Archive for December, 2009

Have a safe and Happy New Year’s celebration

Posted by The CivicScene Team

Being that CivicScene is a one person operation, I have self-admittedly struggled to keep up with posting during the holidays, particularly with immediate family visiting from half way across the globe for a mere few weeks.

2010 will hopefully be the anecdote to that problem.

CivicScene will return in full force with a new regime of posts beginning on January 2, and a brand new set of expectations for additional lawsuit threats from fellow blogs, more insults from anonymous cowards, and a renewed vigour for covering municipal politics within Metro Vancouver and across Canada.

I wish all of you a very safe and Happy New Year.

Quick comments

Posted by Jonathan Ross

An interesting take on how to achieve cost savings within City Hall, although Philip Hochstein’s membership would likely be the beneficiaries of any decision to contract out, thereby defining his piece as self-serving rather than sensible.  Now while I for one am not a union activist by any stretch of the imagination, I do not believe in ripping up collective agreements as Hochstein seems to be advocating.

And lastly, try and guess who had the audacity to post this on their website:

“So, over the course of the last month, I have noticed a preponderance and entertaining seep of personal questions from many of you, so I thought I would answer some of them here, to show you that my critics are wrong:  I am, quite frankly, an open-book–I have no agendas and represent no one except me.  Though, I am guarded of my most personal feelings most of the time…

Here are the top ten, in no particular order (some of these are hysterical, well, at least to me…)

1) From Lana, Joliette, PQ. “Are you married? I have a friend in Vancouver who loves your look!”

Believe it or not I sent this individual a note a couple of weeks back complementing him on some of his recent writings and wishing him and his family a happy holidays (hoping to perhaps get in the spirit of the season and bury the hatchet, so to speak).  But after reading over such a list that contains such an implausible “query” (placed in the number one position, no less), I think that I might focus on more likely scenarios, such as this for example.

Posted by Jonathan Ross

Persons who are homeless fall into one of three categories: the absolute homeless, the hidden homeless or at risk of being homeless. The absolute homeless are those who are “sleeping rough”, living their days and nights on the streets or in the shelter system. The hidden homeless are those who are staying temporarily with friends or family, and others are at risk of homelessness because of possible eviction, inability to pay the rent, or release from prison with nowhere to go.

Posted by Jonathan Ross

“Traffic engineers predicted doom. They gave us maps, showing how far back the traffic would stretch. Where are they now?  I cycled over this morning. It’s certainly more relaxed. I think we’re at a bit of a tipping point. People’s attitudes are changing.” – former Burrard Bridge bike lane trial opponent and previous mayoral candidate for the NPA, Peter Ladner

Sat Mar 20, 2010

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FACT OF THE DAY

An article titled Vancouver Politics by Paul Tennant in The Vancouver Book (1976), describes the entry of TEAM onto the civic political scene in 1968. TEAM, wrote Tennant, “sought to be a moderate reform group appealing to persons of all political ideologies.”

On their left was COPE (the Committee of Progressive Electors), also formed in 1968, and on their right was the NPA (the Non-Partisan Association), which had been a power in city politics for nearly four decades, and which “held that the affairs of the city should be run by those with the necessary knowledge and experience, i.e., those with a professional-managerial background, in order to run the city in a business-like way.”

The reformers, on the other hand, “felt that civic decision-making should be open to the public, with leadership coming from a cross-section of the population, and rule going to the working class majority. This group was concerned about land use, they advocated city control, and preferred to structure politics around the neighborhood concept.”

Quote OF THE DAY

“It was very diverse, and we got together by word of mouth. There were professors, business people, labor, lawyers and from all across the city. It was a coalescing of people around the idea we should do something.” – former City Councillor Setty Pendakur on the formation Vancouver’s reform movement and its political manifestation – TEAM – came into being in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.

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