Comments on: When did civic politics get so interesting?

By: Agustin

Agustin — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 00:14:26 +0000

[quote="Test"]I’m just testing the commenting system… apologies if this causes problems.[/quote]

By: who is going to cover city hall? we will… | eaves.ca

who is going to cover city hall? we will… | eaves.ca — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 18:48:06 +0000

[...] the Globe and Mail) it is us who are covering this “small” stories. In a recent post entitled “When did civic politics get so interesting?” she states: It’s hard to remember, but in those days, no one cared about city hall. It used to [...]

By: RossK

RossK — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 05:28:33 +0000

Awwww Alex–

Not everybody at The Hook can be the little guy in the middle of the front row…..

By: A. G. Tsakumis

A. G. Tsakumis — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 05:10:24 +0000

Two points:

1) ‘The Hook’? More like ‘The Hooker’…anything that suits the far-left, regardless of balnace or reason, and if you don’t like it, take a hike because that’s what the Tyee has been reduced to. Please don’t flatter yourself David…you USED to have the absolutel best online newspaper. Those days are long gone.

2) Allan Fotheringham (now retired) was one of Canada’s best writers–period. He took no prisoners, pulled no punches and was literate and entertaining. Always fair and always knowledgeable. It did not matter where he started, that kind of talent is rare and good no matter what he’s writing about. Fair commentators always see that. Rush Limbaugh, famously wrote of Christopher Hitchens (the finest English language writer alive) that he and Hitchens agree on little, but that he’d read his column twice, with pleasure.

The reason there is more attraction to reading of the machinations, political and otherwise, municipally (as well as federally) is because people are becoming more interested in their immediate environment (thanks to ten years of Grit rule, the feds are much more involved in your life–intrusively so). Provincially, we’re screwed until the Premier’s friends and apologists are either fired or retired.

Sean Holman can’t carry everything on his back. One in a million…

By: RossK

RossK — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 03:02:07 +0000

Frances, upthread said
“Sure, there are still lots of reporters there (in matters p’funk). But there’s heavy reporting on civic stuff, though granted from a less beat-savvy crew, and yet all kinds of people are weighing in.

Ya, but, that means that the responders are way more beat savvy, and there are way more minders…and protocol etc…..thus, it’s a tougher nut to crack.

There is another possibility….which is that the rough and tumble of the political bloggodome just hasn’t made it across the water yet…. (ie. I don’t see much civic blogging on South VanIsle either).

___
And Mr. Beers is right, of course – The Hook is good, and on matters provincial (in addition to the mirror-site stuff from Mess’rs Tieleman and Holman) Andrew MacLeod has been outstanding…Although I would be softballing it if I didn’t mention that I’ve noticed a little bit of the run of the mill ‘beat’-type stuff starting to sneak in there lately, which I think is a mistake.

By: Stheticwrit

Stheticwrit — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 23:16:03 +0000

Great perspective for a newcomer to Vancouver politics like me. Btw, typo in the second graph,
…”When I went to the committee meetings on Thursday, I *(was) usually the only reporter there.”

By: obscurantist

obscurantist — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 22:03:36 +0000

I’m sure it’s possible to overstate the role of particular personalities, but one way in which politics has been “interesting,” at least in the city of Vancouver, has been the personalities of the last two mayors.

Every mayor between 1967 and 2002 was elected to at least two terms. Then you had Larry Campbell and Sam Sullivan, both of whom antagonized people for similar but not entirely identical reasons (Campbell being a gregarious blowhard and Sullivan more of a wonk and a lone wolf).

As mayor, both tended to be control freaks. So did Gordon Campbell, as he continues to be today, but Larry Campbell and Sullivan just aren’t quite as good at it. So Larry Campbell became the first mayor in recent memory not to run for a second term, while Sullivan became the first in recent memory to fight (and lose) an open nomination battle.

I’d like to think that Robertson is a bit more grounded than either of his two predecessors, so that two years from now we won’t be in the middle of another free-for-all battle for the mayoralty, because I think the circus-like quality of the last two mayoral administrations wasn’t all that productive. And so far Robertson and company seem to be fairly canny political operators in the way that Gordon Campbell is. But then you could have said that about Larry Campbell or Sam Sullivan at this point in their tenure. So who knows?

By: Travis

Travis — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 18:48:52 +0000

I wonder if we are starting to see a shift that has begun at the municipal level and will (hopefully) rise to the provincial and federal political arenas. Perhaps one day, bloggers will be fighting for position in press galleries across the country. This is already happening in the U.S. where CNN turns to The Huffington Post and Politico (granted more online news than blogging) for political commentary. It has a lot to do with the changing form of journalism and that more people are feeling that their voice matters because they actually have a voice. While there is obvious challenges that others have written about ad nauseum, the emergence of a strong interest in municipal politics in the blogosphere is a positive one to be sure.

To throw this out there. I wonder how big of a role the Olympics has in all this. Maybe once the tax payers saw a single event that so much of their money was going to they took more interest in what was really happening to that money.

Just a thought.

By: Otis Krayola

Otis Krayola — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 04:22:40 +0000

“…so why was no one around in the 90s?”

Tonight’s two points:

- Not yet the need. There was a lag time from the effect of the Mulroney/Reagan/Thatcher cant of no-cost government. Softened somewhat by successive NDP governments in Victoria.

In short, the chickens hadn’t come home to roost. Just yet.

– The simultaneous decline of the importance of rural BC and the rise of the new Metro/Citystate.

Resource economies are seemingly in the tank for good, and the issues of the City (region) render those of the Province negligible.

By: Bill Lee

Bill Lee — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 18:44:32 +0000

Alan Fotheringham made his name covering City council meetings
as a joke, and personality palaver. That was in the “old days”

Youth these days, it’s wasted on the young with no memories.

and in the 1920s there were three cities in Vancouver and 3 papers
what was then. Or was it all respectable before the NPA in the
1930s. That was when the wisdom was to have yearly elections
and wards and they could be tossed out easily.