The TransLink story the last year has been a regular soap opera (ok, municipal version): mayors band together to pressure provincial government for more sources of funding, complete with news conferences and various other tactics; province makes many snarky remarks about operations of TransLink spending and orders a review; CEO, freshly recruited from New York, abruptly quits and goes back to New York; TransLink mayors reluctantly pass a status-quo spending plan that does no more than keep the existing system going.

They kind of faded from view as that rolled to a close last October. So I hiked out to Metrotown this week to find out whether they’re going to take another run at the provincial citadel, whether they’ve launched a hunt for a new CEO, and whether we all just have to hang onto our bus straps for now because there’s no new money in sight.

Here were some of the answers.

Another day, another Olympic surprise. Although many people knew there’d be an impact on city services because of the Olympics, some are being caught unawares by how extensive they are. My story on this here.

A few months ago, the city announced it was posting for someone to head the city clerk’s department. I expressed some surprise that Marg Coulson, who’s been the acting head since Syd Baxter went off to retirement as a consultant, wasn’t just automatically being named. At the time, a few people told me, “Oh no, Marg isn’t interested.”

Apparently she is, since she entered the race and has finished first. A nice surprise for those of us who of us who have relied on her quiet help over the years.

From: COV Broadcast Server
Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 2010 6:54 PM
To: All Staff (COV) – DL
Subject: COV Broadcast: Appointment of City Clerk

I am delighted to announce that today, Council confirmed the appointment
of Marg Coulson as the City Clerk and Chief Election Officer for
Vancouver.

Marg is the successful candidate of our recruitment process which has
been underway for the past few months. Marg has a long career with the
City and has held a number of key positions including Deputy City Clerk,
Coordinator of Corporate Business Improvement Projects, and the
Purchasing Office Manager.  For the past 21 months, Marg has served as
the Acting City Clerk.

I want to thank Marg for her support to me and to the Mayor and Council
over the past year. I look forward to Marg’s leadership as the Clerk’s
Office implements a number of strategies to enhance our service to
Council, and to our citizens and stakeholders.

Congratulations Marg.

Penny Ballem
City Manager

Over the last week, a faithful reader from Yaletown has been emailing me to say that lights have been flashing from city hall.

To quote Paul exactly: “City Hall has a whole new flashy external light system . . .  a whole series of white horizontal lights that they can flash like a disco.

They tested this system out a few times over the Holidays . . .  quite a show.

What gives . . .  must for the games.”

(To see for yourself, go here)

As it turns out, they were testing out a piece of …. public art! Which is now in full operation as per their news release today.

City Hall lights up Olympic and Paralympic Public Art Program

Mayor Gregor Robertson turned on the outdoor lights of City Hall today, bringing to life Ice Light by German artist Gunda Förster, one of more than 20 public art works celebrating the City’s Olympic and Paralympic Public Art Program for the 2010 Winter Games.

“I am pleased to mark the launch of our new Olympic and Paralympic Public Art Program with Ice Light, a sparkling new light-emitting diode (LED) display on the edges of City Hall,” the Mayor said. “This work is not only beautiful, it will also reduce the power consumption of City Hall’s exterior lights by 70 per cent.

“This wonderful collection of public art gives local, national and international artists an opportunity to showcase their skills to the world during the Olympics.”

The Mayor also announced the details of two projects commissioned under the Olympic and Paralympic Public Art Program. “THE WORDS DON’T FIT THE PICTURE,” created for the Vancouver Central Library South Plaza (at Robson and Homer) by Vancouver artist Ron Terada, is a permanent light-based work that playfully references the City’s neon past. A new permanent work will also be developed for the Olympic/Paralympic Centre at Hillcrest Park for after the Games. An independent jury will announce the selected artist at the end of January.

The Olympic and Paralympic Public Art Program took more than two years to design and is the City’s most ambitious public art program to date. The $5.95 million program includes more than 20 new permanent and temporary public artworks commissioned for the 2010 Games and created by some of today’s most exciting established and emerging contemporary artists from Vancouver, Canada and the world.

The diverse projects range from grand light-based works and sculptural installations at iconic landmarks, to celebratory works in the heart of Vancouver’s communities.  The City has also partnered with the Vancouver Art Gallery and Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad on several large-scale outdoor projects.  All projects will be in place by Games-time.

To enhance viewers’ enjoyment of the new public art, a number of educational tools have been created. Mobile audio guides are available for people who would like to hear the artists talk about their works and learn more.  Viewers can call 604.998.8038 and hear the information about the artwork they’re interested in (mobile phone users should note roaming charges may apply).

Specially commissioned short films about the artists are posted in the City’s Media Room at vancouver.ca. Knowledge, BC’s public education broadcaster, will air the films on television during the winter months. For more information, visit www.knowledgenetwork.ca.  The films will also be screened on Enroute TV, Air Canada’s in-flight entertainment system, in February and March 2010.

For more information about the Olympic and Paralympic Public Art Program, visit the City of Vancouver’s Host City website at vancouver.ca.

Okay, I don’t put up every news release but this one really startled me. The library wants you to make noise. With cowbells. Okay, not in the library. It’s for the Olympics — a cute gimmick. But still. What happened to shushing?

Red Cowbells To Honour Skiing Crazy Canucks & Encourage Canadian Athletes

(Vancouver, British Columbia) – With less than one month until the Opening
Ceremonies of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, Vancouver Public Library is
encouraging Metro Vancouver residents to win or purchase a special red
Library cowbell to cheer on Canadian Olympic and Paralympic athletes.

The red cowbells inscribed with the Library logo and ‘Go Canada’ were
created to honour Canada’s legendary Crazy Canucks ski team that was the
subject of the Library’s 2009 One Book, One Vancouver program that
encourages Vancouverites to read the same book and participate in related
programming.

In the lead up to the 2010 Winter Games, the Library expanded the program
and chose two great books to get readers excited about the Games: The Crazy
Canucks: Canada’s Legendary Ski Team by Janet Love Morrison and The Farm
Team by Linda Bailey. The program culminated with an entry in the Rogers
Santa Claus Parade and Love Morrison, Bailey, City Councillors, Library
Trustees and staff handed out cowbells to excited parade goers.

There will be a free draw for ten bells at each of the Library’s 20
branches, including the Central Library. A limited quantity of the bells are
for sale at Bookmark, the Library gift store, for $3.95. Bookmark is
operated by Friends of the Vancouver Public Library and all proceeds support
the Library.

“It is tradition to ring cowbells during World Cup ski races and we wanted a
special memento for the 2009 One Book, One Vancouver program so creating
Library cowbells was perfect since one of the books was about the Crazy
Canucks,” said Jean Kavanagh, Manager, Marketing & Communications.

“We also learned that people ring cowbells at speed skating, cross country
skiing, hockey and even curling so we think this is a perfect, affordable
Games souvenir and they look great with those red mittens,” said Kavanagh.

The Library chose The Crazy Canucks as the 2009 adult One Book, One
Vancouver title to honour some of Canada’s greatest sports heroes as we
prepare to celebrate the next generation of Olympic and Paralympic heroes,
Kavanagh added.

“The Crazy Canucks all raced at the 1980 Games in Lake Placid, Steve
Podborski remains North America’s most-decorated downhill skier and skiers
in Whistler will be competing on the Dave Murray Downhill course in honour
of the late Crazy Canuck who passed away in 1990. We encourage people to
pick up a Library cowbell and ring them loudly for all of our 2010
athletes.”

The Bookmark gift store is located adjacent to the Central Library at 350
West Georgia Street.

It was a busy weekend for central-city urbanists, what with the Woodward’s party Friday night and then the Mount Pleasant Community Centre opening Saturday.

Woodward’s obviously got a lot of attention. A huge crowd gathered in the plaza to ooh and ah as the new W lights were turned on — a New Year’s Eve for geeky urbanists, as I twittered. And others were drawn down for the launch of the book about Woodward’s, Body Heat, or to look at Trevor Boddy’s exhibit on Vancouverism, or to go to the colloquium about the Woodward’s development in the new Milton and Fei Wong theatre.

But it was interesting to hear many of the same sentiments I heard at the Woodward’s opening when I went to the Mount Pleasant opening.

People gathered in the gym, not a theatre, at Mt. Pleasant and there weren’t any dialogues with the architect or developer. But there were almost as many people there and some fascinating parallels. Both events talked about how essential partnerships had been to making the projects work. Both buildings seemed to take forever to build (the centre, especially). Both are snazzy new green buildings that mimic the old brick and terracotta of the historic districts they’re in. And both are seen as catalysts for their neighbourhood.

Of course, there’s less public fear with the Mount Pleasant centre than there is with Woodward’s that an historic neighbourhood for the poor will be gentrified. But really, there should be.

Yes, Woodward’s is going to change that area. It was so palpable Friday night, as streams of people converged on the building. There’s life there again. And on Abbott, the next block south from Woodward’s, I saw a couple of little alternative businesses — a funky skateboard shop and a store that seems to be selling hipster handbags — in storefronts that haven’t seen legal activity near them for quite some time.

But the Mount Pleasant community centre is also going to change the area, bring even more people to what had been a strip of car dealerships and repair shops, surrounded by three-storey apartment buildings with some of the lowest rents in the city.

The neighbourhood’s been changing for a while, as Kitsilano refugees take over the buildings. It will change more. That’s what happens when the city decides to invest in a big reno.

The question for all of us who watch our city carefully is what kind of change it’s going to produce. We’re all anxious to find that balance where we can somehow make an area work better and look better, but we don’t drive out the people and businesses who have been there forever, the ones who moved there because it didn’t cost too much and then made it into a neighbourhood.

Other thoughts on my weekend forays:

– Artist Stan Douglas said he chose to do a photograph of the 1970s-era Gastown riots as the public art for the Woodward’s atrium because he wanted something that symbolized a moment of challenge and rupture. A perfect companion piece, a few people I’ve talked to have mentioned, would be a photograph of something very similar that happened more recently: the massive squat by homeless people that happened around Woodward’s in 2002, also well attended by police, which provided the political impetus to save the building.

– The Mount Pleasant Centre feels like the Canada Line already — too popular for its own good. The place was packed on Saturday and I suspect will be every day. The Busby firm had to squeeze a lot into that building — library, daycare centre, fitness centre, gym, umpteen meeting rooms, and then 98 apartments on top. As a result, it sometimes feels a little squashed, especially when there’s a crowd there and you’re trying to make your way along the narrow hallways and stairs. Thank goodness that there’s so much light, thanks to the work the firm did to make it the greenest building in the city — daylight is always cheaper than electric bulbs so all the rooms have loads of light coming in from outside.

– The after-Woodward’s partiers (me and my friends and a few others) had a HARD time finding a place with an empty chair Friday night. Bao Bei, the hip new Chinese brasserie on Keefer Street that had a soft opening Friday night, essentially told us to get lost because they were so overwhelmed and didn’t want to stress out their kitchen staff. (I thought maybe it was because we looked too old and dowdy, but we went in another younger, hipper-looking delegate and he got the same treatment.) About six other restaurants in Gastown all said we’d have to wait at least an hour to get so much as a pretzel. Many of us decamped over to Campagnolo, which was also packed but not quite to the gills. Whew.

Damn. A gorgeous afternoon. Blue, blue sky flecked with puffy cream and gray clouds, the container loaders of the port vivid orange against the green mountains with their white tops. The float plane banks in to land and the seagulls are circling over Burrard Inlet.

And Vancouver the city seems beautiful in all its different ways. I had to trek around most of the city today, so I got to marvel again at how this doesn’t seem so much like one city as seventeen completely different ones. No wonder film crews love it here — there’s no sense of unity at all that makes any corner of the city instantly identifiable as Vancouver.

When you’re downtown these days on the grand avenue between the glossy new convention centre and the steel and glass towers of the Shaw Building and the Fairmont, it seems as though this hyper-modern, magazine-ready downtown can’t possibly be part of the same city as the utterly unambitious little stucco bungalows, circa World War Two, of Nanaimo and Grandview or the milling crowds in front of the heavy stone presence of the Carnegie Centre at Main and Hastings or even the 80s bathtub-tile look of the old Canada Place.

And a sunny, warm winter day makes every one of them look charming or spectacular  in their own way. Damn. All those tourists will be here soon, saying, “Hey, this seems like a cool and gorgeous place place. Maybe we should move here or buy a little pied-a-terre.” Just what we don’t need.

I haven’t paid enough attention to this issue til now, but I finally did a piece for today’s Globe on the fight to save the Bloedel conservatory. I find it fascinating to see how a community group comes together spontaneously on occasions like this — shows people aren’t all couch potatoes, after all.

This is an interesting one to watch, as I think it turned into more of an issue than anyone expected.

As I zipped across the Cambie Bridge in the dark this morning (Radio Canada interview, morning swim), the pre-dawn gloom was lit up with the pinkish-orange pulsing fingers next to the bridge that are the stacks for the district heating system at Southeast False Creek.

They’re ugly as heck but the light is nice, though it made me wonder if the village is already using maximum energy, since the lights are supposed to change colour depending on the level of energy use. Surely pink-orange can’t be good? I’d know if I were down at the tour of the new plant (be still, my beating heart) going on this morning with various dignitaries, as the plant and system are officiallyopened.

In spite of my snarky tone here, I think this is one of the more interesting accomplishments of the Olympic village and I’ll be fascinated to hear how it’s working in the coming months and years. Even though I think of myself as an amateur science buff, I still can’t quite grasp the concept of capturing heat from sewer lines to provide heat.

On another note, another light display illuminating the sky was the new VISIONCRITICAL neon glowing from the Pivotal Building. At first I thought it was some Bob Rennie-style “Everything is going to be alright” art installation. Then I thought it might be a witty political slogan. Then I remembered it’s the name of a new software company that’s recently moved into the building.

But what a thing for civic voters to be looking at as they come across the Cambie Bridge every day, contemplating the good or bad they think that the Vision Vancouver group is carrying out at city hall.

Funny.

Interesting event planned for Jan. 27, when Gord Price and SFU’s City School have arranged for us all to hear from the, not one, but two new bureaucrats we have imported from Chicago. (You didn’t know TransLink was hiring Yanks, did you?)

More info here.