Vancouver elections, if you’ll recall, have rarely involved mayoral nominations. Usually the parties agree in the backroom who the mayoral candidate will be (Larry Campbell, Jim Green, Philip Owen, Jennifer Clarke of years past) or are sent out as sacrificial lambs to do their duty for the party (David Cadman, Jean Swanson, Carmela Allevato, et al).

The first real mayoral nomination in recent memory was between Sam Sullivan and Christy Clark in 2005. Neither filed disclosures saying how much they had spent, to my knowledge. (And I’m not even sure anyone asked, we were all so agog in the media with the novelty of the race.)

This time, because of the many rumours about how much various parties had spent — Sullivan, Louie, De Genova, and Gregor Robertson — it became much more of an issue. In spite of that, there is no clear city requirement that mayoral candidates, whether winning or losing, have to file accounts of their campaign donations or spending.

In any case, here at least, Raymond Louie’s disclosure here: Raymond

And Allan DeGenova’s disclosure, remarkable for how much information is blacked out, here: de-genova-mayor

P.S. I notice that my tireless conspiracy-theory friends over at city caucus think my posting of these docs is all part of some “backscratching” between me and Vision. Life really is easier if you never make a phone call to check anything, I guess. Anyway, ALL reporters who asked for these docs from Vision got them. I posted them because I have had requests for me to do so — okay, one request, from Kennedy Stewart. I presume others didn’t because they reported on them extensively/couldn’t be bothered/don’t have blogs. I’ve had them since all other financial disclosures were filed (as have EVERY OTHER REPORTER who asked for them) but due to my staggering technical ineptitude, only put them up now.

Ex-mayors Philip Owen and Larry Campbell are going to hold a news conference at 4 p.m. to defend the current Olympic village loan.

And this news release just came out from Mayor Sam Sullivan’s office.

Open Letter from Mayor Sam Sullivan

Southeast False Creek planning a decade in the making – Mayors Owen, Campbell & Sullivan have helped see this historic project through

As most Vancouverites know, I am not seeking re-election. And while I do not have a direct political stake in the outcome of Saturday’s election for the first time in 15 years, I do feel compelled to formally address recent reports about the construction of the Athletes Village at Southeast False Creek.

As Mayor, it is my duty to reinforce a number of facts.  First, the Olympic Village will be delivered on time next year.  Second, our city staff has been acting in the best interests of taxpayers in managing this complex project through turbulent economic times.  Third, at all times over the past 14 years, City Councils have been appropriately consulted and have endorsed our staff in their planning and management of this project.

The Southeast False Creek development consists of 50 acres of city-owned land in one of the most desirable waterfront real estate locations in North America.  Half the site is designated for public parks, seawall and a state of the art community centre that is accessible to all.  A significant number of the housing units have been sold – and the ones remaining are in prime waterfront locations. Heritage buildings are being restored – as is the natural environment for marine life.  And, more than 20% of the units have been designated for social housing.

Because of the global economic downturn, capital is tight and businesses around the world are struggling. As a result, the City of Vancouver has been engaged in sensitive real estate and business discussions with project stakeholders to ensure we successfully complete this project on time.

City Councillors and staff are legally bound to keep all property transactions confidential.  That is the law.  Taxpayers are not well served by politicizing these sensitive discussions or conducting negotiations by headline.  As Mayor, you have my word that the moment our legal team and negotiators signal that this information can legally be released, it will be without any delay.

Senior City Staff working on this project include City Manager Judy Rogers, Deputy City Manager, Jody Andrews and the City of Vancouver’s Director of Business Planning, Ken Bayne.  As someone who has served the City of Vancouver as a Councillor for 12 years and Mayor for three years, I can say that I have the utmost confidence in this team. With the assistance of some of Canada’s leading legal-finance advisors Stikeman Elliott and Farris-Vaughn, staff has been managing this project in the best interests of taxpayers on behalf of successive City Councils. Southeast False Creek planning started in 1994 under Mayor Philip Owen, continued under Mayor Larry Campbell and during my term as Mayor.

One of the first actions of our Council in 2005 was to deliver more financial discipline and taxpayer protection to the project.  Councils have approved development and financial plans at every stage.  They are posted at www.vancouver.ca.

When the Olympic Village at Southeast False Creek is completed, it will set the standard for green development and urban sustainability.  In the meantime, our city staff will continue to act in the best interest of taxpayers and ensure City Council is properly consulted.

As we approach the finish line for this project, our staff has laid out a plan to ensure its orderly completion.  That plan has been supported by all Councillors representing all the major municipal parties in the current election.  I am confident that the next Mayor and Council will be well served by this approach in the months ahead. 

Around this time next year they will be proud to show off this global model of excellence in urban planning and green living to the world.

Nope, the city’s troubles — and Vision’s — will only be starting then, as I opine in my CTV blog.

But that doesn’t appear to be the case. I dropped by three of the four advance polls today where everyone was reporting higher turnout than the last election, which drew a respectable 132,000 voters.

At Dunbar, the election official running things there told me it had been steady all day. She’s worked previous elections and had never seen such a high turnout. The count was at 942 by 6 p.m., with more people coming in all the time. Lots of young people, said the nice woman.

Over at Trout Lake, the count by 7 p.m. was 505. That was 100 ahead of the total for the same poll in 2005.

“We’re assuming people up up election fever from last night,” said Raymond Milne, who was running that voting station. There’s a theory — rather than being worn out by elections, yesterday’s election of Barack Obama as U.S. president was so exciting and energizing that it encouraged a lot of people here to run out and vote.

At city hall, the woman running things there, Judy, said that was their best guess as well, since they were also definitely running ahead of 2005, with 782 people voting by 7:30 compared to 527 at the same time three years ago. (Very precise records these people keep.)

I didn’t have the energy to run over to the West End, but Judy said it was definitely Dunbar in the lead with the other three advance polls at lower levels, all around the same numbers. That means likely close to 4,000 voters for just the first of three advance polls. The higher numbers could potentially be attributed to the new rules, which say that anyone who wants to can now vote in an advance poll, not just those from out of town, but I highly doubt that anyone even knows about those rules.

For more reading on the connection between Barack Obama and the local Vancouver election, you can read the post on my CTV blog about the Vision?COPE party last night to celebrate the win and motivate the troops — which didn’t go 100 per cent as planned, though almost.

For people who want to look at the historical record on turnout, there’s a good table from the city here. People who think there was some huge drop in turnout between 2002, when Larry Campbell was elected for COPE, and 2005, when Sam Sullivan was elected for the Non-Partisan Association, should note that there isn’t really that big a difference. About 140,000 people voted in 2002; about 132,000 in 2005. The difference is that someone the city put 130,000 new people onto its eligible voters list between the two elections, so that it appeared as though turnout dropped from 50 per cent to 32. But it didn’t really.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media release

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

ROBERTSON HAS PAID SKYTRAIN FINE

VANCOUVER – Vision Vancouver mayoral candidate Gregor Robertson said today that he has paid in full a $173 fine he received after mistakenly travelling two zones on SkyTrain last year with a one-zone ticket, a fine which he has always said he would pay.

“I’ve paid the full amount of the fine, and as a result will not be appearing in a hearing,” said Robertson. “As a mayoral candidate, and I hope as Mayor, I have better ways to raise these issues. Under these circumstances, it was a mistake to challenge the fine in this way, and I apologize for this mistake and take full responsibility for it.”

“My original point in planning to dispute this fine was to raise the issue in a hearing. It was never an attempt to avoid paying or to reduce the amount of the fine,” Robertson said.  “Contrary to what has been incorrectly reported, I did not forget to pay the fine. I submitted the necessary paperwork at the time – approximately 17 months ago – to take the ticket to a hearing, and the notice only arrived a few weeks ago.”

“Nevertheless, the mistake was my own, and I have paid the full amount of the fine.”

“This issue has become an unfortunate distraction from the real issues in this campaign. This matter is now resolved, and I look forward to focusing on the important issues of homelessness, crime, and the lack of affordable housing in Vancouver.”

The debate in brief: Peter Ladner is more of a street-fighter in every encounter with Gregor Robertson, throwing punch after punch at Gregor’s inexperience. Gregor, on the other hand, is seeming more relaxed and even making the odd joke. More serious details tomorrow.

But the real news of the night was the NDP wins in two Vancouver byelections, with Spencer Herbert winning handily over Liberal candidate Arthur Griffiths by 1,600 votes, while Jenn McGinn is currently up by 600 votes over Margaret McDiarmid. That has to be worrying for the Non-Partisan Association and a champagne moment for Vision Vancouver. Those wins, combined with what appears to be an imminent Barack Obama win to the south, creates a potential mood of “Oh, what the heck, let’s just keep voting out all the oldtimers and go for the new guy.”

The challenge for Peter is whether he can convince voters that he stands for change, which is what he’s trying to do. Or maybe he can hope on that change the voters went for in the federal election where, here in B.C., they were far more inclined to go for the Conservatives than the NDP as they fled from the Liberals.

There was so much discussed tonight that I can’t possibly capture it all, but here are the highlights.

1. Gregor introduced in his opening statement some main points of Vision’s homelessness plan (at last some details). That included:

- Ensuring there are enough shelter beds in the city

- Using city bylaws to make sure rental buildings are safe and kept up, even if the city has to do repairs itself and bill the owner

- Increasing the city’s outreach teams

- Creating a mental-health advocate for th city

- Expanding training programs to help street youth get into jobs

- Protecting low-income rental units throughout the city

- Being a “strong voice” in Victoria and Ottawa.

Each of the candidates got asked a series of yes/no questions:

1. Would you hire a mental health advocate, considering the city is already facing a 10-per-cent tax hike. Peter: no; Gregor: yes.

2. Would you continue Project Civil City? Peter: yes; Gregor: no.

3. The current mix of non-market or SRO housing and market housing is 75/25. Should stay at that level? Gregor: Yes, around there with input from the community; Peter: No, it should change.

4. Do you think there should be an annual report to the city on what’s been done about homelessness? Peter: Yes, but don’t we have one already? Gregor: Yes

5. The city has a temporary moratorium on demolition or conversion or its stock of low-rise, three-storey rental housing. Do you support extending or modifying that? Gregor: Yes, extend it to ensure there’s no net loss of housing. Peter: No, I don’t like moratoriums. They encourage buildings to become rundown.

6. The city currently has two supervised-injection sites. Do you support a third one along the model of the Insite facility, which has treatment and transitional housing as well on site? Gregor: Yes. Peter: I’m leaving that up to the health authority to decide. (He was told he had to answer yes or no.) No.

7. There are several SRO buildings in Vancouver that are empty as the owners await redevelopment. Do you support having the city meet with the owners to try to convince them to lease their rooms out temporarily. Gregor: Yes. Peter – Yes.

8. The Little Mountain social housing complex currently has over 100 empty units. Do you beleave the city should put pressure on BC Housing to fill those temporarily. Peter: I couldn’t understand his answer. Gregor: Yes.

9. Would you support having Vancouver establish a living-wage policy, where it would commit to paying any workers or people employed through contracts a living wage, defined here locally as about $16.50 an hour? Peter: That’s more than councillors make. Gregor: Is that why you’re running for mayor? Jokes aside, Peter: No, because I don’t know what the impact would be on city finances. Gregor: Yes, I’d like to see that.

Then the two got to give long-answer responses to more detailed (sometimes a lot more detailed) questions from the panel members, which included me, The Tyee’s Monte Paulsen, and former provincial mental-health advocate Nancy Hall.

In general, I’d say that Peter Ladner shows a lot more passion and empathy on these issues than I think people gave him credit for in the past, along with knowledge of many of the subtleties. On the other hand, Gregor, whom I’ve frequently noted in the past has not displayed a lot of detailed knowledge, showed a couple of times that he had a more in-depth analysis on a particular issue that Peter did.

What continues to be very boring for those of us in the listening audience are the misleading accusations and criticisms made about the other candidate. (For Peter, his accusations that Gregor has never even talked to Housing Minister Rich Coleman in his years in Victoria. Who cares? To my knowledge, Peter, who refused to go along on Victoria lobbying trips with his now-deposed mayor Sam Sullivan, has done little more than chitchat with Coleman at housing announcements. For Gregor, it’s the accusation that the NPA council has done absolutely nothing about homelessness. While you could argue that they could have made homelessness even more of a priority or they wasted their money on useless side projects or that they were only pushed into action by the upcoming Olympics, it’s silly and untrue to say they did nothing.)

Okay, enough of my picky ranting. Onto what they had to say — I’ll pick out the one thing they had to say on the topic that seemed like their essential message.

1. What will you do about people sleeping on the streets?
Peter: “I don’t think the city should jump in and build shelters. Our taxpayers cannot do everything. We need to be strategic and thoughtful.” Gregor: “I don’t think there’s anything strategic or thoughtful about forcing people to sleep outside. We can make space for hundreds and hundreds of people. I would like to see a whole lot more energy and effort put into dealing with the short-term crisis.”

2. How will you pay for your homelessness plans? (to Gregor)

Gregor: “We are in the process of costing the plan but it won’t cost much.” Money now going to Project Civil City can be put in, but I don’t see this adding to the tax burden or requiring us to cut services somewhere else.

3. Why do you keep saying the NPA has created 3,800 housing units when that’s not true? Monte Paulsen went into quite an analysis of the numbers, saying that the 900 rooms that are existing hotels being fixed up don’t really count, another 900 units were actually started under the previous council, and 1,100 units underway now might never get funded.

I won’t attempt to reproduce the boxing match that went on, but suffice it to say there was one. Peter argued back that it does make a difference to have a decent hotel room rather than one occupied by cockroaches, mice and rats. He also pointed out that the NPA council has taken a considerable amount of heat while approving new social-housing sites (that’s a fact, especially in Yaletown and Dunbar). He also said he has no question the provincial government will fund all 12 of the new social-housing sites now being planned.

3. What about creating psychiatric hospital beds?

Unsurprisingly, neither candidate opposed the idea of doing this and both talked about the necessity of having options like making better use of Riverview. (Peter Ladner, however, accused Coqutilam of causing that project to be stalled — that ought to make Maxine Wilson hopping mad. The mayor of Coquitlam has been fighting to get the province to stick with the original plan, which was park land and facilities for mental health, as it used to be. Coleman has been talking about building a massive market housing complex on the site, which is what Coquitlam is concerned about.)

4. What’s your vision of how to create affordable housing in the second phase of Southeast False Creek? (Remember, in the first phase, the Olympic village, the new NPA council decided to change the plan to have one-third social housing, one-third low-cost rental and one-third market. Instead, it will be about 30 per cent social housing now and less than 10 per cent low-cost rental. However, they did vote that for the second phase, they would try to stick with the one-thirds model.) In what was a surprise answer to me, Peter said he wasn’t sure that one-third model would work any more for the second phase. “The second phase needs a lot of thought.” Gregor repeated the standard line that the NPA blew the first phase by going for top dollar and a developer who would build luxury condos. I never really got an answer to that question from him.

What was more interesting was when Nancy followed up with a question about what the two might push for at Little Mountain. Peter said the city has been promised $75 million by the provincial government from the profits of that site to invest anywhere it likes to create social housing. He said that it should be invested away from there so as to get the most housing for the money, since that development, which is close to Queen Elizabeth Park and other attractive amenities, will be too expensive. Gregor asked where the “other places” are that social housing is going to go, then, and he expressed concern that an NPA council will only want to put social housing in places that are less desirable and away from the kinds of services that other residents get to enjoy.

In a couple of his sharper moments of the night, he also pointed out that Peter was mixing up the definitions of social and low-cost market housing (which was true at that point). He also was quick to point out that Peter’s argument that the city should lobby for tax changes could be a long time coming, since it’s been 35 years since the federal government got rid of the tax incentives for building apartments and intense lobby efforts at all levels since then have been unsuccessful in getting them to change that back.

When asked which pillar in the city’s Four Pillars drug policy they thought was the weakest, Peter said prevention, Gregor said treatment. Peter said there doesn’t need to be any more money for enforcement. “We spend 75 per cent of our dollars on enforcement.” What the city needs from its council is for its members to fight to make sure that treatment space is available, even when local residents are opposed to having a facility in their area.

The most noteworthy one of the night was Gary’s question to the two candidates about the Downtown Eastside. Given that the neighbourhood is a source of embarassment and that it attracts addicts and crime (his words, not mine), “what if the Downtown Eastside ceased to exist? What if gentrification consumed the Downtown Eastside? Would you think that was bad or beneficial?”

After the debate, both candidates told me they thought their opponent’s answer was one of the most revealing moments of the evening. Gregor said he thought Peter’s answer confirmed some of his worst suspicions. Peter said Gregor’s answer showed he wasn’t ready to make tough decisions.

Here’s what they had to say (I didn’t use a tape recorder, because that’s impossible to work with quickly at such a long event. I’m sure both parties with have complete transcripts available soon.)

Peter, who got to respond first to Gary’s question: “That’s the only solution.” He noted the city policy is to protect the existing housing stock and then what the neighbourhood needs is to “mix in some other kind of housing to normalize that neighbourhood.” Otherwise nothing will change, he said, and people will continue to live miserable existences where they barely survive and live in fear of being raped in their crummy hotel rooms, while their drug habits are fed by “buys on cellphones coming down in BMWs.” He cited Woodward’s as an example of the kind of project the area needs, which has mixed uses and which will “infuse the neighbourhood with social capital.” That means people with the energy to clean up the area, which the desperate types who are living day to day don’t have the means to do. He mentioned NPA council candidate Sean Bickerton as the kind of person he meant, an entertainment-industry guy who moved into Tinseltown and, when he found out about a significant social problem affecting his building, organized the strata council to make change.

Gregor’s response: “I worry when I hear what’s between the lines, when you use words like normalizing.” Gregor stressed that the Downtown Eastside isn’t just dysfunctional. “It’s already a community and they don’t necessarily want their neighbourhood transformed to some shiny happy new neighbourhood.” He said whatever plan is devised for the area, people who live there have to be part of it. “I don’t think there’s a solution that can be imposed by city hall. It’ll be a war zone if that’s what happens.” Ultimately, he said, “we need to see change but it has to be supportive.” He referred to the efforts that have been made by the group led by Milton Wong and Michael Clague in that area to try to develop a comprehensive plan for the area that everyone in the community can agree on.

Peter rebutted by saying there have been eight different plans for the area and nothing has changed. In fact, he said that even though the city developed a housing plan a few years ago with the input of local leaders, when market housing started coming into the area as projected, they immediately opposed it. He also noted that there are “some people who like it the way it is because they benefit from it in some perverse way.”

Other comments about the evening:

- Thankfully, it seemed to draw more than half the audience from regular people, i.e. not media, campaign workers or candidates. Instead, the evening, put on by the organization Leadership Vancouver, had a lot of people who work with businesses and non-profits in the city and who have worked with LV to improve their understanding of the community and their leadership skills.

- The candidates were each presented with a gift when the night ended by LV. Peter’s gift was a six-pack of Happy Planet juice, from the company that Gregor started. Gregor’s was a copy of Business in Vancouver, the newspaper that Peter started.

- It started off with both candidates sounding hesitant and rote-like, with the predictable emphasis on the themes we’ve heard so far: Gregor Robertson has no experience and you need experience when times are tough; Peter Ladner has shown no leadership and you need leadership when you’re facing a crisis of homelessness. Gregor’s signature, opening question: “Did the NPA do a good job? Is Vancouver a better city now than it was three years ago?” (Shades of Ronald Reagan)

- They each got to ask one question. Peter’s was: Why do you think you’re qualified to lead the city when you’ve never made a single decision in government or been to a full council meeting? (Answer: I think Vancouver is ready for a change in leadership. Direct experience at the city does not directly translate to good leadership. You need a mayor who is never afraid to speak up.) Gregor’s was: “Why should you trust Peter Ladner to make progress on homelessness? If you walk around Vancouver, in just about every neighbourhood, you will find people sleeping on the streets.” (Millions have been spent on housing. Who do you think has a better chance of cutting deal with the provincial government for more? To say nothing has been done is to say that you don’t understand what has happened here.)

- Gregor continued to be completely vague about what he will do to show leadership on homelessness, but I understand that some details are going to come out at the debate tomorrow night, which is specifically about homelessness, mental illness and affordable housing. (That’s at St. Andrew’s Wesley, Nelson and Burrard, and I’ll be on the panel.)

- They talked about what they would do to make the city more green. Gregor emphasized that the city should be trying dedicated cycling lanes and a new trial of a Burrard Bridge bike lane. (And this is a guy who really cycles the talk. After the debate, I saw him head off on his bike at 9 p.m., while Peter was still inside chatting to people.) He also said the city should have been pushing much harder in the past three years to develop district heating systems. And he blamed the lack of leadership on lack of political will and a structural problem at city hall that has relegated the sustainability office to the “basement.” (Actually, the staff cafeteria is in the basement. The sustainability office is under the Cambie Bridge.)

Ladner talked about what the city has already done — setting GHG reduction and carbon-neutral goals, passing new green-building standards, and his own motion to start a public bike-share system like the one in Paris.

There’s more, but I’m too tired to write any more tonight.

Overall, my impression was that Gregor is really hammering on the theme of people’s unhappiness with the blots on the city: homelessness, lack of significant green leadership, lack of financial control. Peter is focusing on the positives, emphasizing everything that’s good about Vancouver and what it has achieved. The real question people are being driven to answering in this vote: Are you happy with the Vancouver you see?

Your vote?

I arrived home today to my first mailer, this one from Vision Vancouver. It shows a picture of city hall and then a picture of a man sleeping on the street, with the headline “PETER LADNER VOTED TO CUT THE HOMELESS ACTION PLAN” followed by “The NPA isn’t doing enough here (over city hall pic) to help here (sleeping man). THE NPA HAS FAILED VANCOUVER.

The other side is a little more upbeat. ONLY YOU CAN CHANGE VANCOUVER and accompanying talk about leadership and action. I can hardly wait for my mail tomorrow.

For those of you reading this immediately, by the way, I’m off to the debate tonight between the two mayoral candidates at the planetarium.  So you can go out and enjoy yourselves, safe in the knowledge that I’ll be your eyes and ears.