Well, it was a rough go. I was sick with a baaad flu and seriously considered rescheduling. However, I had been in the cue for months to get the spot in front of Council and figured that I may as well just go ahead and do it. I medicated myself fairly heavily with what amounted to a king's ransom in pharmacutecals, which had kept me up the whole night before. Like I said, it was rough.
The mission was to simply proclaim our intent to develop the site to Mayor, Council & Staff in an official way. It is, after all, City lands, so they are logically included in this project. The Powerpoint was done on the previous week but my speaking parts only got finished a couple of hours before I got in front of the lecturn to speak. I feared it would sound a little sloppy but I think it went OK. It gave a chronological journey through all of the phases of the project to date including the conception, forming the association, all of the clean-ups, the architectual stuff, etc. Pretty much what you can see on the website.
Well golly, it went very well. Every one of the councillors, save one, spoke and threw their support behind the thing. What a relief! I don't do public speaking very often so I'm always unsure of myself. Not nervous, just unsure.
Anyway, they loved the whole thing and now staff is going to study it and try to work it into their larger plans for the city. We'll see how it goes when we actually ask them for money!
I want to take a few lines to thank the City Staff. I deal with many, many people in the run of a day in my real job at Imperial Theatre. No where do I run into more consisitantly helpful, smart, good people than I do at the City of Saint John. They are the often treated with a little harshness, which I think is unjustified. I have nothing but good things to say about these folks. Bravo to them for helping LRRA down this path. They have been fantastic to us.
Hopefully this summer will see lots of movement on this project so keep your eyes on us.
Before I close, here is a nice article that April Robinson wrote in the TJ. Thanks again April!
http://telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com/city/article/985691
Cheers.
