I’m no libertarian, as many of you may have guessed over the years. But frequently the strange rules of doing business in this city baffle me. The latest is what’s happened with the Rio Theatre at Broadway near Commercial, which has turned into one of those businesses that help create a neighbourhood. It has had […]

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After Mayor Gregor Robertson said earlier this week that the Occupy Vancouver movement has a right to protest, but not to a permanent camp, I did the reporterly thing of calling to find out what was happening at ground level. My story here describes that, although not completely. I had heard that deputy city manager […]

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The media’s (that’s me!) relentless focus on Occupy Vancouver can be seen as a bad thing — a trivializing of all the major issues in the city that need to be discussed. I prefer to see it as a positive. Perhaps more than 30 per cent of people will now know there’s an election campaign […]

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The real election season has finally arrived. Contradictory polls are multiplying and candidates are jousting over various issues that make not one whit of difference to the lives of most people in this city. It’s also when voters are starting to think seriously about whether they’ll cast a ballot at all and, if so, who […]

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Strategists keep telling me this is going to be a “technical” election — one that’s one by mobilizing the ground troops to get out the vote — and, after today, I believe it. The second Mayor Gregor Robertson platform announcement took place in an east-side park to the sounds of kids playing soccer and autumn […]

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Another poll from Barb Justason, who’s provided us the voters with information for this campaign that usually the political parties keep to themselves. My Globe story is here. The basic numbers: 68 per cent of decided voters opting for Mayor Gregor Robertson; 32 per cent for NPA challenger Suzanne Anton. Twenty per cent are undecided, […]

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A city report and several media stories this week, including mine, offered the public a confusing glimpse of what’s going on with efforts to house the homeless. The city report left many with the impression that the real homeless are somehow being bypassed as non-profit housing operators choose who is going to live in the […]

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City manager Penny Ballem gave an update on the Olympic village numbers today, which was sort of helpful but still didn’t answer some of my questions. However, here’s her slide show, to get us started. As many of you know, development consultant Michael Geller and I have been having a back and forth about this […]

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The Burnaby Centre for Mental Health and Addiction opened three years ago with the promise that it would be the place that would take on the hardest cases of people who were mentally ill, drug-addicted, sick and homeless, give them treatment and help them transition to a stable place to live. It’s struggling, as I […]

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Civic politics junkies have been waiting to see whether the NPA would get into the ugly topic of the Olympic village, a tricky one for them as the party risks getting mud on its own face. As you’ll recall, the uproar over the village’s financial mess three years ago dominated the election campaign. Today, Suzanne […]

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