Cell: 497-2995
Grade this year: F
Grade last year: F
Streatch’s politics aren’t The Coast’s politics: He’s far to the right of anyone else on council, a fact he gleefully reminds us of from time to time.
Streatch, I wrote last year, “seems to take pleasure in being on the wrong side of eco-friendly initiatives like the pesticide ban, clearing parking from the Grand Parade and Halifax’s anti-scent program.” Since then, he’s voted to move forward with the Chebucto Road widening project, and has otherwise pushed a Neanderthalish agenda.
In terms of representing his Eastern Shore constituency, give Streatch (very) minor props for successfully getting his entire district exempted from transit taxes---but that was a foregone conclusion---nobody argued that the rural communities with no bus connections to the city should pay for transit.
What I’d really like to see is a rural councillor make the case for an integrated municipal agricultural policy, one that advances both a locavore urban vision and the farming businesses in the Musquodoboit Valley---but we won’t get there with a councillor who can’t get beyond a “government: bad” mentality.
Worse still, Streatch has thrown his hat into the provincial elections, attempting to join his sister, long-serving MLA Judy, in the provincial legislature, thereby abandoning his rural constituency through this month’s city budget sessions---exactly the time he can do them the most good.
