These kinds of protests might be saved exclusively for Vancouver, while guerilla marketers and those wishing to make a buck might focus their efforts solely on Richmond and Whistler.

Last week, Vancouver City Council propoed amendments to 10 components of the the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games bylaw, all of which should pass tomorrow at their regularly schedule bi-weekly meeting.

Now in terms of credit, one must give an acknowledgment to Chris Shaw and Alissa Westergard-Thorpe who brought forth a court challenge to protect their Charter rights.

But with Vancouver out of the way regarding fears that Charter rights and freedom of expression would be impinged on, the focus must now turn to Richmond and Whistler.

Bill 13, the Municipalities Enabling and Validating Act, provides the municipalities of Vancouver, Richmond and Whistler “with temporary enforcement powers to enable them to swiftly remove illegal signs and graffiti during the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. The legislation provides, on a temporary basis, a faster way of removing signs and graffiti during the short period the Games are underway.”

Now as Councillor Geoff Meggs made clear on behalf of the City of Vancouver, the prevention of guerrilla marketing and usurping those unattached to the Olympics from profiting was the main motivation behind the bylaw.

So assuming that the reach of VANOC and the IOC have served as the main impetus behind the introduction of Bill 13 and the subsequent bylaw proposals that the City of Vancouver have brought in, one has to ask what their thoughts are on the City of Richmond and the City of Whistler not yet putting forth any new bylaws to take advantage of these new powers.

Are both cities now going to be the targets of the kind of ambush marketing that Vancouver was so afraid of?  And what of the surrounding municipalities across Metro Vancouver – particularly the ones that have major tourist attractions that visitors to the region are likely to take advantage of?

Both are interesting scenarios to consider, as Bill 13 is clearly only impactful if the municipalities identified choose to proceed.

One suspects that the City of Richmond and the City of Whistler are going to be leaned on hard by both provincial officials and representatives from VANOC to implement some kind of protection for logos, trademarks and sponsors in advance of February 1.

The Vancouver example is one that I am sure that both cities will be eager to avoid, in consideration of the controversy and subsequent explanation and amendments that were needed (and even then, Shaw et al. have indicated that they intend to continue their lawsuit regardless of how Vancouver City Council votes tomorrow).

Will Richmond and Whistler be overwhelmed by posters, flyers, graffiti come February?

Watching Richmond Mayor Malcolm Brodie and Whistler Mayor Ken Melamed over the next few months is going to be very interesting.

A new sign of the times at Vancouver City Hall, where someone is finally taking some responsibility over spending

In consideration of the fact that the Whistler Athletes’ Village will be handed over to 2010 Games organizers with a $1-2 million surplus in the bank, it is amazing how Vancouver’s was originally conceived and managed during the heart of construction by the previous civic administration.

First to clarify, current Vancouver City Manager Penny Ballem has introduced some major changes with the way in which capital projects are funded – namely that they are going to have to face  “more oversight, due diligence, [and] rigour in terms of our original estimates.”

This is in stark contrast to the days of Sam Sullivan and Peter Ladner, who both offered lackadaisical attitudes towards a project that was to cost hundreds of millions and advertised as a jewel in the massive global profile that Vancouver was to experience both during and after the Olympics.

First, it was back in 2007 that the NPA majority council voted in a completion guarantee for the project (a decision opposed by both Vision Vancouver and COPE), in order to appease the financier Fortress Investment Group enough to prevent them from pulling out of the project altogether.  This is on top of the fact that right up until her departure, the city’s former Chief Financial Officer Estelle Lo was completely kept in the dark about the project, as detailed by this email sent while she was on vacation last October.

In the final weeks before the election, Peter Ladner offered his “distress” about the financing troubles of the project, and told CBC news that he “hopes that the private sector developers of the project will be able to finance the overruns.”

In a commentary offered after his term as Mayor, Sam Sullivan downplayed the importance of the cost overruns and whether the city would be on the hook for them because the “Southeast False Creek is just one development in the citizen’s real estate portfolio,” a statement which suggests that the size of the city’s Property Endowment Fund should somehow allow for the absorption of such losses.

All I can say is thank goodness we now have a City Manager that is willing and able to take the proper precautions to protect Vancouver taxpayers, and a Mayor that isn’t afraid to take on the private sector and work out terms that are favourable for the public good – in the case of the Olympic Village, a decision that saved the electorate $90 million in interest payments.

In times such as these, the nonchalant attitudes of the past just aren’t going to cut it anymore.