Frances Bula's piece on Mike Magee is certainly garnering reactions across the spectrum.
Yesterday I wrote about how Frances Bula’s piece on Mike Magee, Gregor Robertson’s Chief of Staff, provided broader context on a group of individuals and their beliefs that those of just one man. Namely, that those that have surrounded the Mayor in his journey into the political realm are grounded in a foundational desire to initiate positive change to their community.
And today, two further reactions to Bula’s piece.
The first is a predictable damnation of Magee and what he represents by the self-appointed leader of the opposition, and potential City Council contender for the NPA, Mike Klassen. Klassen seems to have written the piece in defense of his website partner Daniel Fontaine, who was once former Mayor Sam Sullivan’s Chief of Staff. He angrily mentions Vancouver Magazine’s Power 50 and Magee’s placement on the list at #17, forwarding his ridiculous belief that “list was created with Magee’s help.”
This is of course a lash out for the fact that Fontaine while in the same position never once made the list. Ironically enough, he likens Magee’s decision to give Bula access a “Citizen Sam-esque miscalculation,” in spite of the fact that that miscalculation occurred around the time that Fontaine was guiding Sullivan’s political ship and Klassen himself was a consultant for the former Mayor.
Klassen desperately tries to point out the flaws in the man, when in essence he is only able to do so after Magee hid nothing from Bula when providing that access. He is who he is, and does the job he does, without attempting to hold back on any of the warts in the landscape of his persona. Exactly what an expose is supposed to do.
It is a desperate attempt at trying to create negative traction over a man who is more respected and liked by a variety of disparate communities across the city than any other Mayoral Chief of Staff in recent memory.
On the other end of the spectrum is a short and sweet writeup by former Vision Vancouver Campaign Manager Ian Reid, who is obiviously a lot more favourable.
Ian’s piece doesn’t have a lot of depth par se, nor is it surprising that it is so favourable by contrast. However, it does ring true to anyone who knows Magee. He is kind, yet tough, brilliant yet open to suggestions, and laid back and calm in the height of tension.
Bula’s piece isn’t about Magee guiding the Vision agenda. Rather, it is a window into a man who acts as the ultimate facilitator for an ambitious slate of ideas and initiatives and has the skills, temerity and know-how to give it a real shot of becoming public policy.
Petty politics aside, someone who gives a shit about what they are doing based on belief and altruism, and who also has the capabilities to thrive in the role, is a Chief of Staff that is intriguing. That is why Bula’s piece is such an entertaining read.
