This just in, or going out to city hall, or something. I’m a bit surprised. I thought Marg WAS the city clerk and doing a good job. From: Ballem, Penny Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2009 2:35 PM To: Mayor and Council (COV) – DL; Corporate Management Team (COV) – DL Cc: Di Nozzi, Caterina; Naklicki, […]

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My latest column in Vancouver magazine is on Vancouver city manager Penny Ballem, who seems to be enjoying her job more every day. (Heard her ALL over the radio all day today telling people they should leave their cars at home during the Olympics.) She’s a fascinating woman to watch in action and to hear […]

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Just too much going on for me this week, so I didn’t get to the VV fundraiser, but here’s the report from Jonathan Ross at civicscene, detailing the lively goings-on. A quieter, more angst-ridden scene tonight at the NPA annual general meeting, I expect. This report from city caucus sets the stage, although as NPA […]

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When my Globe and Mail colleague Gary Mason headed off to Copenhagen two weeks ago to cover the announcement of the 2016 Olympics, I blathered on to him before he left about how the city had done an amazing job of getting people out of cars and onto bikes. More than a third of people […]

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The media briefing started just a few minutes ago but a little bird sent me a message last night saying that VANOC will not use a transponder system to try to deal with the traffic up to Whistler during the Olympics. The highway is potentially one of their main traffic nightmares, since they will be […]

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The local Bombardier PR people sent out the notice today (see below) that fancy new streetcars are on their way to Vancouver for the Olympics month. That ought to be quite a switch from the historic number that was working the tracks until the Olympic village construction started. The interesting part of this story really, […]

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Like all critics who imagine they might be excellent playwrights someday, I have occasionally daydreamed about what a totally marvellous city councillor I might make. However, I’m starting to think that the sports-related demands might be just too much. I note that it seems to be practically mandatory now that if you want to rise […]

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It was a lovely day on the deck of the Parcel 2 building at the Olympic village today.  The media were there getting shots of the city from the 12th floor on a beautiful, sunny day, and of the village itself, as workers raked dirt on the ground or crawled around outside decks doing finishing […]

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I realize that many people at city hall these days are not likely to name their employer as best at anything, but the Globe and Mail put the city there — along with Telus, Simon Fraser, BC Hydro, Goldcorp and a few others from B.C.  The specific city policy that put Vancouver on the list? […]

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Since I posted my story and the city material about the KPMG audit, I have had a few emails and phone conversations with people in the development business who wondered about some of the conclusions drawn. One was the strange assessment about the weighting of the price in the evaluations among the three bidders. As […]

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