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Entries from January 2016

Vancouver council expenses: Mandarin lessons, trips to Iqaluit and more shockers

March 31st, 2011 · 36 Comments

Investigative reporting it ain’t, but we in the paid media like to alert you tax-paying peons to the report on council expenses every year so that you can be duly outraged that someone somewhere in government  is spending money. Reporting for duty on this story, here is the link to this year’s Vancouver council expenses […]

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CityCaucus ponders the future of the Non-Partisan Association

March 30th, 2011 · 15 Comments

Some people think CityCaucus (which consists of the two people who used to work the most closely with former mayor Sam Sullivan: Daniel Fontaine, chief of staff, and Mike Klassen, web designer) IS the Non-Partisan Association, since it has led the charge in generating critical media and talking points about the failures of Vision Vancouver. […]

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Non-profit aims to build housing without gov’t money + give United We Can a new home

March 30th, 2011 · 10 Comments

Housing groups used to get the money for building social housing by applying to the government for a giant grant, waiting for it to arrive, and then going to work. That’s less and less likely these days, so some of those housing non-profits have gotten much more creative over time. Some use the assets they […]

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Internal report on Vancouver casino shows who spends on gambling in the region

March 28th, 2011 · 48 Comments

We haven’t been able to see detailed marketing projections for the Paragon/Edgewater casino until now because the company has kept its own reports on this confidential. But the B.C. Lottery Corporation report commissioned to check out Paragon’s revenue projections, put in as part of their bid, is (sort of) available to the public. (And the […]

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New technology hits Vancouver streets: parking meters, countdown lights

March 25th, 2011 · 34 Comments

After years where Vancouver seemed to be behind other cities I visited, where you could pay for your street parking with a credit card while locally you still had to dig out coins (what’s that?), the city started to catch up a couple of years ago by implementing a cellphone-pay parking system. Ooh, modern. In […]

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Civilized crowd says: “We welcome density, but not 26-storey tower.”

March 22nd, 2011 · 57 Comments

A proposed tower at Kingsway and Broadway is the latest of many struggles going on in the city over new density in established neighbourhoods (West End, Marpole, Arbutus, Shannon Mews). Fights about density are often portrayed in simplistic terms: NIMBY residents who won’t accept the city is growing or evil planners colluding with developers to […]

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Vancouver city manager: There is no building moratorium in the Downtown Eastside

March 22nd, 2011 · 28 Comments

Everything ground to a confused halt in the Downtown Eastside last month, after city council — apparently bowing to pressure from a Mike Harcourt-led community group plus others — delayed voting on a public hearing to increase allowable building heights in DTES. Since then, city manager Penny Ballem has been working with the two main […]

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Another round of lawsuits from buyers at Olympic village

March 17th, 2011 · 28 Comments

Buyers of pre-sale condos frequently have complaints when they move into the suites that they had only seen on paper when purchasing. From parking-garage leaks to countertops that stain to units whose views are not what was expected, I’ve heard all many stories over the years. Buyers at the Olympic village, though, are claiming that […]

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BC Place renos don’t depend on casino money

March 15th, 2011 · 68 Comments

That’s the word from PavCo CEO Warren Buckley, as he spelled out for me exactly how the $563-million renos are being financed for BC Place. My story is just one small effort to isolate some of the actual facts in the pile-up of information and misinformation debris that has been accumulating around this project. There […]

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Who would you choose as your top pick for a person who has shaped Vancouver?

March 15th, 2011 · 53 Comments

The 125th birthday is approaching and people are planning all kinds of commemorative events. Ive been asked to be on a radio program to talk about a person I think has made a major contribution to shaping the city. I have some ideas of my own but would love to hear yours while I’m making […]

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