March 16, 2010 - 9:29 am |
Posted by Jonathan Ross
City Council doesn't seem to be getting a full picture on a number of issues within City Hall.
Far be it from me to try and rival what Tsakumis is doing with this story, because his investigation over the past month and a half has been quite extensive.
For those unfamiliar with the issue, here is the Vancouver Courier’s Allen Garr and his account of the situation.
But in the vein of last week’s Vancouver Sun column, I am specifically interested in the January 21 in-camera City Council meeting that notified Council of Tsisserev’s departure and suggested Will Johnston, former Chief Building Official, as his replacement.
More specifically, I want to know what city staff conveyed to the electeds.
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March 15, 2010 - 11:16 am |
Posted by Jonathan Ross
Scenes like this, whether it is our former Mayor or our current Mayor sitting down with the Prime Minister, are positive and unworthy of petty political criticism.
I just got a chance to read Gary Mason’s fluff piece on Mayor Gregor Robertson (reminding me why his long-winded minor hockey road trip columns as a Vancouver Sun sports reporter were so excruciating), and came across this excerpt:
“Mr. Robertson recently returned from Ottawa where he spent time “bumping” into politicians in the hallways. He was also made available to the media to comment on the federal budget. Beyond that, it wasn’t obvious what his trip to our nation’s capital accomplished.
The truth is it was mostly about exposure and establishing Mr. Robertson, among members of Ottawa press corps, as a player. He plans to travel there even more in the coming months. It is all part of a grand strategy being concocted in the mayor’s office to reposition the city – and the man who runs it – on the national scene with an eye to wielding more clout.
This, apparently, is an early product of the swagger, confidence and influence Vancouver imagines it now has post-Olympics.”
The “swagger” Mason refers to is true to an extent, as Robertson is a hot property these days.
But whether it was four years ago after Sam Sullivan’s Turin flag-waving affair, or now after our own experience with the Olympics, having the Mayor in Ottawa with nothing specific on the agenda other than promoting Vancouver and the office is a worthwhile endeavour.
What is more, critics on both sides of Vancouver’s municipal spectrum are wrongheaded for engaging in such petty criticisms over these trips.
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March 9, 2010 - 9:06 am |
Posted by Jonathan Ross
COPE and Vision Vancouver sang and danced together in 2008, but will their tryst continue in the 2011 electoral campaign?
The recent utterings of hypocrisy by Councillor Ellen Woodsworth and Councillor David Cadman have got me thinking about the electoral cooperation that COPE and Vision Vancouver successfully exercised in the 2008 civic election.
(On a side note, I will be very interested to see how many events Councillor Woodsworth actually attended during the Olympics, as the rumour is that she was frantically asking for tickets to any event she could possibly insert herself into – regardless of comments by her colleague Councillor Cadman about said tickets being “a perk of position.”)
The deal between COPE and Vision currently remains in limbo, as both sides seem to be content to let things be ironed out at the last minute, as was the case in 2008.
Here are the strategic considerations for both sides to consider in a conversation that would be wise to have sooner rather than later.
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March 2, 2010 - 12:48 pm |
Posted by Jonathan Ross
Robertson's looking for another kind of handshake like this (minus the Conservative propaganda), but is unlikely to walk away with anything of substance from Harper this time around.
I have been delinquent during the Games, as unlike those who transformed themselves into “media”, I took some time away from the blog and municipal politics to enjoy the civic experience of a lifetime.
That being said, I am now back in the swing of things, and will be posting regularly from this point forward. CivicScene will also have some featured pieces coming out in one of Vancouver’s preeminent news outlets in the coming weeks, so stay tuned.
Mayor Gregor Robertson has left himself little time to rest in between the Olympic and Paralympic Games, as he has made his trek eastward to Ottawa and Toronto in search of “a commitment to a national housing strategy” and more provincial and federal funding for transit.
Yet on the heels of Premier Gordon Campbell’s government preparing people for today’s budget which will dramatically “cut back on the operating budgets of government” as well as Prime Minister Stephen Harper prefacing his upcoming budget by calling it the “toughest of his career,” I can’t see the Vancouver Mayor walking away with anything at all in terms of financial commitments.
But the trip is significant for the way in which Robertson is graduating from his roles and responsibilities that are most often bound within the confines of Vancouver’s official boundaries.
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