West End Neighbours, the new impromptu group that has sprung up to oppose Vision’s rental incentives for developers and, along the way, a lot of other things, was outside waving placards and letting anyone who didn’t know already about their general dissatisfaction.

But the group went a bit further than others I’ve seen in my many years at city hall, by having a couple of them buy the $150 tickets (unless they got them free from Vision) and go in to mingle with the crowd. When I passed the mayor at one point in between the two tables of shrimp dumplings, deep-fried prawns and spring rolls, he was embroiled in a deep conversation with WEN’s persistent Randy Helten.

The event, a cocktail-party type thing that mercifully allowed people to move out to the outdoor patio/garden, was not as big a do as the Wall Centre fundraiser last fall, but still drew the faithful. Among people from the development crowd I saw there: Peter and Shahram Malek of Millennium (Olympic village, current Maxine’s project in the West End that is on the WEN hit list), Andrew Grant from PCI (Marine Gateway), architects Richard Henriquez (art gallery planning), Stuart Lyon (social housing projects all over the city), and Walter Francl (Bob Rennie’s Chinatown gallery makeover, Olympic village community centre) and James Hancock (two residential towers bordering BC Place).

Also present: David Cuan from the First Shaughnessy residents association, Dr. Peter Wong, who’s been doing a lot of work in Chinatown, Shirley Chan, working with BOB in the Downtown Eastside. I’m told there were any number of government-relations-type people, but I don’t run in those circles so couldn’t ID them.

Congratulations should go to the mayor’s speechwriter for keeping things short, unlike previous events where Gregor Robertson went on forever over what was usually a din similar to what I’m hearing during the World Cup soccer matches that I wake up to every morning in our house these days.

The successes the mayor listed: the Olympics; progress on dealing with homelessness; progress on dealing with homelessness; progress on becoming the “coolest city in the world by 2020″ with various green initiatives like bike lanes and curbside composting. He did acknowledge that neighbourhood groups have their concerns about affordable housing and praised them for their “engagement,” adding that that “we’ve got lots of tension and lots of struggles to get through these decisions.”

Gregor also noted that “city hall is a different place than it was 18 months ago” (something many city hall staffers would agree with) and that it’s a lot more confident and ambitious.

School board chair Patti Bacchus got the main cheers of the night, when the mayor praised “our school board for standing up for our kids.”

And that was it. Another few thousand for the election-account kitty, which the mayor reminded everyone is going to be needed in only another 17 months.

That’s quite a sign of renewal for the party and surely something Vision Vancouver will keep its eye on. A lot of people on the left, while sort of supporting Vision, are not sure where this new party is really heading. “Liberals in a hurry,” I heard one left supporter sniff once. That kind of latent preference for a real left-wing party is what COPE is counting on in the future. If Vision gets just a little too pragmatic, (read moderate, read hopelessly mushy), then COPE will be waiting to pick up the left-wing pieces.

And the answer is, once again: Mostly the development industry for the two major parties. Unless Vision Vancouver surprises us on Monday, with the news that the bulk of its money has come from organic carrot farmers, yoga-mat producers, and graphic designers.

VV’s details on its rumoured $1.5 million campaign aren’t in yet — deadline is Monday. Nor are those of the Coalition of Progressive Electors, which has said it spent $300,000 on its campaign. (By the way, that works out to a cost of just under $100,000 per successful candidate for VV and a bargain basement $50,000 per successful candidate for COPE.)

But the Non-Partisan Association filed its disclosure today, as have a few of the candidates, notably Peter Ladner, Kim Capri and Elizabeth Ball. You can look at the documents here, which the city has helpfully — thanks to a motion last May — started providing on the web this year instead of requiring us to down to city hall dressed like Queen Victoria and copy out the numbers with quill pens, as was the previous practice. (Sorry, I just had a beer with dinner and am feeling silly.)

All very helpful, except that the NPA has many documents laid out in such a way that you have to turn your head sideways to read them and keep scrolling back and forth to figure out which development company donated $10,000 and which only donated $2,000. But I quibble.

I can’t quite tell what the total NPA spending was, because they file for the party and for candidates but the candidates give money to the party, though not everything they raise and so on. But it appears that the party raised just over $1 million, Peter got brought in $200,000 after paying his money to the party, Suzanne about $70,000 in total but she gave some to Peter’s campaign and then some to the party, etc., so I’m going to estimate the total was around $1.3 million. The list of the city’s prominent figures in the development industry is fairly complete.

Bob Rennie appears to be the biggest donor, having turned over $35,000 worth of his advertising pages (I presume in the Vancouver Sun) to the party. Developer Rob Macdonald gave at least $12,625; Imperial Parking kicked in $12,500 ($7,500 to the party; $5,000 to Peter); Concord Pacific gave around $12,000, Jimmy Pattison’s company, $10,000; Henderson Developers gave $12,500; the Keg restaurants gave $10,000. There are a couple of newcomers (to me, anyway, it seems) on the scene with big money. The owners Harbour Centre Complex, the Sears tower to oldtimers, gave $10,000. That’s odd, considering that the directors of the company, Rainer Hackert and Carl-Gustav Staelin, are from Missassagua and Germany respectively. Another newcomer donor is David Sidoo, the ex-football player, investment banker and owner of DB Bistro Moderne. Those last two also gave $10,000 apiece.

What does new NPA president Michael Davis make of all this? Well, he’s glad the party’s not in debt. They came out of the debacle with about $3,000. But he’d like to see a limit on donations from unions, developers and businesses. Gee, maybe there could be bipartisan support for this idea at last.

Now we’re waiting to see what Vision will file.

BTW, for those waiting to see what Sam Sullivan and Raymond Louie spent on their failed campaigns to run for mayor — keep waiting. Davis said the current law does not appear to require Sullivan for sure and Louie, maybe, to file. A candidate who runs for a nomination and loses has no requirement to file later, so we will never never find out who Sullivan’s great supporters were. (I should note that he gave $15,000 to the party through donations.) As for whether Louie, who ran for a mayoral nomination and lost but then ran for a council nomination, got it and then was elected, has to file his expenses for the mayoral nomination — that’s not at all clear, says Davis.

I would like to note for the record that I spent a quarter tank of gas, plus the cost of a coffee (with an NPA organizer) and a lunch (with a Vision organizer) on the day of the election.

It’s interesting that the new executive is composed almost entirely of the new and diverse group that was elected to the board back in December, like Chilwin Cheng, Manjot Hallen and Jeevan Khunkhun. They really seem to be trying to make the point that NPA candidate Michael Geller did during the campaign: “This is not your father’s NPA.”

Michael has been around the NPA a bit, as a long-term supporter of Sam Sullivan’s, back to the mid-90s when Sullivan was a rookie councillor in Vancouver. He now the senior counsel and director of operations with the PR company Reputations, which has long been affiliated with Sullivan as well, also because of president Wayne Hartrick’s association with him back to his early days.

I can testify from past experience that Michael has been great to deal with. He’s certainly way more comfortable talking to us media scum than previous NPA presidents have been. He worked briefly on Sullivan’s membership drive, which led up to his loss in the nomination fight between him and Peter Ladner. Michael says he kind of dropped out of the election scene after that, but is now back in and looking at how to broaden out the NPA.

Look for the association to go through another debate about what its role should be. The association has an 80-year tradition of maintaining that it’s not really a party. Theoretically, it elects a board whose main job is to choose good candidates from all parts of the city and political spectrum. Then it pretty much disbands.

Michael says there’s a “lot of enthusiasm on the board now to be more active.” The party hasn’t decided yet what to do about paying for some staff support for its existing elected members or doing the kind of outreach to members that helped Vision Vancouver build itself up so strongly prior to last fall’s election. That’s all in the planning. But the focus is definitely on maintaining the core base of voters, which held at a respectable 50,000 in the last election under Peter Ladner, convincing some people who sat on their hands in the election to come back out, and broadening the appeal. One area that Michael specifically mentioned was the arts and culture community.

The NPA’s new energy seems to have coincided with another burst of energy from park board commissioner Ian Robertson. Ian is the only NPA candidate who was elected to park board and he’s been kind of quiet until now. But this week, he sent out his first news release, letting people know about a decision the new Vision/COPE commissioners appear to be set to make about a private company that was supposed to get a contract to run a service in Queen Elizabeth Park.

I’m attaching Ian’s news release at the bottom of this post.

This new activity, if it continues, should help NPA supporters start to figure out where the party is going and what it stands for. Until now, there hadn’t been a lot of public activity going on, except for little reports over at Sean Bickerton’s blog, where the former NPA council candidate is keeping up an interesting stream of commentary on the city and politics. But aside from that, it’s been unclear in many people’s minds whether the new citycaucus.com blog was the voice of the NPA or what. Michael said, on that topic, “They’re not. I certainly like some of the reporting that they’re doing, though I disagree with some things.” Like other NPAers I’ve talked to, he likes the fact that citycaucus exists because it brings a different point of view to the blogosphere/media world, i.e. one that highlights NPA criticisms and issues. There seems to be a strong feeling by many people that the NPA somehow doesn’t get a fair shake in the media. (I await the comments from those saying all of the MSM does nothing but promote the NPA.)

So those of us who cover civic politics will be waiting to see how the new NPA defines itself and remakes itself for the new century. Looking forward to seeing what the evolution brings.

Here’s Ian’s news release

VISION-COPE PARK BOARD DECISION BAD FOR

SMALL BUSINESS

NPA Park Commissioner Ian Robertson says reversing previous Boards’ motion will hurt small business

Vancouver, BC –Vision Vancouver’s Park Commissioner Aaron Jasper will introduce a motion on March 2^nd that will reverse the previous Board’s approval to Vancouver-based Chapel at Stanley Park Enterprises Inc. to manage and operate the Celebration Pavilion at Queen Elizabeth Park, says Commissioner Ian Robertson.

“This is a sad day for small business operators wanting to do business with the Park Board and the City of Vancouver,” says Robertson.  “This operator spent considerable time and effort to go through an extensive proposal process. They negotiated in good faith with the Park Board. To have a new Board over-turn a decision that was good for the residents of Vancouver is very troubling”

Chapel at Stanley Park Enterprises had negotiated an agreement to manage and operate the Celebration Pavilion at Queen Elizabeth Park for a five-year term with an option to renew for up to an additional five years.  A percentage of the revenue would be paid back to the Park Board.

“I expect the Vision-COPE commissioners have reneged on this agreement so they can turn it into a union operation,” adds Commissioner Robertson.  “With four parties at the Board table we have a tremendous opportunity to create a new strategic plan for parks and recreation services for the residents of Vancouver. Instead, Vision and COPE are breaking deals and hurting small business operators.”

The story intrigued me, especially since several people I know had known the man who died, Paul Haden. I wasn’t sure what I would find when I started looking into what happened. It turned out to be a journey with some unexpected turns as I followed Paul’s life. You can read the story here.

I realize that some of you may be profoundly disturbed by the choices Paul made, as some of his friends were, and you will express that. Please do so, but be mindful when making your comments that his family and friends will likely be reading them.

Instead, a great band with local jazz singer Karen Holness (who had earlier in the day entertained the Downtown Eastside at another event to open the Rainier Hotel for women’s housing), nibbly food and a big old schmoozing-style party. A few people actually danced, but mostly attendees put their energy into networking.

It was a pretty packed room, especially considering it’s a Wednesday in February in the middle of an economic meteor shower, with a price tag of $150 a person. About 400 people said to be there, which I guess they’re hoping will help pay off the party’s debt from the election, something I keep hearing about but don’t have the numbers on yet.

I’m told by several people that former NPA councillor George Puil was in attendance. I will state for the record here that I did not see him myself; however, I was a late arrival and several people told me he was there. Also reported in attendance was former NPA board director George Cadman.

I did see the affable and well-connected Liberal organizer Mark Marissen, who apparently was one of the first arrivals at 6 p.m. and many at the party told me there was a strong Lib presence among the attendees.

I had wondered how many developers would be around, given how much hurtin’ is going on with their business. But they were there in force. In fact, a little sign posted on the floor announced that the “lead sponsors” for the fundraiser were (besides the two pillars of Vision, Bob Penner’s Stratcomm polling company and Joel Solomon’s Renewal Partners) Terry Hui’s Concord Pacific, Simon Lim’s Holborn, and the De Cotiis’s Onni Group, along with the Value Group of Companies, CUPE, and the Stanley Park Horse-Drawn Tours.

Tables also displayed signs from developers Aquilini, The Salient Group (Robert Fung) and Wall Financial. Also represented were Black Top, Buster’s, Hoggan & Associates, Terasen, Brook Development and the Boffo Family of Companies.

Francesco Aquilini was one of the developers there in person, not someone who just mailed in a cheque for a table and gave out free tickets to random passersby. He always seems to be having a great time when I spot him at Vision parties and has to be one of the most cheerful people around. (I think the Canucks win the previous night helped.)

The VIPs got to party at a special session that started before the main event, by the way. But that didn’t mean they got the only exclusives with Mr. Mayor. Gregor Robertson, unlike at previous parties where he tended to stay near the door and talk to five people he already knows well, really worked the room, making sure that he got around to almost anyone who wanted to talk to him. He even made time for your faithful scribe to pester him at the end of the night, a cruel time to scrum anyone.

As far as I could tell, people were feeling pretty good — no major grumbling about anything the new council has done, while Visionistas themselves seem to be thinking it’s going pretty good so far.

But it’s not quite day 60 out of the 1,000-some days of the term, so no rushing to definitive judgment yet.

That can only mean

1. Bruno Wall has been successful in buying the Commercial Drive 1913-era theatre from the former, not-too-happy owner who was going to tear it down and build townhouses. (This marks the third cultural venue the Walls have helped save or build in the city, starting with the Stanley Theatre back in the day of the Wall Centre project, the Playhouse mini-theatre and storage (some day) in Southeast False Creek, and now this.

2. The city is going to talk this up as a great save for the arts community (with others chiming in)

3. It’s going to be a very lovely project, if Henriquez is involved.

4. No one is going to mention the arts community — or some parts of it — being a little uneasy about the fact that the York is getting 100 per cent of the money it needs to save the building through various city mechanisms, like density bonuses and whatever else some creative planner can dream up.
That’s while the rest of them are always told that the city only contributes one-third of any funding needed, while the other two thirds are supposed to come from the province and the feds.

This has to have everyone wondering what a VV council’s last-minute save might look like for the Pantages.

To see the back and forth on this project, you can read the very informative comments on my previous post here.

The email, from Marcella Munro, went out this morning to the rest of Vision’s tight communications team, which frequently debates how well they are doing on their message. That included: Mike Magee (Gregor’s current chief of staff), Bob Penner (the polls guy who worked in tandem with Magee on the campaign), Bill Tieleman (blogger, communications guy), Ian Baillie (campaign organizer), Mike Wilson (not sure who he is — sorry, Mike), and Kevin Quinlan (wonderkind doing communications in the mayor’s office). I don’t have it word for word, since it was read out to me, but here’s the general gist.

“I think we’re overswing on the Olympics stuff. I don’t think anyone believes the city’s going to have a one-billion-dollar bill at the end of this. It feels like we’re going too far in blaming the NPA. Geoff [Meggs, now a councillor] is being too much of a pitbull, he’s using this too much for political purposes. We promised a different tone of city hall. But instead of being focused on the problem, we appear to be focused on destroying the NPA.”

I thought it was important to respond to this for a few reasons. A minor one is to help people understand how little bits of news like this actually get gathered. A much more important one is to weigh in on the debate about homelessness and the province’s actions or lack of same, especially when David makes criticisms like this. And I have to say, these kinds of messages trouble me — not because they’re personal and so clearly buy in unthinkingly to the comfortable theory that all reporters are just moronic dupes of the capitalist machine (I’ve kind of gotten used to that, more or less, in my 25 years), but because they contribute so little to focusing attention on the real issues around homelessness.

David is not the only person who thinks along these lines. There are others fighting the good fight to eradicate homelessness who also get so stuck in attack mode that they can’t seem to figure out how to change gears, no matter what happens. (I even heard one of them say regretfully that if the city moved all the homeless people into emergency shelters, it would remove the political pressure on the province to build long-term housing.)

Homelessness is a big issue this year in particular. The Vision Vancouver team has moved aggressively to try to get homeless people into shelters for the winter. But where are those people going to go? What’s the next step? They’re a very challenged group — that’s why many of them are out on the streets. They won’t be able to go into many of the refurbished Downtown Eastside hotels the province has bought, because many of those are being designated alcohol- and drug-free. (Which will means the current inhabitants of those hotels who have those problems will also be looking for a place to live.) And the new social housing buildings won’t start opening for at least a year and a half.

So it’s important to have an energetic debate about solutions. It’s also important to have an honest one that doesn’t just involve flinging around cliches.

But first, read what David had to say. Then, I’ll put my comments below.

david chudnovsky // Dec 6, 2008 at 5:39 pm

Not sure how many people will be able to figure this complicated story out, but this is not the kind of internecine warfare that will entice people to get involved with the party. But perhaps the new board, which now has lots of new energy on it, can help get everyone beyond this.