A Geoff Meggs blog is sometimes like getting to wander around city hall and pick up the latest stats off department-head desks. Here’s his latest post, with info on the level of building activity in Vancouver. Up a little — though not up enough that the Vision council will be cancelling any time soon their […]

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A previous post about Wendy Ladner-Beaudry diverged into two streams: one that has tributes to Wendy, another that is a debate about why some deaths get more media coverage than others. If it’s all right with everyone, I’d like to split that into two as it’s a bit jarring to read both together. People who […]

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Alvin Singh, the young and articulate school board candidate who didn’t quite get elected last November, is the new external co-chair for the Coalition of Progressive Electors and he’s joined by a largely 20/30-something executive. Ivan Bulic has a good blog post on this in the Georgia Straight. That’s quite a sign of renewal for […]

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Those familiar with city hall realize that the city is doing soft testing of its new 311 system these days. You know, the new system that everyone says is going to streamline city hall, get potholes fixed faster, help the city understand where the real problems in the system are, open the door to non-English-speaking […]

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Many heavy hearts in the city today as people continue to learn more about the death of Wendy Ladner-Beaudry, the sister of former city councillor Peter Ladner. Her murder, on a running trail blocks from her west side home, seems beyond belief. My story — a difficult one to write — here.

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Lots of speculation about what is happening with the Burrard Bridge bike trial, which will involve closing two lanes of traffic. Councillor Geoff Meggs has a brief update on his blog here, but to add a few more details that I’ve heard from the inside. City doesn’t want to start any trials until construction is […]

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For those of you who have missed it, there’s an incredibly lively and wide-ranging debate about view corridors that’s been going on here under my earlier post. Former city planning director Larry Beasley posted his views on views this morning. Here they are: Frankly, the essence of our city is at stake. One of the […]

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Oh, here we go again. There’s a show-cause hearing scheduled next week to look at where the following businesses should be allowed to retain their city business licence. As you all know, the city doesn’t schedule these hearings unless the answer is pretty well: No f’ing way. Avalon Sunsplash Ltd. dba 420 Convenience Store at […]

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As the city prepares for a little Woodward’s opening ceremony tomorrow, the word has gone around at 12th and Main that the lucky departments being considered for a transfer into the city’s space at Woodward’s are cultural planning, social planning and housing. That’s not sitting too well with many of them (about 35 people in […]

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This ground-breaking (literally) story in the Courier about Gregor Robertson’s latest wacky green plan ought to spark a lot of outrage. And, as we like to say in our household, happy poisson d’avril

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