As I reported earlier this week, Metro Vancouver was preparing to ask the province to step in and order binding resolution for the standoff between the region and Coquitlam, the only municipality that has delivered a resounding no to the new Regional Growth Strategy. To no one’s surprise, it voted this afternoon to do that. […]

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As I type this, speakers, councillors and staff are talking about a bylaw amendment that staff came up with to try to resolve the Falun Gong hut in front of the Chinese consulate situation. My story from this morning’s Globe here and a stream of tweets emerging from the meeting, with staff explaining so far […]

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A lot of love letters to Vancouver this week, as the city launches its official birthday celebration today. I have to admit that, much as I frequently feel grumpy about my city, I have woken up more than once and thought first thing in the morning, “I’m so glad that I didn’t grow up in […]

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Do you, like Andie McDowell, in sex, lies and videotape, lie awake at night worrying about where all the garbage will go? I have to confess, I occasionally do. Every bag of trash that I fill seems like another straw on the planet’s back. (A sign that I’m a hopeless liberal, probably.) So it was […]

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Local politics has been overshadowed for the last several months by two provincial leadership races and now a federal election. That’s been rough for the NPA, whose adherents, thanks to CityCaucus’s energetic attacks on Vision, had been getting some traction last summer and early fall in their efforts to show Vision Vancouver and Mayor Gregor […]

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As attractive metro downtowns have resortified and the economy slowed, office building was sluggish in many places. But apparently now starting to pick up there … and here. I note that a new office building — on the site of the University Club, which will have its facade preserved — is going to Development Permit […]

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Provincial and federal politics have been casting big shadows lately, but life is still burbling along on the municipal scene. Some of the news this week. – The NPA says it has people panting to run for a nomination when the party chooses its candidates June 4. – The city is planning an underwater bike […]

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Investigative reporting it ain’t, but we in the paid media like to alert you tax-paying peons to the report on council expenses every year so that you can be duly outraged that someone somewhere in government  is spending money. Reporting for duty on this story, here is the link to this year’s Vancouver council expenses […]

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Some people think CityCaucus (which consists of the two people who used to work the most closely with former mayor Sam Sullivan: Daniel Fontaine, chief of staff, and Mike Klassen, web designer) IS the Non-Partisan Association, since it has led the charge in generating critical media and talking points about the failures of Vision Vancouver. […]

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Housing groups used to get the money for building social housing by applying to the government for a giant grant, waiting for it to arrive, and then going to work. That’s less and less likely these days, so some of those housing non-profits have gotten much more creative over time. Some use the assets they […]

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