Friends With Chickens, the Milton Street Festival... and a comment for Garth

I have a friend with chickens.

She doesn't have a farm, exactly. She just has chickens, and from those chickens, eggs. She sings with me in the Milton Choristers, and I found out last year that she was supplying one of the other sopranos.

This year, I got hooked up. Two bucks a dozen for the biggest, tastiest, most golden yolked eggs I have ever eaten. Behold and be amazed.



Ok, so the photo doesn't really do them justice. But trust me - store-bought eggs simply pale by comparison.

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After the Farmers' Market tomorrow is the Milton Street Festival. The event attracted over 15,000 people last year and may do even better this year. But more importantly, I will be wandering the streets all afternoon singing with Nero's Fiddle. You will recognize us by our dulcet tones, our Renaissance garb, and our sheen of sweat as we roast in bodices and full skirts.

C'mon down and say hi!

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I got a rather excited phone call this afternoon from a certain MP's office manager (who shall not be named to avoid further harassment). She had just attended an event entitled "BUILDING COMPLETE COMMUNITIES: A Summit to Explore New Ways to Afford Sustainable Growth", co-sponsored by the Canadian Urban Institute, and couldn't wait to tell me all about it as she knew it was right up my alley. It sounded fascinating. Garth Turner thought so too and mentioned it in his blog tonight.

Given that I'm well into reading 'The Transitions Handbook' right now, I gave the following response:

I wish I could have been at the meeting. It sounded really interesting. Unfortunately, nobody on Milton's Town Council or the Halton Regional Council appears to be paying attention.

Our municipal governments are our first line of defence against urban sprawl, and in Milton's case in particular they have failed us miserably. We knew there was going to big a big influx of people once the Big Pipe arrived, and all we asked of our elected representatives was this: don't let Milton turn into Brampton.

Instead, they succumbed to the siren song of development charges and property tax revenues, and rubber stamped every single agri-to-res re-zoning and big box retail proposal that crossed their desks.

They should all be run out of town on a rail.

But fear not, my friends. There is hope. There's a quiet but growing movement in England, Ireland and towns in several other countries called Transition Culture, aka 'Energy Descent Action Planning'. The idea is that the combined effects of climate change and peak oil have conspired to make it an absolute necessity for us to start adjusting to a life with much less power. And that, if we do it right, that can be a good thing.

It only took about a hundred years for cheap oil to become "essential" to our way of life. Using that same inginuity and drive, we can find our way back down again through initiatives like micro energy generation, diversification and re-localization of food sources and industry, and many more creative and pro-active ideas.

I'm excited! Are you excited?

Milton would make a perfect Transition Town. We still have enough remnants of what the town once was to re-localize and weather the coming storm. Hell, we still have a working blacksmith's shop!

Ok, so we might have to plow under some of those new developments. Something tells me they're going to have a hard time finding buyers pretty soon.

DBIA Follow-up

As promised, here is the response I received today from the Chairman of the Milton Downtown Business Improvement Area board:

Thank you Jennifer for your email. It has been a long standing agreement with the Chamber of Commerce to purchase these bump out spaces for merchants to come out into the market. Due to a tight budget for the 2008 year and very low business participation, the DBIA Board made the decision that the funds would be better spent elsewhere. It was a large expense that only two or three merchants took advantage of. Merchants are still able to put out tables against the storefront walls and windows if they wish. Or if you are friends with a store in the market area, people have been partnering up. You are right, we have a lot of completion [sic] to contend with now and we are trying new ways to attract people downtown. These decisions are made in the best interest of all the businesses downtown. Not just two or three.

I hope you continue to enjoy the market and the downtown shopping experience.

Sincerely,

Glenn English
DBIA Chairman

I have verified at least one part of this explanation: very few merchants were taking advantage of these spaces, possibly because so few were willing to get up at 6:30 in the morning to set up a table. However, I suspect that at least part of the problem may lie with the DBIA failing to actively promote and offer the spaces to merchants who aren't on that particular stretch of Main St.


I am far more suspicious of the claim of budgetary restrictions. I know several store owners on Main Street and one person who was actually on the DBIA board until a couple of years ago, and they all say the same thing: the DBIA is awash in cash. They collect well over $100,000 dollars a year and only spend a fraction of it, resulting in an enormous and growing surplus. It's possible that this situation has changed drastically since my friend was on the board, but somehow I doubt it.

I'm not sure how far to push all this given that I'm not a downtown business owner and I shouldn't really know what I know. However, what I would like to know is this: if the DBIA feels the money would be better spent elsewhere, what exactly are they planning to spend it on that will reverse the exodus of customers from the downtown core? And to whom is the board accountable for how it spends the money it collects from merchants? Are their accounts and practises open to public scrutiny or only to its members?

Is all this none of my business?