So I just read the other day that the town had formed a new group to represent the town with regards to the ferry issue. Keith Condon and Neil Leblanc and some other people from the municipality and of course Whiting – I believed. So I’m wondering – what is it that these other people got that Whiting do not already have to secure a ferry. I think I’ve given up on the ferry issue altogether – plus since Dexter and his team still isn’t agreeing with getting the ferry back – I really think there isn’t much hope in this area. I’m going to assume that these people are going to spend more of the tax payers’ money with wining and dining – flying to USA and buying more duty free stuff on the tax payer’s money too – i won’t be surprised if they did. So I’m going to watch and see – what is their outcome – but even if they don’t produce anything – they don’t have to answer to anyone – like everyone in this government.
We really liked some of the staff working for the downtown organizers – well – actually one – and to see her lose her job – now that’s not right either. But on the other hand -there are just too many things not done by this group except for a few newsletter and event planning and in my humble opinion do not deserved the money that they want the little business like that to fork out. The town now doesn’t want to support the funding either – so they closed their office like I had mentioned a few days ago. A special meeting was held but still no meeting and one of the councillor who heads that committee wanted the occupancy tax to come into effect again – I heard? now that is a strong no – no from a lot of businesses not only us. I think the councilors either work something out from their own budget or the downtown owners would have a riot.
These people had been ripping the tax payers’ money for the longest time – according to what I’ve just read on Nova News today. And guess who agreed to back up all the loans from these people ? the town – several municipal too – but from what I understand – the town councils signed off on the loan and guaranteed it because our CAO Jeff Gushue did his research and recommended that they can do it? So what’s up with the CAO? The CAO is the Chief Administrator Officer of this town and he had been in his position since 2004 – his duty is to provide the town with the right guidance and advice based on best practices. He is said to be working with both the Provincial and Federal Government to help this town grow.
So the now defunct SWSDA owes the Royal bank like more than half a million dollars and I asked the town – who’s going to fork out the money – and I was told the taxpayers -!!!!! WHAT THE HELL RIGHT? did anyone consult the town – with regards to being guarantor for SWSDA? I’m sure if the taxpayers know about who’s going to be paying for the loan – they won’t be very happppyyyy!
We’ve always known that parking is a pain for anyone who wants to shop downtown – since it’s only a 2 hr parking – so if you are doing more than banking and getting lunch – you are in trouble and will be fine like $5 if I am not wrong. So a lot of people don’t want to shop downtown not only because of all the people hanging around the front of downtown stores and dog poop – it’s also because of getting ticketed for parking while you shop. I don’t think that is good business sense since the town is promoting downtown shopping yet – they make it such a ridiculous rule for those who wants to spend their money downtown. I think parking downtown when you are shopping shouldn’t be limited to those 2 hrs for genuine customers – but what about those who works in town and just want free parking? I really don’t think that those who works downtown does that – and if they do – well then they should be ticketed and not the customers.
Yes!?! why do customers need to come inside the counter? even if you are a friend – you just don’t go into someone’s workplace and make yourself at home right? sure we own our own business but most customers are just customers and not friend nor family. So if you are visiting a store – please don’t just think you can walk in and out of someone office like it was your own. It is very irritating and invasive i find for anyone to come in and look around our things and make themselves at home.
A customer came in to pick up their PS3 machines that they had left with us 2 months ago – to be repaired or try to be repaired. Long story short – they didn’t really come in to pick up their machine – they wanted to sell the parts to PB – only after keeping it here and taking our space for 2 months and expect us to keep it that long for them. When PB told them – he didn’t need anything for parts – they left with the 2 PS3 without even offering anything to PB for looking at their stuff to be repaired nor storing for them for 2 months. Not like we would charge them – but it would be nice – as a common courtesy – it was a good thing that PB didn’t attempt to repair the machines for them – else – it would be a total lost.
Pivotal payments – accept cash, credit cards, debit cards and supplier for POS systems and transfer money from your sales to your bank but are crooks once you start using them. Not only are their charges higher – the claimed that we’ve signed a contract with them when we have no idea what they were talking about – and took money outta our bank accounts without informing us.
So if you are planning to change to Pivotal please don’t – because to stop using them – they charge you as much as $600 in our case and more in other business cases that we’ve found on the net. This is not the last time Pivotal is going to hear from us – and they are using a stalling tactic – to not send us the so called “contract” that we had signed.
So I guess the NDPs are jerks and trying to jerk around with this town? that was the general consensus of the town people now. I listened to how Percy Paris answered to Churchillès question about the $3million funding for the ferry – and Paris said he knows nothing of it – now how ridiculous is that! It was all over the news here – and printed too I think at some point. I hope it is not only now that people realized that the provincial government never had any intention to do anything for this town – due to political reasons. Even the blind can see that! they had been jerking us around for years now. It is really sad that the NDP government insist that it has not affected this town – and any other – they know and I don’t know what their intentions are.
People who ripped us off – thinks that we had forgotten or something to the effect whenever – they come into our store years later. I loathe people like that – they have no decency – at all. Even years after you’ve ripped us off – we will still have your records on our computer – and even if our computer dies here – we still have a back up copy. So if you think we are going to forget – years down the road – very unlikely. When you ripped us off – you are just stealing from us – so how can we forget right? When you ripped us off – you are robbing my child of a good education – because most likely it is money that we can put away for her college.
Like many small business owners – we worried about the minimum wage raise again. In fact, minimum wage had been steadily raising even though the economy in this town has gone from bad to worst. When I first came to this town – minimum wage was like $5.65 and now – it is going to be $10. Sure I can understand that the cost of living has gone up – but a small business like us – how can we afford to pay someone $10/hr just to man our store – with no special skill?
With no ferry, no tourists, no help from the government and yet they want to increase minimum wage – so what do i think about it? well, I’m not worried because we ain’t hiring no more – and with the increment – that just goes to confirm our decision was right – and to work ourselves. Sure we can’t have so much holidays and we need to close the store in case of emergency – but that’s the way it has to be – so that we can keep our bills low and pay the government more taxes. JOY!
An interesting turned out and a very interesting rally – more interesting speeches and dialogues and a lot of disgruntled people in this town. Can you blame them? I don’t ! I wasn’t there for the rally – in fact – I think I kinda expected the same answers that were given in the speeches from the Mayor as well as the MLA. Don’t get me wrong – I have a lot of respect for our MLA – but still I want more transparency even though the Mayor said that business people do their business discreetly and expects some confidentiality. Fully understand – but that doesn’t mean that they cannot be opened as to what is going on – and which direction we are heading and what are the chances of making certain things happen.
I truly love the chant from Dianne who is also one of our customer – and Goldie Wilson – tremendous respect for these individual who spoke up without reservations. As for Karen – hmmmm – one wonder what exactly was her agenda. Love the song by Deon – and definitely wished it can get polished and recorded and remembered by our future generation.
I’m not from Yarmouth but I’ve grown to love this town and its people. Sure there are some assholes around – but which town doesn’t right? The spouse loves his town – that is the main reason why I am still here – but I have to say – I am worried for my daughter’s future. So yes! people of Yarmouth – stand up and be seen and heard – fight for your town!
We just learned that there isn’t going to be any funds coming into town for the new RDA that the town wants to set up – headed and requested by our new MLA. The Economic Development Minister was invited to town last month to chat about the progress and improvement to this town and he had said he will go back and consider the $100K that was requested – but the answer was no. Another hit for this town that’s for sure but on the other hand – can you blame the government for not supporting an RDA – after what the last one did. No ferry, no RDA – cut on the education funding – what else is next? Is this town dying? are we in deep trouble?
We are expecting rain in the next few days ! lets hope it doesn’t turn out to be what happened last year – lots of damages to this town and we really cannot afford it.
So the fire marshall had been in a few times now – and finally my el cheapo landlord – or rather his “zhao gow” got some people to come do some much needed work – to have the safety inspection for the building come up to date. After renting from the same landlord for more than 5 yrs – he won’t even give us a piece of cheap carpet – what makes the boss think he is going to get a new door that was not ordered by the fire marshall???
No I’m not happy with the “zhao gow” at all – if given a choice – we will move to another place – but because of the current economy – we refused to pay more rent – so we have no choice but to stay put. But the Chinese have a saying that what you do to others – it will eventually come back to you. If my landlord is being so el cheapo – with good business tenants like us – i bet – he will be losing some money or lots of it – when his home tenants don’t pay him rent – or wreck his places. So I just wait and watch and see. Any decent person would know how to treat a decent tenant well – his lost – if we find some other place to move to.
I find it truly amusing how people think that they can cheat us of our money and we won’t remember them? we never forget a crook – especially if you cheated us or our family members. One such crook came into our store and tried to sell us stuff today – and he must think we had forgotten that he cheated my in laws of $800 for selling them a stolen 4 wheeler and a laptop that never showed up.
As soon as he walked into our door – we knew who he was – but he adamantly told us he didn’t know what we were talking about. I confirmed it was him with 2 people who were cheated by him – together with my in-laws and I told his new g/f that I take it personally ! how could I not !! my in laws are farmers and they have to pick a lot of peas out in the hot sun and bad weather to make that kind of money. This crook is in his early 20s when he cheated my in -laws and he and his crook g/f could have worked if they wanted money – cheating an old man of $800 !!! i hope they rot in hell! So if you cheated us – we will remember you!
The boss had been receiving some annoying calls in the evenings lately – isn’t it funny that I’m not getting it – but he is. You see – usually people hate the woman hahahha!!! anyhow – it is so old school – if you asked me – that people would call and call him names – way too childish. Just shows the mentality of the person. Anyhow, we already traced the calls – and will be taking action if they continued. So old school!
PS : It was a blocked call – but they are so stupid to think that blocked calls cannot be traced! of course they can – S.T.U.P.I.D !
So the people from Scotia Prince came and did their presentation – they are looking for a loan first of $15million from the Province and more money from different municipality of this area to fork up a start up investment for them of up to more than half a million – to bring the ferry here and Maine.
Yes – they promised work for the people here but the ship hands will be foreign and yes – they will bring the tourist in but it sure doesn’t make sense to me that they are asking so much money upfront. It’s not good business plan as far as I can see and yes – some might say – we have to see the big picture. But the big picture in my humble opinion is they are just here for our money – and they just make the money and not foot out a cent. That’s not good business sense in any way – to me it’s not a win-win suitable at all. To me – it’s like the people from the Ferry are trying to rob us – while we are already down there. This Province has a deficit of $222milliion in April 2010 – so now – we are going into another debt of $15 million? that doesn’t make any sense – that the Province will help us. $3 million as compared to $15 million and more from the municipality? how can we justify this?
So the ferry looks really gloomy for next year – according to reliable sources that came into our store today. With all the promises made by some people in this town – now I don’t hear a thing about the ferry at all coming for 2011. So what does it mean for this town? I still see the people in this town spending for Christmas like they usually do – I am guessing that those who are currently employed are not worried about losing their jobs since they can go on unemployment – but for how long? a year? then what? And those that are not employed – well – it doesn’t really bother them does it?
But what about some business owners like us? what about the gift stores? the restaurants, the hotels? I think the small business owners are the ones who are going to be hit hard first – and that includes the restaurants and the hotels – they just write it off – as a tax credit. But eventually, the people will suffer and ultimately the tax payer? because the government gets their unemployment money from tax and they owe more money and no reserve? well, well! JOY!
I just received a call from a customer and she told me that her son bought a N64 from us a month ago – but the next day it didn’t work anymore. She also said she spoke to a “man” and he had told her she could come in an exchange it for another one. So she asked if we had one – i replied that we do – in which she replied that she want us to make sure that it works and that she wants us to SHOW her it works – before she will bring it home. I replied – “sure!”.
So she came in – about 30 mins later – brought her old one – that she brought a month ago – we had our new one set up and working ready for her to see. We took hers – plugged it into our tv – and it booted right up – tested all her games which she said she brought from us – and it all worked – and tried her power cords and it still work. *slap forehead*. So what was wrong? Hell if we knew – but all i can say is – before you get upset with a store – make sure you are sure it doesn’t work before sending it back to us. We don’t know whether to laugh or to be irate ourselves. Just because we sell used stuff doesn’t mean that we sold you something broken – I don’t understand why people don’t understand this.
Poor Zach Churchill – the new MLA for this town – after watching the video on Friday during the Question Period – where he tabled numerous facts how the leading party’s decision on not funding the boat from Maine to Yarmouth is affecting this province more than dear Mr Dexter is trying to tell everyone – may indeed need some anti aging product for Christmas presents. Why? well dear Mr Dexter is not letting up on his story either – and kept saying that tourism is up – while we all know here – that tourism is not up – people are not out looking for jobs because they are hopeful nor are rooms occupied in the hotels here.
I certainly applaud Mr Churchill’s attempt to bring the truth in plain English and facts – and like i said – he is not having it easy either. The NDP’s are bringing him and all of us on a merry-go-round – when will this end. In fact, if we don’t see a boat coming in Yarmouth next summer – we all know that not only Mr Churchill will need anti-aging products – a lot of us here will be needing it as well. Already lots of local business men are packing up and closing shop because of the lost of ferry/boat - so how can the Premier said it isn’t affecting us? We certainly didn’t elect the wrong MLA – Zach Churchill – keep up the good work!
