Because I clearly have no life, I took the trouble to listen to the whole hour and 40 minutes of the Thursday night meeting about the West End housing controversy that led to the mayor’s much-reported remarks today. It’s worth a listen, in order to puncture some of the little spin bubbles going on.

[Read more →]

The story of the mayor’s use of the F word while referring to West End residents has been a rolling story all day. Here’s the latest version with stuff I gathered over the past few hours.

[Read more →]

The West End Neighbours group, which has managed to eclipse the longstanding West End Residents Association when it comes to militant activisim, has shown remarkable tenacity and willingness to use guerilla tactics in their fight to block the Vision council’s rental towers from coming to their area. I don’t always agree with their interpretations of […]

[Read more →]

The city announced the 17 winners of the food-cart lottery today. The list is below. I expect all the dedicated posters here to go out and test each one of these carts (they’re supposed to be in action as of July 31) and then write up reviews.

[Read more →]

I’ve been expecting the news that the chair of the Vancouver Athletic Commission was going to be fired for the last month and it finally happened yesterday. As I noted in my Globe story a month ago, chair Mirko Mladenovic engaged in some fairly unusual behaviour at the commission, the likes of which I’ve never […]

[Read more →]

This region has been talking about building the Evergreen Line for so long — and not doing it — that it’s hard to believe that it might really be on the way. But it appears that it is, as the province moved this week into the first phase of the bid process, which is asking […]

[Read more →]

As my faithful readers know, I’m a reasonable person who’s always willing to consider all sides of an issue, sometimes to a fault, and I rarely get foot-stomping angry over anything. But if there’s one thing that does raise my blood pressure, it’s governments who make it difficult to get information. Usually that’s confined to […]

[Read more →]

Community centres are among the most popular social centres in the city. They’re all packed to the rafters and the park board/city can’t seem to build them fast enough. Every three years, the park board gets the unlovely job of deciding which one or two centres will be replaced in the next three-year capital plan. […]

[Read more →]

A few weeks ago, I wrote about West Van’s efforts to slooowly bring in a few more housing types to the community and I highlighted efforts to start some pilot projects for small secondary houses on large lots, along with a duplex and a four-plex. I especially focused on a plan by one set of […]

[Read more →]

As some of you may know already from following my twitter posts, I was in Seattle for the last few days. (Thanks to all the enthusiasts for keeping the blog lively while I was playing hooky.) Besides paying no tax on anything I bought there, as a result of the state’s controversial (and now court-challenged) […]

[Read more →]