The rumours about city manager Penny Ballem leaving the city had been circulating for so long that many of us got lulled into wondering if, in the end, nothing might happen. So the announcement Tuesday that she was out came as a surprise, as the mill had been quiet for a while. (My story in […]

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This went out to staff in the same few minutes as the news release. Staff team, Today City Council has voted to initiate an important senior leadership transition for the City of Vancouver, and I want you to have the full details right away. Dr. Penny Ballem will be concluding her service as Vancouver City […]

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Fresh off the UBC beat, I seem to have gotten embroiled in a few real-estate stories the last few days. The talk of the town the last few months (well, really, since the Cambie corridor exploded from single family to multi-family, but even more so now) has been the intense competition for multi-family sites around […]

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Organizing a forum for tomorrow at city hall. Warning: This is a small room, so won’t be much room for the public, who are specifically invited, unless the venue gets changed. Seems a bit odd to me, as does the timing — a few days after other mayors have been in the news, speaking out […]

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UBC has become the subject of rampant rumour and speculation since president Arvind Gupta’s surprise resignation was announced Aug. 7. (He had told the board he would resign a week earlier, July 31.) That’s been preoccupying my time the last couple of weeks, especially since the city is in its August lull. For those who […]

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I’m currently staying at an Airbnb-type apartment in the Mission district in San Francisco, ground zero (as I’ve discovered since I booked it) of current North American angst over the transformation of former working-class neighbourhoods into tourist parks. In June, I stayed in an Airbnb in Marais, another hot district, where one disgruntled resident had […]

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This is a week old but I was in an internet challenged zone after I filed my story, so here it is: The Brian Jackson retirement/resignation, which I know many in this group will have thoughts on, especially about his remarks that ex-city staff were extraordinarily interventionist as they lobbied against various decisions of his […]

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There’s been no official announcement or news release or staff report yet, but it looks as though the city is headed to a vote on taking the viaducts down, with planners and engineers recommending it, after having gone out and dug up all the new information council asked for two years ago. As my story […]

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I worked on commercial fishing boats for six seasons, in my 20s, where water was a precious thing. We sometimes went out for two or more weeks, knowing we had to survive on the water in the tank. We turned off the tap when brushing our teeth, except for the brief wetting between scrubs, re-used […]

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In the aftermath of the resounding no in the transit plebiscite, yes, it’s a mess out there. Mayors are looking at self-financing their big projects in Surrey and Vancouver. (And even Delta is considering using its own money to run some needed buses.) Senior execs are being fired at TransLink, and there are calls for […]

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