You knew this had to happen someday, with so many city politicians commuting by bike these days, but scary nevertheless.

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Just spotted this item (by brilliant Langara journalism grad!!) on the Sun’s website, about Tofino looking at disallowing chains like Tim Horton’s, Starbucks and McD’s. I’ve been wondering when some town in B.C. would do that. One of my favourite places that I’ve visited in my travels the last few years is Telluride, because they […]

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For years, I’ve heard that business leaders in the city are itching to give millions to solve homelessness and, related to that, the problems of the Downtown Eastside. And many have tried to tap into that. Former mayor Philip Owen and others started a fund through the Vancouver Foundation to try to encourage donations for […]

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Sorry, I’m falling down on the job in getting those internal memos out there fast enough. I got this last Thursday and here it is at last. From: Ballem, Penny To: [deleted] Sent: Thu Mar 04 16:01:48 2010 Subject: For your info – this is going to council tonight pb I would like to provide […]

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Well, now that we’ve had a chance to decompress, to re-accustom ourselves to bad bus service, heavy traffic, empty sidewalks, and winter rain, I thought this was a time to raise a glass of champagne to all those people who complained about how bad the Games were going to be. They predicted that thousands of […]

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An announcement about the hiring of another staffer for the mayor at 12th and Cambie going out shortly, this one for Lara Honrado. That brings the number of people working in the mayor’s office to four. Here’s the bio going out. Interesting how important the Filipino community has become in municipal politics here. Lara Honrado […]

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The ongoing saga of the Vancouver Art Gallery’s efforts to get more space and/or move to another site have been going on for years, starting sometime in the 90s. (There’s a wild conceptual image from that early era of the plan to double the gallery’s space at the existing location, which you can find on […]

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For years before the Olympics arrived, we routinely saw commentators warning that when the media arrived here and saw the scene on the Downtown Eastside and the homelessness situation, there would be a firestorm of negative coverage. That never happened. There was the odd piece here and there in the bigger newspapers, but it never […]

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The question of what to do about the Vancouver Art Gallery is stirring up debate in circles all over the city. People who care about art, about architecture, about urban planning and about money and fundraising all have strong opinions on whether the gallery has outgrown the current site and absolutely has to move in […]

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Lots of fascinating debate swirling around the Vancouver Art Gallery, as it officially puts an end to the idea of moving to False Creek but continues to look at moving to the old bus depot site on Georgia. Marsha Lederman and I have a story today in the Globe on the decision and what gallery […]

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