Posts Tagged ‘Vision Vancouver’

Promoting Vancouver in Ottawa is smart politics

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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Examining the the COPE/Vision Vancouver electoral deal

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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Tsakumis’ Loose Facts, Part 2

Posted by Jonathan Ross

Tsakumis is at it again, with his rage over the success of Vision Vancouver seemingly running roughshod over the facts.

Here is part 1 for context, because like I said in this previous post, most times that I have the opportunity to read an Alex Tsakumis rant, I don’t stop laughing and shaking my head.

Never let the facts get in the way of a political axe that you have to grind.

This is Tsakumis’ take on Park Board Chair Aaron Jasper’s attendance at the Friends of Bloedel Rumble in the Jungle fundraising event.  He implies that Jasper arrived at the fundraiser and threw his weight around in demanding a discount.

What a load of crap.

Here is how it really went down.

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Vancouver real estate is completely out of whack

Posted by Jonathan Ross

This kind of a space for $750 seems ridiculous to me, even if it is located downtown.

I watched Councillor Raymond Louie on the news a couple of nights back speaking about the upcoming microlofts that Council gave the go ahead to in 2008.  He spoke about how this was the direction that the city was heading in and that creating new rental housing in the downtown core was a positive thing.

And, I suppose I cannot argue with that.  Just like I believe that communities that have a publicly funded component to them must have social housing in the mix, I also feel that downtown – particularly one that is as residential as Vancouver’s – must have a range of living options.

Additionally, it seems as though groups like the Tenant Resource and Advisory Council have been swept along with the paradigm shift that has occurred in Vancouver over the past decades.  Namely, that new rentals properties of any size are a welcome phenomenon amongst the Vancouver real estate landscape, and that density within the city is positive and on the cutting edge of innovation (microlofts, laneway housing, etc.).

But for the life of me, I cannot fathom how a space smaller than two parking spots is worth $750 per month.

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Fri Mar 19, 2010

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FACT OF THE DAY

An article titled Vancouver Politics by Paul Tennant in The Vancouver Book (1976), describes the entry of TEAM onto the civic political scene in 1968. TEAM, wrote Tennant, “sought to be a moderate reform group appealing to persons of all political ideologies.”

On their left was COPE (the Committee of Progressive Electors), also formed in 1968, and on their right was the NPA (the Non-Partisan Association), which had been a power in city politics for nearly four decades, and which “held that the affairs of the city should be run by those with the necessary knowledge and experience, i.e., those with a professional-managerial background, in order to run the city in a business-like way.”

The reformers, on the other hand, “felt that civic decision-making should be open to the public, with leadership coming from a cross-section of the population, and rule going to the working class majority. This group was concerned about land use, they advocated city control, and preferred to structure politics around the neighborhood concept.”

Quote OF THE DAY

“It was very diverse, and we got together by word of mouth. There were professors, business people, labor, lawyers and from all across the city. It was a coalescing of people around the idea we should do something.” – former City Councillor Setty Pendakur on the formation Vancouver’s reform movement and its political manifestation – TEAM – came into being in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.

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