come May elections with your vote. The parasites in question feed of resources such as The Common Good Fund, Council Taxes and all-expense paid hospitality.

Like a swarm of locusts, they descend on areas such as the AECC and the Beach Ballroom if so much as a free sandwich can be had.  Parasites such as these are notoriously thirsty, and can empty cases of drink in nanoseconds.

Do not get too close to such creatures – they may well carry disease.  Do instead hide your money (offshore if possible), and guard any green spaces, which these parasites can easily destroy if not kept in check.

“Cultural” spaces:

(noun, English Modern) a wholly new concept of “space” where “Cultural” “events” can take place.  Not to be confused with existing businesses or arenas and spaces they have for cultural events.

If it’s not hard enough for me to get any sleep with everything else going on, the Evening Express told us on 8 October that there is a ‘plan’ to attract ‘top performers (!)’ to Aberdeen.  This brand-new idea, never before attempted, would see the ‘proposed new park over (?!!) Union Terrace Gardens’ filled with “cultural” spaces.  (By the way, the quotes around the word “cultural” appear in the Evening Express piece on this subject, so I’d better leave them in).

“Culture” of course is something that we people not in ACC, ACSEF, or SEG can’t really appreciate or understand.  ( Remember – Stewart  Spence, stalwart of the Marcliffe wrote to the P&J last week to call people opposed to these great new plans ‘NIMBYS and luddites’.  Who can argue with him?).

The AECC – long propped up by the taxpayer – and the Lemon Tree (likewise on a taxpayer sub) have never attempted to bring Top Performers here before.  Likewise none of the independently-owned  bars and clubs (not supported by taxpayers by the way) have tried this either.  Some years ago I got my hopes very high about Top Performers coming here, but in the end, Geri Haliwell had to pull out of doing the AECC.

Now in another guise, Scottish Enterprise might not really be permitted to shell out large amounts of taxpayer cash to create “cultural” spaces if these new inventions borne of taxpayer money would compete with already-existing public funded and/or private spaces. 

But the story with UTG is different somehow – kind of like when Scottish Enterprise took the money the Arts Council had earmarked for Peacock (who had wanted to , er, create a “cultural” space in UTG first).  Hmm – I must remember to soon define ‘intellectual property’, ‘copyright’, ‘lawsuit’ and ‘moral rights’.

I for one am happy to subsidise the AECC directly and indirectly (the City Council somehow needs to rent large amounts of office space at the AECC despite its large roster of properties) as well as subsidise the other city-owned venues AND find some 140 million towards yet another “cultural” space under/in/over  Union Terrace Gardens.  And if the private sector of the music/entertainment industry in Aberdeen can’t compete, then that’s just showbusiness.

We are in a democracy after all – the richest amongst us get to either be on boards or appoint boards to do what they want done with public spaces – all in the name of “culture”. 

If we don’t ‘get it’, then we are indeed the NIMBYS and luddites Spency thinks we all are.  I shall remember his words when I next book a dinner or a hotel.

Those who oppose the UTG project (not that it is defined yet – not even Old Susannah could do that if the city can’t) will be laughing out of the other side of their faces when I’m having a large latte before Toto opens up for Geri Haliwell near the monorail at the Wood memorial car park “cultural” space centre.  So there.  Gives those luddites something to think about doesn’t it?

I have to digress again – it is because some of us can’t understand how wonderful the whole project is that we oppose it.  It is all crystal clear, but here is a little helpful guide as to who’s doing what about our “culture” space / UTG project.  Here is my little luddites guide to the simple way things work

1.  Locum Consultants – apparently a part of the Collier Group – have been hired to ‘find uses’ for ‘some kind of performance and exhibition space’ created by the UTG project.  Appointed (by whom I don’t know).

(By the way I can find a ‘Locum Consultants’ in Surrey and a ‘Collier International’ in Manchester.  Unless there are companies with those names in Scotland, I guess no one here was up to the job of filling the “cultural” space.  I could be wrong, I could be right).

2.  The Aberdeen City Gardens Trust (ACGT) – works on ‘how to use “cultural” spaces inside (?!!) the proposed new park over Union Terrace  Gardens’.  Unelected.  (This seems to be a “Private, Limited by guarantee, no share capital, use of  ‘Limited’ exemption” kind of an affair – which makes sense as the Taxpayer is paying for it at least in part, and it will be involved in the future of a public asset.  Result!)  Or in words a child could understand – taken from the website:  http://thecitygardenproject.com/news

“Aberdeen City Gardens Trust has been set up, under the auspices of the City Garden Project management board, as a special purpose vehicle to channel funding for the project and deliver key activities within the project plan. The Trust will operate using best practice procurement procedures and will be accountable for the delivery of activities to project management board.

“The Trust will also receive £375,000 of Scottish Enterprise funding from its available funds for major infrastructure projects.

“Cllr John Stewart, chairman of the City Garden Project management board, said: “The fact that Aberdeen City Council is making no revenue contribution to the project means it is necessary to be imaginative in the way in which non-council finance levered into the project is managed. The creation of the Trust presents us with an ideal solution. Equally, it will allow for contracting of the required services involved in the next steps and for the project to progress to the design competition stage and complete the business case for the TIF application. Through the TIF we will be to access funding not otherwise available to invest in the art gallery and the St Nicholas House site, enhancing and reinvigorating our city centre.”

“The founding directors of the Trust are Tom Smith and Colin Crosby who will be joined by Directors from Aberdeen City Council and others involved in the project in due course”.

3.  The City Gardens Monitoring Group – exists to hide its doings and to  decide that the public should not vote on the option of leaving the gardens as they are in the current design competition for the 6 finalists (chosen by an unelected group and guaranteed loads of dosh for getting this far).  The Group redacted its minutes to the point you had no idea who was in it (unless you cut and pasted the redacted text and found none other than Aileen Malone was involved).  Unelected.

But for those of you still not clear, here is an excerpt of who’s who and who’s doing what where from our City’s very own website:  http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/

“The membership of the Project Monitoring Group comprises Councillors Malone (Chair), Boulton, McDonald, Kirsty West, Wisely, Young and Yuill.

“For reference, the membership of the City Garden Project Management Board comprises Councillor John Stewart (Chair), Councillor Callum McCaig and Valerie Watts, ACC; Tom Smith and Colin Crosby, ACSEF; Jennifer Craw, the Wood Family Trust; Bob Collier, Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce; John Michie, Aberdeen City Centre Association; Lavina Massie, the Aberdeen City Alliance, Maggie McGinlay, Scottish Enterprise and Paul Harris, Gray’s School of Art.

“The membership of the Project Implementation Team comprises Tom Smith (Chair), Colin Crosby and John Michie, ACSEF; Gerry Brough, Hugh Murdoch and Patricia Cassidy, ACC; Jennifer Craw, the Wood Family Trust; Maggie McGinlay, Scottish Enterprise; Derick Murray, Nestrans; Audrey Laidlaw, Network Rail and Iain Munro, Creative Scotland”.

This diverse membership of people with no vested interests in the project going ahead or not will reassure us all.  But somehow, I still can’t get any sleep.

4.  Malcolm Reading – a design consultancy which shortlisted the winning entries in the design competiton, an amazing feat, as there was and is no design brief in existence approved by ACC.  What Malcolm Reading will earn is unknown; how exactly it was appointed is also a mystery to me.

5.  The BIG Partnership – a PR consultancy which tells us how great it all is going to be.  I don’t know how they were appointed or what they will earn. (not to be confused with ‘The Big Sleep’.)  STOP PRESS:  The BIG Partnership has recently announced a new client:  The Wood Family Trust.

6.  ACSEF – A board of business people and city officials who, well, do what they like.  Includes one impartial Mr S Milne.  Known for issuing warning as to dire consequences for Aberdeen if we don’t build on the garden.  ACSEF is an invention of ACC, and funded at least in part by the public purse which we are all so keen to use sparingly.

7.  Genus Loci – a document produced supporting ideas for the Garden’s future as long as these don’t include a garden for the future.  Famous for proposing the monorail idea.

8.  Scottish Enterprise – a quango, unelected, on a mere £750 million or so per year which holds meetings, and supplies members to sit on the board of ACSEF, and who gave the world Jennifer Craw, now on the Wood Family Trust.  Which of course has a seat or seats on the secretive City Gardens Monitoring Group – or was it the Aberdeen City Gardens Trust.  Unelected and expensive.

9.  Wood Family Trust – er, apparently the wood family and/or friends who want to get rid of the wood in the gardens apparently, for “cultural” spaces.  Apparently not elected.  This Trust has possibly one or two overlapping areas with some of these other groups,  maybe.

10.  Project Implementation Team – are on hand to implement the project whether or not the public want them to.

Now that you see how simple it all is, I trust that there will be no more whining about the expense of paying all these companies off, signing a lease for a few thousand years for the gardens, or whinging about issues of ‘transparency’.

As that little Meerkat person on TV would say, ‘Simples’.

I was going to define ‘Impartiality’ this week as well, and how it relates to TIF, BID, and so on.  However, I now have a headache for some reason, and there is a knock on my door which may be the sherrif coming for my furniture.  ‘Impartiality’ it is for next week then.  And ‘Old Boys’ Network’, ‘Nepotism’ and ‘Greed’.

Good night all.

Aug 292011
 

Old Susannah watches the latest developments in the ‘Deen and the wider world and feels like a deer caught in headlights.  Here is this week’s look at what’s happening where and who’s doing what to whom.  By Suzanne Kelly.

Evening Express readers were rejoicing in the streets last weekend as the results of the ‘Happy Tots’ photo contest were revealed. Little wonder then, that there has been no word there or in the P&J of Anthony Baxter’s continued world tour of his award-winning film ‘You’ve Been Trumped, or the screening of Emily James’s film ‘Just Do It’ at the Belmont. Nor was there space for the little matter of the council’s ongoing deer debacle.
Word has it that the SNP is growing squeamish over the blood-letting that the little creatures (ie the LibDems) will suffer at the ballot box when the voting season opens, and are looking for a way out.

Let’s hope so. Not even the most gullible politician believes the promised carbon off-setting benefits of this unwanted forest has any merit. The Public Services Ombudsman likewise are weighing up the City’s actions over the deer. The Ombudsman may soon look at other matters, but that is another story for another time.

In the larger, non EE world, there is violence at every turn it seems.  Happily we can all feel safer for a few reasons. One, the use of tasers seems to be going up in the UK.  This seems to coincide with the number of deaths caused by tasers likewise increasing – but then again, that means less criminals on the streets.  

It also means less innocent people on the streets, but you can’t have everything. 

Tasers don’t cause severe agony I’m told, but there was a police official who was going to make a film demonstrating how innocuous the tasers were, using himself as a guinea pig.  Unfortunately, he was in excruciating pain, and his little film didn’t have the desired effect.  Tasers are only used by calm, rational, well-trained men, and not angry cops who might repeatedly taser a suspect until they die.  Usually.

But I feel even safer still:  the US Navy’s been spending time (and lots and lots of money) developing a means to make their weaponry even more deadly.  It has been said that this new technology means weapons can explode with up to five times the energy of existing armaments.  I guess this is their way of trying to be more energy efficient, so that’s quite good.  As things stood, NATO was only able to destroy the world a few dozen times over. Now we can sleep soundly in our beds.

Old Susannah enjoyed the (mostly) sunny Tullos Hill picnic last Sunday and was happy to see some new faces there. 

It is a beautiful hill with beautiful panoramic views over city and sea – so it’s got to go.  Sadly, a second group of picnic-ers failed to find the main party, but a good time was still had. 

Anyway, time for some definitions.

Board:

(noun) a collection of people who have managerial, supervisory, or other responsibilities and powers, e.g.. ‘Board of Directors’ ‘Board of Governors’.

Private company boards are established (normally) to oversee methods and manage reasonable, defined objectives.  However, we are in Aberdeen, and are ruled by Aberdeen City Council.

There is no shortage of boards set up by the City and given  powers – powers which are always used in a fair, reasonable and democratic  way.  The Licensing Board did itself proud two years ago; it ran straight to the Press & Journal to say a dozen or so restaurants and clubs, etc. were not compliant with new licensing laws.  These wrong-doers were named and shamed in the press, and faced being closed, fined, and having their licenses revoked.

In a truly dramatic style, this was announced about a week before the traditional Christmas lunches and dinners were to be held.

Naturally you would expect a Board to have possession of all the facts before going to the papers.  Yet somehow this board made a few tiny mistakes.  A few of those it named as non-compliant with the law had, er, long gone out of business.  Slightly more embarrassing, at least two of the named-and-shamed establishments were fully compliant, having jumped through hoops made of red tape.

Old Susannah had planned a lunch in such a place, and called the Board once I knew for certain how wrong the Board was.  I spoke to a woman; she was very helpful.  She asked me who I was to question the board, and told me I must be mistaken.  However, a day or so later, the Board had gone back to the P&J with a grudging retraction.  My Christmas lunch went ahead, and all was right.

But here are a few lines from the Board we should all be looking at:-

“The role of the Project Monitoring Group is to oversee the Union Terrace City Garden project’s progress and ensure that Council’s interests, and that of the majority of Aberdeen citizens, are protected as the project progresses. The membership of the Project Monitoring Group comprises   Councillors Malone (Chair), Boulton, McDonald, Kirsty West, Wisely, Young and Yuill”.

“For reference, the membership of the City Garden Project Management Board comprises Councillor John Stewart (Chair), Councillor Callum   McCaig and Valerie Watts, ACC; Tom Smith and Colin Crosby, ACSEF; Jennifer Craw, the Wood Family Trust; Bob Collier, Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce; John Michie, Aberdeen City Centre Association; Lavina Massie, the Aberdeen City Alliance, Maggie McGinlay, Scottish Enterprise and Paul Harris, Gray’s School of Art”.

Aberdeen City Council Website

I guess it must be an Aberdonian thing, but here we have a board to oversee a project which 55% of people responding to a survey don’t support.  (Arguably the number against ruining UTG is higher, as a tiny hiccough in the online voting system changed negative votes to positive ones – I guess it’s hard to use this new-fangled technology).

Isn’t it wonderful that this Board just sprang into being without the need to trouble the taxpayer or voter as to their thoughts? 

Perhaps it will be a difficult job to be a board member here – for one thing these selfless souls have to ‘oversee the progress’ of the project which is unknown (there is no scope, timescale or budget agreed – but I’m splitting hairs).  If you look at the paragraphs above, you might get the idea that not progressing the project is not an option.

The tricky bit will be how on earth to ‘ensure that Council’s interests, AND that of the majority of Aberdeen citizens, are protected as the project progresses.’

 I vote we protect the Council’s interests above all else.  The project will progress, and the vastly different interests of the Council and the citizen somehow have to be both ‘protected’.   This Board (led by one Mr Gerry Brough) has so far protected us by employing a wide range of techniques.  

These include setting up a company to take the project forward with no mandate from the people, stacking the board with people who want a Wood Group solution for UTG, and by redacting minutes to protect us from truth.  I feel as protected by Gerry Brough and this board as I do by the US Navy and its brand new super-explosives.

It is unclear who designed the make-up of this board, but I wonder – did they have a small, subconscious desire for the project to go ahead? 

It almost seems as if most of these people are desperate for the gardens to be turned into whatever Wood (and Milne) want.  Then again, the presence of Jennifer Craw to represent the Wood Family Trust is a reassuring sign that everything is totally impartial and ‘above Board’.

Citizens opposed to the project should not bother their heads about the decision the board made:  there will be no opportunity at the upcoming public consultation to vote to leave the gardens as is.  You get to vote on which of the six shortlisted projects (again chosen by a handful of non-elected people) you want – and that’s that.  And this wonderful, unbiased board has just decided at its last meeting to start lobbying government officials to pressure them to go ahead and fill in our garden.

If you want to write to the Board and tell them how happy you are with their work so far, please do.  And if you feel like doing some lobbying of your own, you can always write to the Scottish Futures Trust to tell them how happy you are about these fantastic garden-raising  plans.

The City is some £50,000,000 in the red

But of all the many boards we have working hard to keep Aberdeen the efficient vibrant, dynamic hub it is, there is a board composed completely of planks.

I refer of course to the Budget Monitoring Board:  the City is some 50 million pounds in the red that we know of.  That really is some job they have managed  these past few years.

Dictatorship

(noun) system of government wherein a single person or small  group has undemocratic control and powers over the citizenry; often a totalitarian state.

Despite their threatening and irrational behaviour, it looks as if some of the world’s most hated dictators are set to topple.   These hated figures have held onto power at all costs, some for many years, despite people demanding that they go. Dictators try to threaten journalists and other critics; they use threats of legal action to silence opposition.  These dictators often look slightly deranged and dress in odd garments, and often look over-tired and slightly bloated.

One of my favourite quotes from the ‘Harry Potter’ series of books by the inimitable JK Rowling went something like this (I paraphrase).

“Dictators always fear the people that they oppress, for they know that one day, someone will rise above the masses and over-throw them.” 

– Apologies for the bad  phrasing JK,  but it’s true.  Those who come to power and then disregard clear voices of opposition and who do not play fairly will eventually be overthrown, or just voted out of office.

So dictators, do everyone a favour and just leave when asked to go.  (PS – in a related development it seems that Libya has finally got rid of Gaddafi).

Next week:  start queueing now:  the great St. Nicholas House furniture sale is ON!  Grab a future heirloom from the used, battered desks and chairs.  You paid for them once – here’s your chance to pay for them again (not to mention the brand new furniture you bought for Marischal College).  Sale stars 3 September.