So the news about the head of Stats Can resigning is all over the news, in case anyone hasn’t noticed. And, although I do take this issue seriously (as I noted in a previous post), I can’t help but think: How Canadian. Other governments get embroiled in controversy over call girls, corruption, going to war, […]

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Apparently wanting to show that it is listening to the community after all, Vision councillors agreed yesterday that three floors of the 11-storey social-housing project at Broadway and Fraser should be removed. That comes after 70 speakers showed up over three nights of public hearings a few weeks ago, with many saying that the building […]

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Peter Judd only got named as the head of engineering about 10 days ago, but he’s already moving on his ideas, as this internal memo that “anonymous” sent me shows. I am thrilled to have been asked to lead our great Department. Before too much time passes I want to take a few moments to […]

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I just had this internal notice from the city passed on to me: From: COV Broadcast Server To: All Staff (COV) – DL Sent: Mon Jul 19 14:16:17 2010 Subject: COV Broadcast: Announcement of New General Manager of Parks and Recreation (from Park Board Chair, Aaron Jasper and City Manager, Penny Ballem) The Chair of […]

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With little brush fires of community resistance to new projects breaking out here and there, city council is being kept busy.  The West End is, of course, a major forest fire at this point, meriting its own advisory committee. In Marpole, where there is a massive project planned for Marine and Cambie, more towers planned […]

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It’s that time of year and I will disappear in about 30 minutes to the alternate universe of the Vancouver Folk Festival. I might tweet but definitely won’t be blogging or posting comments. I’ll catch up with everything Monday. As always, I’ll be one of those opting for less space and more density near the […]

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When Vancouver city manager Penny Ballem started talking about reorganizing the city last year to make it more efficient, I heard a lot from people inside city hall saying saying everyone knew there were things that needed to be fixed, but no one had ever had the jam to actually take action. Too hard to […]

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No surprises in this announcement, except why did the city spend a few thousand dollars to do a national search when Peter was the obvious candidate. When Dave Rudberg quit as head of Olympic operations, Penny Ballem snapped up Peter instantly as his replacement. That was even after Peter made it clear he wasn’t going […]

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Chris Parry at the Vancouver Sun wrote about this earlier and I followed up this week to see whether there’s any likelihood that the city’s UFC event would pave the way for future MMA bouts. Apparently not, because any other events would likely be put on by smaller promoters and no one sees a way […]

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Yikes. What is happening to municipal politics when councillors have to be reminded not to drink excessively while out socializing?

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