The last time Vancouver changed its council schedule was back in the 80s, when Gordon Campbell decided that evening council meetings were a blight, keeping everyone around until beyond midnight. He moved council meetings to 2 p.m. Tuesdays and introduced a new rule that only allowed speakers at committee meetings (held on Thursdays during the [...]

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I’ve been getting news releases from some organizations that were just named to the top-employer list, so thought I’d add another twig to the smouldering employee-relations debate here by posting this. Also paid for by your tax dollars on the list: Coast Mountain Bus. You can go to the link here, click on the organization [...]

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There’s been a lot of reporting on staff departures at Vancouver city hall in the past two years, partly because the new Vision team has made a point of cleaning house, partly because some of the departures have been so high profile, and partly because the city’s former political staffers at Citycaucus have done an [...]

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As of Dec. 1, an electronic news summary that goes out to councillors no longer included reports on bloggers, as has been the practice in the past. (See the full message on the next page.) Kind of odd, as it’s not really that hard to keep track of the four blogs that cover the city [...]

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Didn’t get this up last night, but here is my story on the Vancouver city hall employee survey that popped up as a surprise item at the last minute for yesterday’s council meeting, with city manager Penny Ballem doing a two-hour presentation and Q and A with council on the survey plus a report on [...]

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I’ve seen three new councils come in to city hall in the past eight years and every one has experienced some discomfort about the way reporters go to staff for information, information that is occasionally at odds with what the councillors are saying. There’s occasional grumbling about the level of power they seem to exert. [...]

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This just out.   The City of Vancouver today announced the selection of Amanda Pitre-Hayes as its new Director of Sustainability.   With 18 years of experience in leadership roles at the Pembina Institute, Vancity, Citizens Bank of Canada and the Body Shop Canada, Ms. Pitre-Hayes brings to the City innovative environmental and business practices [...]

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I’ve been expecting the news that the chair of the Vancouver Athletic Commission was going to be fired for the last month and it finally happened yesterday. As I noted in my Globe story a month ago, chair Mirko Mladenovic engaged in some fairly unusual behaviour at the commission, the likes of which I’ve never [...]

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This just out from city hall today. Strikes me as a motion created to give the media something to gnaw on on a quiet Sunday besides endless blog circling around the Tsisserev mystery story. Looks like it promotes transparency, without giving away too much. Councillors’ expenses are, for the most part, completely boring and uninteresting. [...]

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Sorry, I’m falling down on the job in getting those internal memos out there fast enough. I got this last Thursday and here it is at last. From: Ballem, Penny To: [deleted] Sent: Thu Mar 04 16:01:48 2010 Subject: For your info – this is going to council tonight pb I would like to provide [...]

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