Trees make city streets beautiful. They also make a mess. All over this city, they provoke annoyance (dripping sap, falling chestnuts that dent cars, branches that come loose in high winds, leaves, leaves, leaves) and heartfelt love. The question for park staff, who manage the city’s 137,000 trees and growing (3,300 new ones planted every […]

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Because I’m a dutiful person (that Catholic training sticks, even after all else has faded away), I briefly read through a big chunk of the city’s just-posted in-camera reports from June 2008 to May 2010 to spare all of you the pain of having to do so. They’re being posted, by the way, as a […]

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B.C. Lottery got hit with a whack of bad publicity last year, some of because of reports that they had been fined close to $700,000 for reporting irregularities by FINTRAC, the Canadian agency that monitors suspicious or cash transactions in financial institutions, casinos, real estate and more. (No, suspicious and cash aren’t the same.) As […]

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The longer the debate about a casino expansion goes on, the more we learn. What I learned today was something about how gamblers with lots of money get their money to casinos. Until a year ago, they could only bring cash — a problem if you’re coming across the border, where the limit is $10,000. […]

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Thanks to a poster (Michael B) for this information, sure to be of interest to many. The long-awaited community meeting regarding the proposed development @ Kingsway and Broadway is finally happening. Here is the info: Sunday March 20th 2011. 12noon to 4:30pm at the Native Education College, 285 East 5th Avenue. Door open at 11:30 […]

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Some are blowing up their malls entirely. Others are putting towers in the parking lots while reconfiguring the shopping-centre part. Either way, mall owners are planning some dramatic changes to what are seen as those flag-bearers of bad suburbanism: malls. I got inspired to write this story by the visit last fall of Ellen Dunham-Jones, […]

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Below is the official statement out from Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson. It will be interesting to see how the Vision team handles relations with the new premier, considering some of the ties between their two operations. Among the Vision types working on the Clark campaign: – Don Millar of FD Elements, who has also done […]

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B.C. Lottery Corporation, Paragon Gaming and PavCo are about to come out of the blocks to start fighting back against the opposition to a casino expansion that suddenly blew up in their faces the last two weeks. That’s what I learned when I went over to BCLC’s offices today for an interview with the president […]

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Just in case you’re in a cave somewhere, Bob Rennie announced at a news conference this morning that 128 of the 230 condos offered for sale in this round at the Olympic village have offers on them. Details here. In offbeat Olympic-village news, the NY Times had the strangest travel piece ever, suggesting that people […]

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Some buyers sued the village last year to get out of completing their purchases. Now the village’s Salescos — those legal entities created to do the actual legal agreements — are going after those who refused to complete their purchases. The details here.

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