Plus, as Michael pointed out above, they aren’t able to stop in certain places to pick up people, which is absurd. Licensed City Taxis should be able to pick up a passenger ANYWHERE in the Vancouver area.

Too many restrictions and high up-front costs make Vancouver’s taxi services inadequate for a city this size. And as personal cars will be severely restricted in Vancouver during the Olympics, lack of taxis will make it extremely difficult to get around.

Regarding Hoggan, I think it’s pretty clear by now that every decision Vision makes is political, so, it doesn’t really surprise me. However, taxpayers should not be paying for some company to spread the propaganda of a political party. This should be paid for by Vision, not the City.

Will someone please explain to me how we can become the most sustainable region in the world, when we insist that a taxi taking a fare from Vancouver to Surrey has to return empty. That’s right he’s not allowed to pick up a fare in Surrey and bring him to Vancouver.

Similarly if the taxi takes a fare to the airport, he can’t pick up another fare and bring that person back downtown. He has to come back empty.

Last week when I took a taxi from the Pan Pacific to 1500 W. Georgia, (I was late for a meeting!) I apologize to the driver for such a short fare, but noted that he could just go over to the Bayshore and pick up another.

“No I can’t” he told me. “Our company is not allowed to pick up the Bayshore. I have to go back to the Pan Pacific.

I am sure there are many people who can explain why this has to be. But frankly, I find it all absolutely absurd. I consider taxis to be an important part of a public transit system. If we want to get people out of private automobiles, not only do we have to improve public transit, but we also have to improve our taxi system.

I am told that we may be instituting some temporary measures to improve the taxi situation during the Olympics. I would like to suggest that we need some brave person to undertake a comprehensive review of the taxi system in order to improve service before and after the Olympics.

Hey, who knows, maybe he’ll determine that we don’t need more licenses. We just need to make better use of the ones we already have! But at least, let’s take a proper, open-minded review, since the taxi owners were at both the NPA and Vision dinners.

I apologize for this diversion, Frances, but I just had to get this off my chest!

Well, you were sure right about that.

But really, the contracts simply stink, there’s no way around it. No, it’s not a huge issue but I think we should apply the “broken windows” theory here and not tolerate these kinds of extraneous indulgences so easily, no matter what we think about a government’s other policies.

I don’t think it’s so much that the contracts look bad and that the City needs to be more sensitive to our need for cleanly appearance, but that these contracts taken as whole plainly violate City policy.

City Corporate Procedure AF-005-01 Policy 1.1 states that for “all projects excluding Corporate Re-Engineering/ Better City Government (BCG) projects: City Council approval is required to appoint the consultant, if the gross cost will exceed $30,000″

http://vancouver.ca/policy_pdf/AF00501.pdf

The second City/Hoggan contract, which is in fact an amendment to the first rather than a completely different contract, states in section 2.1: “The maximum liability of the City for all fees and disbursements for the complete Services will be $60,000 (the “Maximum Total Amount Payable”) plus GST”. Anyone who wants to read the contracts can plug their nose and go to City Caucus who must actually be given credit in having outdone themselves by breaking this story.

Even if you interpret the contracts as two distinct contracts (although the second is only an amendment to the first), given the proximity in time of the two contracts (15th of December vs. 5th of January = 3 weeks), and the fact that they are identical except for the amount of $30,000 being amended to read $60,000, there is significant risk that the contract was simply split to avoid Council and public scrutiny. Even if this was not actually the case, City Corporate Procedure AF-005-03 Policy 2.1 applies when it states: “Splitting contracts to circumvent the approval limits specified in the section 1 of AF-005-01 (Consultants-Hiring) will not be permitted”.

http://vancouver.ca/policy_pdf/AF00503.pdf
This policy naturally incorporates a measure of subjective interpretation as you could rarely prove this kind of intent, and so the spirit of the policy is plainly that where two similar contracts seem like they could in fact have been conceived as one split contract, with each piece consequently falling below the approval limit, council approval is required. These contracts clearly fit the bill. Otherwise, you could just pay a consultant $30,000 every month for a year under different contracts for doing the same thing and circumvent Council because no one could prove intent, which shouldn’t really enter into it.

Not to mention that Hoggan is a Vision donor, that any contract over $30,000 must be put out to tender, and that the whole Olympic Village issue which Hoggan was contracted for has been treated in a very partisan way, which is fine, but lets call a spade a spade considering it’s taxpayers money and all.

The fact that the motion was not even seconded by any Vision or COPE councillor so that they might explain themselves I think demonstrates the unfortunate position their argument would otherwise have been in.

Successes:
More shelters, momentum on homelessness, momentum on greening the city, transparency of the Olympic Village situation etc etc.

Failures:
Hoggan

Again, not a huge deal, but not really to be taken lightly either.