Hello sportsfans, it was a busy week at city hall with a full meeting of council, and two budget committee meetings.

Halifax is in dire financial straights and a win for bike lanes on Tuesday was caught an L on Friday as the just saved bike lanes are now back on the chopping block.

Also in this show, city staff 💩🛏️ on the taxi bylaw update, there's a really greasy vote and Matt breaks down why council is probably lying (to themselves) when they say they have the political will to make change in this city.

Budget season is back in earnest this week so RIP to all of Matt's free time and that's one of the reasons the recap part of the show is so short. But because budget season is back, we thought we'd give you a primer so y'all can get a quick reminder about how exactly past councils managed to have shot themselves in both feet, all 10 toes, the shins, knees and femurs over the past 30 years causing all of today's fiscal pain.

It seems like a book club is a popular idea, so we will be reading Killed by a Traffic Engineer, by Wes Marshall and meeting to talk about it on Sunday, March 1, at 2:30 pm at Celtic Corner in Darmouth. Please email matt@grandparade.news to let us know if you are planning on coming by Valentine's day. We won't hold you to the RSVP, the pub just wants a better idea of the numbers to know where to put us.

In this show, before the ad break we go over what happened on Tuesday's council meeting, with a brief sidebar into road safety and why councillor Cathy Deagle Gammon makes her husband drop what he's doing to go pick up Matt's garbage. #sharedresponsibility

In the second half of the show, we cover the Board of Police Commissioners meeting and go over Halifax's new stupid parking policy. And give Fillmore his due flowers from the debate.

If you're a subscriber please note that Matt from the future did pop in at the 43 minute mark of this show and please go read Monday's paper for more details, but TL:DR, it council's fault, again (and also city staff and/or city processes as described in this episode, but I'm still digging into the story because I now think I'm missing a bit of context and have a media request in to get it. Stay tuned for updates.)

No real show notes this week as it's late and family game night. Here's the link for the suburban plan though: https://engagehalifax.ca/suburban-plan

Every week I fall a little bit more behind and it becomes harder and harder to do all the little things like write comprehensive show notes. So if you have questions about this episode, please, reach out and I'll get you answers. If you have questions for the mailbag show, please use the very long link below to submit them.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScMPuDQyt7L2027BBCjQ2MA4_0yz-Xt2j5TwV8kFClqC_Xx_Q/viewform?usp=sharing&ouid=112504436461387338909

Otherwise, have a good one and I'm gonna take a nap

These show notes will be updated on Monday (probably). The Val-d'Or Foreurs bus blew a tire on Sunday, which means minor hockey day down at the Metro Centre really jammed up my ability to sit down and link the stuff in the show. So that's a tomorrow job. Which is today you (if it's Monday)

Another week of city politics another week of this podcast. If you're here for the rabbit hole on drugs, right here is season 2 episode 2 of On Drugs about the history of weed in Canada

https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/157-on-drugs/episode/15521363-s2-e2-cannabis-from-prohibition-to-legalization

But in the rest of this episode host Matt Stickland goes over the meetings last week. What did Halifax's auditor general say about rec programming? Will deputy mayor Patty Cuttell be on the next season of Nathan Fielder's show? What was up with John Young last Thursday? Find answers to these questions and more in this week's episode!

It's everyone's favourite time of year, which means I've run out of time to do everything I need to do before Monday's deadlines, like write show notes. Are you looking for more information about something I said in the show, email me matt@grandaparade.news and apologies that it's not in the show notes like it normally would be. Ta ta for now, I have to edit a newspaper!