And I’ll have a story on the Globe and Mail’s website shortly about my interviews with Gregor Robertson and Judy Rogers. Mayor and Council Members Announce New City Manager Mayor Gregor Robertson today announced that Dr. Penny Ballem will join the City of Vancouver as City Manager, taking over from Judy Rogers, who has served […]

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More to come.  Watch this space.;

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My last CTV blog post looked at the debate over whether homelessness is worth trying to tackle (some people feel like it’s too big a job for the city) and also a warning about scrambling together homeless shelters too quickly. As people in the Downtown Eastside know too well, those who have been sleeping on […]

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I see from this story by my Vancouver Sun counterpart Catherine Rolfsen that NPA Councillor Suzanne Anton is objecting to the city (or, to be more precise, Vision Vancouver) putting $300,000 from its contingency reserve into funding shelters, which it hasn’t typically done in the past. She’s right on that. However, the city has been […]

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It came to my attention recently while I was researching another story, that Joel Solomon’s Renewal Partners and Tides Canada have moved into the Flack Block, that beautifully restored heritage building at the corner of Hastings and Cambie. (A Robert Fung project.) Those two groups, which are focused on investing in social-change businesses and non-profits, […]

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For some weird reason, when I posted recently about Boy Wonder Kevin Quinlan’s ascension to the mayor’s office, my blog labelled the post as “Comments Off” and wouldn’t allow anyone to deposit any remarks. In order for Kevin’s friends and enemies to have a full and frank discussion of his capabilities, I am creating this […]

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I wish I were a more serious person, really I do. But I can only do so much politics and, since it’s midnight and I see the blog-readers and their comments are still rolling in, here’s a little taste break for all of you. So, I posted a couple of weeks ago that I was […]

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The first raft of motions from the new council just hit the decks. Enjoy your holidays, city hall staffers, because you’ll be scrambling when you get back to come up with answers and options for your new bosses. What the new council is asking for” – a staff report on options for the Burrard Street […]

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Yahoo! People are starting to get interested in civic government, as the popularity of city-oriented blogs is showing. The latest entry in the field is www.citycaucus.com, which is being developed and tested right now by local civic-politics aficionadoes Mike Klassen (who has done work for former mayor Sam Sullivan and at least one Liberal constituency […]

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For those of you who don’t scrutinize the comments section on this blog, there’s an interesting discussion going on about homelessness and solutions under one of my posts (which, oddly, had nothing to do about homelessness — the one about the Olympic village and finding the perfect mayor from a couple of days ago). It’s […]

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