April 7, 2010 - 9:27 am |
Posted by Jonathan Ross
Civicscene.ca returns to the pages of the Vancouver Sun this morning with a column about the lack of quality opposition currently tarnishing Vancouver’s City Hall these days.
Gregor Robertson may be high in the polls at the moment, but he also faces little to no opposition, which has the possibility of damaging the credibility of his agenda. As far as I am concerned, scrutiny and dissent is a necessary thing for an ambitious agenda like Robertson’s.
Here’s hoping that the three opposition councillors pick up their games in the second half of this election cycle, as I would love to see some fireworks return to council chambers.
As an example, go read “Showdown” Joe’s rebuttal, and my subsequent response, to yesterday’s piece for a little bit of the kind of tussle I am referring to, and check back later in the day for a post on the Vancouver Park Board’s new principles for the city’s community centres, and how the network of little fiefdoms attached to the community centre association presidents needs to be discontinued…in spite of their confusing objections.
April 6, 2010 - 9:59 am |
Posted by Jonathan Ross
CTV Sportsnet's "Showdown" Joe Ferraro might have stepped into an empty octagon before, but that certainly didn't help his credibility last week after falsely reporting that the UFC Vancouver pay-per-view had been cancelled.
He calls himself “Showdown Joe” and ironically, the name of the show he hosts on CTV Sportsnet is entitled “MMA Connected.” Yet, you would never have known that Joe Ferraro has any knowledge or connection to the sport with the way he inserted himself into the UFC-Vancouver courtship last week, which revolved around his shoddy reporting that put the now-secured deal in serious jeopardy.
Before I get into the story of how everything went down last week, here are a couple of excerpts from a from an interview Joe did where he described how he broke into MMA broadcasting:
“From there, we started sponsoring fighters at various events and then I met up with some promoters. They fell in love with the knowledge that I had and how I could break down fights into what this guy needs to do to win and what that guy needs to do to win, and then during the fight I would explain what guys needed to do to get out of a position and they said, “Did you ever think about doing commentary?”
“About three or four month in, the guys from Sportsnet started getting into MMA, they started covering the UFC and they decided, “We need an analyst; someone who is involved in the sport and can pick up the phone and call Chuck Liddell or Randy Couture.” So they started looking around and realized that The Fan 590 is owned by the same company as Sportsnet – Rogers Communications – and said, “Who’s this Showdown Joe guy? Let’s bring him in.”
Humble and not at all self-absorbed, as you can clearly see.
Now let’s examine Joe’s breaking news from last week, and his supposed chat with UFC president Dana White, which he still will not confirm with any certainty in spite of repeated emails from me.
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March 22, 2010 - 10:33 am |
Posted by Jonathan Ross
The City of Vancouver has the potential to do so much more with its property assets.
I am no expert on the Property Endowment Fund (PEF), which ambiguously is approximately $2.5 billion of indeterminate assets. I know that it is a significant part of Vancouver’s financial profile, and that it is essential to our credit rating. Outside of that, I am very unclear as to its purpose. So, I started to do some basic reading to get up to speed.
Created by TEAM in the in the 1970s, the PEF took those properties and leases owned by the city which were not in the near term intended to be used for municipal purposes (roads, parks or non-market housing sites) and consolidated them. It was operated through the real-estate division on a market basis (meaning they are able to provide a reasonable return as if they were privately held) and held within the fund to grow it into an endowment producing annual revenues. It is also a means to stablize the city’s credit rating, which in turn allows the city to secure the lowest possible borrowing rate for any loans.
As described by the legendary May Brown:
“The city was selling land every year, putting money into general revenue to keep taxes down. Art Phillips said this has got to stop. We’re cannibalizing our land . . . The value of the PEF in those days was $100 million. The rationale was simple: citizens should share in the profits from any increase in land value.”
A fantastic concept, to be sure.
But the PEF has now grown into a fund that has reached this seemingly untouchable status, with the only money utilized out on an annual basis (publicly, at least) is $7 million to offset increases in property taxes.
I feel there is so much more that the City of Vancouver could be doing with such a collection of assets.
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March 9, 2010 - 3:47 am |
Posted by Jonathan Ross
CivicScene's makes a return to the Vancouver Sun this morning.
CivicScene is back with the first oped in a new series beginning in today’s Vancouver Sun.
Critics of the current administration at City Hall tend to frame their grievances on the accusation that the civil service has been politicized. In fact, when I spoke to lone NPA City Councillor Suzanne Anton over the Olympic Games and asked what her biggest objection to Vision Vancouver was, this was her first response.
But let’s for a moment consider the alternative.
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