The September issue of Vancouver magazine, one of the pillars of my new journalism life, is now out with my feature story on our two would-be mayors, Peter Ladner and Gregor Robertson. We’re going to learn a lot more about these two candidates in the next three months (yes, folks, less than three months to […]

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Two more candidates are apparently about to jump into the rough waters of civic politics — one of them literally. Freelance journalist Hadani Ditmars is apparently going to launch her candidacy for a Vision Vancouver park board spot tomorrow with an open water swim at Kits at 4 p.m. As well, Thomas Lockhart is also […]

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I have a story in Saturday’s Globe and Mail about the current scuffle going on between Arthur Erickson, Vancouver’s and Canada’s best-known architect, and the Architectural Institute of B.C. over what kind of work Arthur is actually doing on recent buildings he’s been associated with. I discovered after I wrote this that it also affects […]

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Will you endorse me/support me/help me in any way? That seems to be the cry these days among Vancouver’s civic candidates, who are all looking for ways to get votes for their nomination meetings. The whole issue of how to campaign is a difficult one for both sides. As both Vision and NPA candidates have […]

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A multi-political crowd came out for a nice little evening party in Douglas Park last night to launch Sarah Blyth’s candidacy for a Vision park-board nomination, with cake out on the playing field. The DeGenova family (Allan, Wendy, Melissa) was there to support her, even though Melissa is now running for the Non-Partisan Association park-board […]

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The deadline for signing up Non-Partisan Association members is tonight at midnight (ignore the time stamp on this post, it’s wrong and not midnight yet by my clock). For COPE members, it’s Thursday. And for Vision, it’s a week from today. So, while not achieving the frenzy of the sign-ups for mayoral races in May, […]

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Okay, this is totally frivolous but I just had to pass it on. A friend of mine was on the ferry to Mayne Island on the weekend when a voice came over the public address system: “Will the person who is smoking the illegal substance near the air-intake system please stop. Tourists are complaining about […]

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There’s a fascinating historical account by local historian Lani Russwurm on drugs and the Downtown Eastside at the Tyee today. Russworm has dug up some great old material from past decades, including the supposedly golden pre-drug era of the 40s,, 50s, and 60s, about people wringing their hands over the drug problem in Vancouver and […]

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Skateboarder advocate Sarah Blyth is going to announce her candidacy for a Vision Vancouver park board slot tomorrow at the Douglas Park community centre. For more about Sarah and her interesting bio, go to her blog. An interesting tweak to all this is that she’s going to be intro’d by Allan DeGenova, the would-be Vision […]

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For those who haven’t picked up on it yet, I am doing some civic-political coverage for the Globe and Mail. I had a story in last week with the mayor’s thoughts about his recent defeat and his future. It’s not on their website because of a technical glitch so I’ll post it here. (Sorry, I […]

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