Frances Bula header image 4

Entries from January 2016

Vancouver’s mayor, with interesting links to the Clark campaign, issues official welcome

February 27th, 2011 · 35 Comments

Below is the official statement out from Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson. It will be interesting to see how the Vision team handles relations with the new premier, considering some of the ties between their two operations. Among the Vision types working on the Clark campaign: – Don Millar of FD Elements, who has also done […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

New Vancouver casino would get $130 M more from local gamblers, $100 M from tourists

February 24th, 2011 · 95 Comments

B.C. Lottery Corporation, Paragon Gaming and PavCo are about to come out of the blocks to start fighting back against the opposition to a casino expansion that suddenly blew up in their faces the last two weeks. That’s what I learned when I went over to BCLC’s offices today for an interview with the president […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

Over half of Oly village condos sell in first phase + weird Oly village tourism advice

February 22nd, 2011 · 47 Comments

Just in case you’re in a cave somewhere, Bob Rennie announced at a news conference this morning that 128 of the 230 condos offered for sale in this round at the Olympic village have offers on them. Details here. In offbeat Olympic-village news, the NY Times had the strangest travel piece ever, suggesting that people […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

Olympic village Salescos go after three buyers who balk at completing

February 21st, 2011 · 19 Comments

Some buyers sued the village last year to get out of completing their purchases. Now the village’s Salescos — those legal entities created to do the actual legal agreements — are going after those who refused to complete their purchases. The details here.

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

Vancouver makes it tougher to fight traffic tickets by playing bureaucracy

February 20th, 2011 · 38 Comments

Knowledgeable fighters of parking tickets knew that it was relatively easy to game the system in Vancouver to get out of paying a fine. The city’s putting in a new system to change that. Details from Mr. Parking Expert, Vancouver Sun reporter Chad Skelton. A bold — or dastardly — new Vision initiative? No. I […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

As much information as we can get for now on Olympic village prices

February 17th, 2011 · 32 Comments

This is what was handed out at the news conference launching the new sales effort today (with a couple of comparisons with previous sales that I’ve dug out). BRIDGE BUILDING Studio: 349,500 – $354,900

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

City engineer: “You are welcome to come and check our data on bike lanes”

February 17th, 2011 · 108 Comments

I called the long-suffering guy in charge of bike lanes, Jerry Dobrovolny, earlier this week to get more information about how the bike-lane statistics are gathered, since there have been allegations by some people (and not just anonymous ones on this blog) that the engineering department is faking data. “We do need to be able […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

Hornby lane counts in + asking you: What would make Hornby work better?

February 17th, 2011 · 60 Comments

Sigh. Here we go. City news release on cycling has updates on statistics for Hornby and Dunsmuir bike lanes. Deconstruct away But in an effort to perhaps bring a new stream of ideas into the conversation, how about this? I’d love to hear your ideas for how, if the current lane were going to stay on […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

List of prominent names opposed to casino grows

February 16th, 2011 · 52 Comments

When people like Dan Mangan and Gordon Gibson, Brian Jungen and Alex Tsakumis, and the Lutheran Urban Mission Society are all piling on to oppose casino expansion, there’s rough seas ahead suddenly for this proposal. This news release just out from the Little Train That Could, Vancouver Not Vegas. Vancouver, BC: A groundswell of support from […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

Olympic village set to launch, already generating big interest and a little controversy

February 16th, 2011 · 23 Comments

Tomorrow is the official announcement but I went down to the sales centre on Sunday, which was hopping. All kinds of people had driven down on a whim to take a look and then parked their cars once they found out they could tour the four presentation suites available. (In contrast to the picture I’m […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized