The image of a reporter aggressively tracking down a story has been shattered by a Vancouver media contingent that doesn't seem to be bothered with the facts.
So this week’s latest pile-on by the media is over the renovations that are occurring at City Hall and the empty space that has resulted in the city’s engineering department moving to the Crossroads building at Broadway and Cambie.
This story by Vancouver Sun reporter Jeff Lee was the piece that started the frenzy.
And ever since Monday, most reporting that has picked up on the item has failed to acknowledge a number of pertinent pieces of information that changes the entire context of the way in which the vacancies within City Hall came to be.
Hidden from Lee’s initial story, and included in a subsequent blog post, is this:
“Crossroads
Decision made in camera by previous council October 14, 2008
10 year lease, 2 x 5 year options to renew
$4 M(illion) per year rent for 5 years increasing to $4.2 at 6 -10 years
$7 M(illion) tenant improvements including security systems and the actual move
Move to Crossroads summer of 2009“
You can see what Judy Rogers, City Manager at that time, had to say about such a decision here.
Now this is what the Vancouver Province had to say in an editorial written on Wednesday:
“The Vancouver Sun revealed that since last summer at least four departments have moved out of city hall into leased spaces around the city at a cost of $48 million, leaving empty the top seven floors of the 11-storey city hall. This at a time when city council was telling taxpayers it was struggling with a $61-million budget deficit and cutting programs upon which citizens rely.”
So the previous NPA council locks the city in to special lease agreements for various departments over the next decade, and that is somehow Vision Vancouver’s fault?
This is just another example of lazy pack journalism by the local Vancouver media.
Here is what Frances Bula pointed out about the move to the Woodward’s building for a number of other city services:
“While some people think this is a move to fill up space that couldn’t be rented, in fact the city made a commitment to putting staff in the building a couple of years ago after it put pressure on the federal government to move some people in. (Feds say yes, if you match us — just like they do with money!)“
Once again, an agreement signed by the NPA majority on Council.
So my question is, why isn’t anyone asking lone NPA Councillor Suzanne Anton for answers as to what the logic of these moves are?
The bottom line is that under the rule of Sam Sullivan and Judy Rogers, city departments were doing their own thing, and making their own lease arrangements, without the benefit of a master plan of coordination between these very departments.
Outfits like CKNW and Global are so consumed by taking stories from CityCaucus as is (lazy and irresponsible journalism at its finest/worst), they are too blinded to understand that the “emptiness” within City Hall is directly attributable to an administration that is no longer in office.
Where are the stories of outcry against the City of Surrey for their excessive spending on building a new City Hall/Civic Centre?
It never comes, because there isn’t blogger with a political axe to grind feeding the local media full of stories that are simply for the purpose of attacking the current Surrey Mayor. That kind of bitterness is reserved for Gregor Robertson, the man who put Mike Klassen’s political party of choice out of office.
There has never been a Master Plan for facilities within City Hall, because clearly that was beneath the purview of Judy Rogers, who tended to attach her name to projects that were of the highest profile possible.
So, a hodgepodge of decisions were made, without any kind of cohesion, and the result is that City Hall has become an empty shell.
Finally now we have some planning that is being attached to how departments work together, and where space and collaboration can and will dictate these relationships.
It is time for the Vancouver media to get off their duffs and start looking for context rather than cheap political hits delivered by a partisan individual with vested interests in the downfall of the current administration.
Jonathan,
Thanks for the plug but let’s keep this in context. I’m the new (old) city hall reporter, having covered Twelfth and Cambie before Frances took over the beat. I intend to cover City Hall on all sides, not from one political spectrum, as so many of those out there in blogosphere are doing right now.
(I will remind you and your readers that I am a reporter, not a columnist, and I have no particular political opinion. I may on occasion write analysis pieces, but don’t look to me to criticize or compliment the politicians. That’s the job of the editorial boards and opinion writers.)
To my mind, there is frankly too little coverage of municipal government, let alone worrying about whether the coverage is balanced or not. Across North America media are grappling with declining budgets, tight news holes and loss of traditional readers. I am not being alarmist; it is a fact that newspapers are having to reconfigure their traditional models as people get their news in new and different ways. Our newspaper recognizes that; that’’s why the new owners have a “digital first” mandate.
That’s also why the newspaper chose to staff up municipal coverage this year, nearly two years after Frances quit at The Sun. I note that in our absence, the city turned the press room into a storage closet for those dust-catching gifts they receive from dignitaries. The fact that no other media in the city saw or protested that this was happening just reinforces my point. I am trying to get the city to reopen the perfectly suitable fourth-floor press room rather than go to the (likely considerable) expense of putting a new press room on the first floor, as they say they are intending.
I cover Vancouver, and Kelly Sinoski covers Metro. I suspect we’ll add to that as coverage demands. That’s good news for the public, which I believe want more informed local coverage.
What I am not sure people want is more “he said-she-said” stories of political in-fighting. Some of that, in context, is necessary. But don’t look to me to cover all the breathless little digs that one party takes at another. Relevance is the key.
Enough on my soap box.
My goodness, Jonathan, one woukl think that after two plus years in power you could stand on your own feet without finger-pointing at the NPA.
Dare I point out that it is entirely in the purview of the current City Manager to pull out of those agreements (most leases have escape clauses that while costing some money could have returned all departments to City Hall).
Yet, now we understand that the current regime happily undertakes renovations to His Worship’s chambers for $250K +. We needn’t forget the private lunchroom for councillors so that poor Dr. Jang doesn’t havesomething iccky happen to his food in the staff caf downstairs.
Surely, someone in the current administration could have noted 7 EMPTY floors and either leased said floors, or going back to point 1, hauled everyone back. It couldn’t be that the pols are actually going to reno that space and fill it with more staff?
Something tells me that realty management is not a strong point of this administration. We are all still waiting, months into it, for one of those rental units at the Olympic Village to be filled. This could have been set-up on day 1 of the new VV, but sadly, it appears that this is something else that has fallen between the cracks…