There’s almost zero chance council won’t endorse staff’s long-awaited report suggesting the Vancouver Art Gallery should get two years to develop a financial plan to build a new facility on the empty block next to the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. But the back and forth between VAG board member David Aisenstat, union president Paul Faoro, and […]

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The city and province have spent hundreds of millions to create supportive housing for the chronically homeless. But the homelessness conveyor belt isn’t stopping. So, in spite of a the big push of the past few years, the city is projecting that homeless numbers will dip over the next two years but then start to […]

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There’s been a lot of reporting on staff departures at Vancouver city hall in the past two years, partly because the new Vision team has made a point of cleaning house, partly because some of the departures have been so high profile, and partly because the city’s former political staffers at Citycaucus have done an […]

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Vision finally made its decision on how the nomination process is going to work for all its candidates. It’s a race for everyone except the mayor, who gets a performance review. (Hope it’s as much fun as mine always were.) Get ready, get set, go. Actually, some candidates have already. Geoff Meggs launched his campaign […]

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Of all the departures from city hall since Vision Vancouver took charge, Carlene Robbins’ abrupt exit on Monday is the most puzzling. A lot of reporters knew Carlene. She and her boss, Barb Windsor, rode herd on some of the city’s hardest and least glory-accruing problems. They pushed the landlords of slummy hotels and rooming […]

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More tales from the Land of Municipal Oversight of Human Behaviour.

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To follow up on the events from last week, I called people in Chinatown about their thoughts on council’s strange little manouevre last week, which entailed delaying a decision on allowing taller buildings in the Downtown Eastside but moving ahead to a public hearing on the same topic in Chinatown — all of which pre-empted […]

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Every year, all of us (heavily mortgaged) landowners get that property assessment notice in the mail and think generally one of two things: 1. Aha, I’m worth way more than I was last year. But wait a minute — does this mean I have to pay more taxes or 2. Ha ha, my assessment didn’t […]

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Getting more confusing. The DTES/Chinatown height report was scheduled to be discussed at the 2 p.m. meeting, with 80 speakers scheduled. But now Councillor Raymond Louie has already introduced a motion in the last hour that sends Chinatown to public hearing and DTES off for a social-impact review.(Georgia Straight blog post here.) WTF? Can’t keep up.

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What a surprise. (Not, when I think about it for 10 seconds.) After a last-minute, intense lobby against a proposed city policy to allow taller buildings on a select group of sites near Chinatown — a lobby that included the city’s two former directors of planning and former mayor Mike Harcourt — Mayor Gregor Robertson […]

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