Question: If the Wall Centre gets reclad to fix the glass issue, will it remain two toned or which colour will win out? Answer: Oh, you sly questioner you. (This was from Joe Just Joe, for those too lazy/busy to look back.) You must surely know about the tussle at city hall over this the last [...] [Read more →]

Question: How effective has Translink been in collecting the fines for tickets issued for fare evaders? Answer: Amazing how much traction this topic has gotten in recent weeks. The world’s in a recession, Europe is in a tailspin, and we’re facing debt and deficits in the billions of dollars at the provincial and national level, [...] [Read more →]

Question: New Westminster have their own electric power company. I see that the City of Palo Alto Power company is offering Feed-In-Tariffs for photovolatic and other home and business power generators to the City grid. Has this been discussed locally? New West has 28,000 residential and 3000 commercial power customers. Could the City of Vancouver [...] [Read more →]

Question: Which province has the most pedestrian deaths? Answer: Now, that is a hard statistic to come by, because most of the time we hear about pedestrian deaths through reports from municipal police forces. I haven’t even been able to get the total number of deaths in B.C. for 2010 because ICBC, which collects that [...] [Read more →]

Question: I heard you on the Bill Good show this morning. You were quite interested in those people who were commenting “who cares about the petting zoo animals, that’s what we do with them anyway – eat them”. My question is when did you take note of bloggers and on line commenters. Last time I heard [...] [Read more →]

Question: Why is the box for City Plumber so big? Will you answer impossible questions? Answer 1: Apparently, the question box for City Plumber intrudes into the main block of text on some browsers. It’s because you have old browsers that haven’t refreshed. It’s supposed to fix itself. Answer 2: I’ve already gotten a huge [...] [Read more →]

Question: The Shoppers Drug Mart building on Davie Street. What was it originally? Was it a bowling centre, was it a roller rink? Answer: Oh, I was dearly hoping it was a roller rink. Or at least a bowling centre. I have fond memories of the block from the 1970s, when the only French bookstore [...] [Read more →]

Question: Has the COV 311 contact centre improved the delivery of municipal services? Answer: In pursuit of answers to this question, I have gone where no one has gone before — well, hardly anyone, except for the 100+ employees of 311 and possibly a reporter whose story I’ve forgotten. Anyway, the city invited me down to [...] [Read more →]

Question: A general manager removed the neon from the clock on top of the Vancouver Block in 1998. Who put the neon back on the clock in 2000? — from regular poster Bobbie Bees Answer: Oh, what a delightful trail of breadcrumbs this set out for me, with a surprise ending. Follow along, dear readers, and [...] [Read more →]