Okay, I know I should post something really serious about some terrible scandal involving the infringement of someone’s liberties, but really — hasn’t it been beautiful in Vancouver the last couple days. Sometimes this city makes me so tired (fractious, smug, whiny, insular, balkanized) and other days I think, really, how nice is this. Last [...]

[Read more →]

I haven’t had the time to do any independent reporting on the kerfuffle going on at park board (general manager resigns, general manager appears to have leaked an email sent to her by city manager Penny Ballem saying she should hold off on the process to hire her replacement, as city manager wants a role [...]

[Read more →]

Okay, me and about five people in the world care about this, but that’s what blogs are for, right? Anyway, I just have to comment on the interesting little changes that have been happening on the city’s website. First, someone started changing the picture according to the weather so if it was snowy, there’d be [...]

[Read more →]

Lost in the news yesterday with all the questions about the provincial government’s new homeless-to-shelters law was the news item that the province and city had come to agreement about the Little Mountain social housing site, to wit: Provincial government gets its demolition permit; the remaining 10 families there get to stay on in one [...]

[Read more →]

This got issued earlier today, but got a bit lost in the flurry today over Rich Coleman’s proposed new homelessness law. I haven’t had a chance to call Pivot, so don’t know what their side of the story is. But I thought this news release would be of interest to readers here, given the passionate [...]

[Read more →]

Housing Minister Rich Coleman mused aloud last January about coming up with a law that would give authorities the power to force homeless people into shelters during cold/wet-weather snaps, if they persist in sleeping outside in spite of efforts to get them in. Now it appears his ministry is going ahead with that plan, according [...]

[Read more →]

Rumours in the halls at 12th and Cambie say the city’s massive, Penny Ballem-initiated shared-services review is done, being reviewed by CMT (corporate management team to outsiders), and will be presented to the boards of various affiliated institutions, unions and managers around Sept. 28/29. That’s the result of several months work undertaken by a group [...]

[Read more →]

Here’s a link to the report from Vancouver city finance guy Ken Bayne about the implications of the provincial budget for the city of Vancouver. Some of Bayne’s analysis could just as easily apply to Surrey or Coquitlam — the impact of all-day kindergarten on community centres, which may get more demand for after-school care; [...]

[Read more →]

Replacing the city’s two high-profile planning directors — Larry Beasley and Ann McAfee — in 2006 was a major hiring decision of former mayor Sam Sullivan’s administration. The man who was chosen to succeed them was Brent Toderian, a high-energy planner from Calgary who had big ideas about urbanism. It’s been three years since Toderian [...]

[Read more →]

I notice that people are starting to comment more and more on the neon sign atop a Chinatown building, visible from the Georgia viaduct, that says “Everything is going to be alright.” To my amusement, it is generating all kinds of speculation and commentary, not all of it based in what we might call fact. [...]

[Read more →]