Civic affairs were front and centre in an interesting and engaging forum hosted this past Saturday.
I really wasn’t sure what to expect when I walked into the “Year In Review” forum hosted by previous NPA candidate Michael Geller, largely because I suspected an overwhelmingly NPA supportive crowd would be the only ones to show up.
And, for the most part, I was correct – former and current NPA board members, elected officials and supporters roamed the room, with few Vision or COPE supporters in tow. In fact, one of those former NPA elected officials tried to tell me that the morning remained civil and well-behaved because “the right-of-centre” had been behind the organizing, suggesting that had the “left” been at the helm, chaos and hostility would have ruled the day.
This is exactly the type of comment that I have come to expect from your typical NPA, Quadra-type of supporter. When confronted with the question, I told the individual that having grown up in Marpole/Kerrisdale, I knew first hand that civility was by no means exclusive to her end of the political spectrum.
That bit of nonsense aside, I found the morning to be a fantastic endeavour that could prove to be a model for civic engagement for all parties – assuming, of course, that the pool of interest is widened with future sessions.
First and foremoest, let me say that Michael Geller is an absolute gentleman and a scholar. His demeanour is completely disarming and welcoming, his intent seems to be without political motivation as its driving motivation, and his genuine interest in improving Vancouver is obvious. He admitted that my post from last week was a welcome wake-up call for him, and I thanked him for the invite.
The first panel session involved former NPA Councillor Gordon Price, former Vision Vancouver mayoral candidate Jim Green, and Geller, and was moderated by architect Joost Bakker. 14 topics were brought forward for discussion, including the Burrard Bridge bike lane trial, the Woodsward’s development, the Olympic Village, the STIR program, laneway housing, the HEAT shelters, parking and the Green agenda.
The banter between the three participants was amusing, for the simple fact that positions held true in time of election didn’t necessarily fall in line within this particular debate. Green was passionately advocating for increased density in the city, Geller was singing the praises of how Vision Vancouver had handled the Olympic Village, and Price was strongly backing the maintenance of the social housing compoent of the Olympic Village regardless of costs.
This is what I enjoyed most about this first panel – the urban experts that were willing to advance viewpoints that had little adherence to their former partisan posts or the current state of their former political homes.
Geller was angry with the province for their lack of interest in his modular housing proposals directed towards lower income families and the homeless. Price was fascinating in his views on the concept of “motordom,” where from the 1950s onward, cities were built according to the facilitation of the the seamless use of automobiles. And Jim Green beamed about the Woodward’s development, which he used as a model of mixed use and composition that the Olympic Village should be patterned after.
All in all, a fantastic session that only scratched the surface of some of the most pressing issues of the day.
The second panel was lacklustre for me, as what was to be a discussion on the budget and the merits of the Green Capital economic development plan turned into a generic discussion on the city’s economic prowess. Moderated by former NPA mayoral candidate Peter Ladner, the panel included John Tylee from the Vancouver Economic Development Commission (VEDC), James Fletcher of ThinkCity, and once again Gordon Price.
Tylee was interesting in his emphatic endorsement of the way in which the current Mayor and Council have backed the VEDC like no other administration in recent memory. He emphasized the forthcoming economic development strategy as the first in two decades, and stated that he was enabled by the political support and involvement from Gregor Robertson in particular.
Fletcher spoke about the surveys that ThinkCity had received back on the budget process, speaking about the short time frame and the lack of public involvement in the process as if the City and its methods were solely to blame for this problem. Of course, a lack of interest from the general public plays huge into this lack of participation, and no matter what the city does to extend deadlines or engage the public, the same 100 individuals are going to show up. Ladner asked a loaded question of what ThinkCity’s respondents thought of service fees (hidden, as Ladner described) in lieu of more substantial tax hikes, to which Fletcher was clearly unprepared to answer.
Price dismissed the Greenest City Action Team ten-year plan as litte more than policies that broke little new ground. He spoke about how there has been a global urban paradigm shift that had achieved “consensus” on these kinds of measures, making the document more of a game of catch-up rather than an earth-shattering initiative. I had never heard of the Clouds of Change report from the early 90s (found here and here), but Price called the GCAT report simply a “child” of it.
The final panel is the one that I took part in, where I joined Monte Paulsen from the Tyee, Miro Cernetig of the Vancouver Sun, and Mike Klassen, who prophesized about his style of editorialized news coverage. The proceedings were moderated by freelance reporter and regular contributor to the Globe and Mail and Vancouver Magazine Frances Bula.
The topics surrounding Vision’s performance were interesting. Cernetig admitted that he had previously underestimated Gregor Robertson, who he now thinks of as very politically sharp after seeing him in action after a year. Whereas once Robertson was more “GQ than IQ,” Cernetig said that he though that the advisors he had assembled around him were a politically shrewd bunch that were guiding the Mayor into hallowed territory when it comes to political favour. He was frustrated, however, by the lack of access to the Mayor, whom he said is much more elusive with the media than even Sam Sullivan.
Paulsen examined four broad campaign promises from the Vision Vancouver platform – tackling homelessness, building safe and inclusive communities, fostering creative capital, and building an sustainable and green agenda for the city – and reviewed them. He determined that the homelessness file had been the most active for Vision, but that while there had been an immediate rush of activity with the HEAT shelters right after assuming office, there has been far less progress since that early spell. He talked about how building safe and inclusive communities was one of those campaign promises that was hard to pin down, and he was unsure of how that had been achieved thus far. With regards to fostering creative capital, he commended some of the work done by Heather Deal in opening up smaller venues for live music and entertainment, but acknowledged that the city did not have enough infrastructure and affordability to truly foster a cultural revolution. And finally, he spoke about the GCAT 10-year plan and the Green Capital branding, which he stated was attractive for public consumption but suspect in terms of the kind of uptake it will garner amongst Vancouver residents.
Mike Klassen said that Gregor Robertson “didn’t have the intellectual capacity” to serve as Mayor, but did commend him for working with the province on issues such as finding shelter for the homeless. I found that he was far less boisterous and aggressive in person than he is behind a keyboard, but to no one’s surprise, his reviews on Vision Vancouver and Gregor Robertson were less than favourable, to say the least. As an example, the Burrard Bridge, which he had prepared for with his grossly imappropriately named “Gregor’s Gridlock” website, was now apparently “window dressing,” an opinion that I assume has been shaped by the trial’s overwhelming success.
I emphasized that Vision Vancouver had shifted the political landscape precisely because they do not have a natural constituency of voters to call their own. I spoke of my early hesitations with the Vision Vancouver movement due to the NPD, closed-shop mentality that originally infiltrated the organization. But I also stated that what I had seen through the nominations of both the Mayor and his group of candidates was a diversity of support that is unparalleled in Vancouver municipal history.
The most interesting discussion to arise out of the final panel was a debate about how blogs were changing the landscape when it comes to political coverage.
Frances spoke of a hesitation to use blogs as a driver of news, largely because of the political bias that drove the coverage being offered. She really took Klassen to task with the kind of stories that he was able to drive “lazy” media into covering, likening CityCaucus’ big exclusives to the kinds of headlines that the Province newspaper runs. In other words, a lowest common denominator approach that appeals to newsrooms without the staff and or resources to cover municipal affairs properly.
I took Klassen to task, speaking about how his website claims to offer civic coverage with respectful debate, but in my opinion, took personal attacks and fervent opposition to the current Vision Vancouver government. I apparently misspoke about Klassen and Daniel Fontaine being non-partisan, because I was corrected in the audience by Michael Davis, the former NPA president (he just recently resigned), who stated that it was no mystery as to where the two authors and their loyalties lay.
Paulsen had an interesting point of view on the major changes going on in the mainstream media. He stated that newspapers in this city – the major dailies – were on a downward slide, and the form in which they would take in a year is a huge unknown at this point. He pointed to blogs and alternative media like the Tyee as a revolution, although he also stated that everyone wants a revolution until they immersed in one (or something to that effect).
At the end of the day, my take on blogs and the notion that authors like myself are pseudo-media is realistic and I think pretty reasonable. I realize that the 600 or so visitors I get on a daily basis are a tiny fraction of the electorate. I know that I am offering a mix of opinion (a healthy dose) and some breaking stories that largely have a political bent to them. I understand that my political positioning, experience and involvement is what sells this website rather than “news coverage” par se.
One thing I do know, however, is that I will not hide behind the guise of being a presence in the world of commentating that is there for the public good. I am a partisan that supports a political administration. Now that does not preclude the fact that sometimes I might indeed offer criticism or words of advice for those in office. It does, however, allow me to put aside any complaints about pandering or campaigning to get at what I am trying to accomplish – and that is, to simply offer another voice in this municipal political landscape. Nothing more, nothing less.
Blogging, particularly when it comes to poliitcs and influencing public opinion, is a revolution in a sense. But those who take themselves too seriously are bound to find themselves disappointed by the ineffectiveness of their efforts to change the course of the political landscape. Frances Bula gets this, and understands that her blog is as much a tool of marketing and self-promotion as it is a way to disseminate hard news. Others on the local scene, however, take a far more virulent view of their assumed position to serve as an opposition where a huge void within the Vancouver City Council chambers currently exists.
All in all, I was very pleased by the way the morning went, and I hope that Michael Geller and others keep such events up to enlighten the debate of our collective civic future.
Hey, you never know…maybe I’ll take a shot next time.
