First written-down piece of policy from the new NPA team. Your thoughts on the specific remedies here?

Tuesday, August 12, 2014, Vancouver BC – The Non-Partisan Association’s mayoral candidate Kirk LaPointe says an NPA government would create a bylaw requiring the City to disclose information routinely, strengthen the City’s freedom of information office to ensure records are more accessible and create an Office of the Ombudsperson to represent the public as an impartial investigator of complaints about how the City is run.

LaPointe also proposes producing an independent annual report that would show how public consultations have influenced decisions the City has made in a given year.

These and other measures LaPointe pledges are designed to make City Hall more accountable to the residents it serves – something he says would restore the trust that has eroded under the current Vision Vancouver administration.

“The general public, community groups and even our politicians have to resort to formal legal requests for basic data,” LaPointe writes today on his blog, thevancouveriwant.ca. “This has been a pattern of arrogant, disrespectful and wasteful behaviour.”

LaPointe says an NPA government would also:

• Create a much stronger electronic forum for the public to question elected officials.
• Create a new process to make genuine community consultation a priority on all City decisions and provide more information on issues so people can better participate.
• Go where Vancouverites are and hold at least one-quarter of Council, Park Board or School Board meetings in affected neighbourhoods.

“Vancouver is a great city, badly run,” says LaPointe. “Lifting the veil off our government and showing voters how it works can only reduce skepticism, improve dialogue and create trust and respect.”

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Like Andie McDowell in sex, lies and videotape, I’m kinda obsessed about garbage. Where does it all go? Does anyone really recycle any of that stuff we put in the blue box or is it just a little story to make us feel good? Who is making money from it?

My latest small contribution in my garbage oeuvre is this look at how cities and condo owner are getting ready for the 2015 ban on all organics in landfills.

Still trying to find out who makes the money on this. Anyone in a condo building out there got the numbers on what they pay for garbage/recycling pick-up?

This is kinda cool

The Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) announced today that it has approved the broadcasting licensing of 0971197 B.C. Ltd., Roundhouse Radio to operate a low power, speciality FM radio station in the City of Vancouver on 98.3 FM.

Roundhouse Radio’s key objective is to be actively involved in the City and to serve the needs of citizens who live, work and play in Vancouver. Roundhouse Radio’s difference is to provide a spotlight on an active citizenry with more storytelling, discussion and context. Roundhouse Radio will help with community clean-ups, festivals, kids, talk about food from around the world, live music & arts, news and features focused on the City and its neighbourhoods.

“We can learn from the quietest voices” says Shelley Zavitz, Operations Manager and Program Director.  “Roundhouse Radio is designed to offer everyone a seat at the table. All we need is a place to gather, discuss and learn from each other.”

Don Shafer, President & CEO says “We love the promise that Roundhouse Radio holds. It is perfectly suited to all that our team has learned and hold true about media, our love for radio, the web and the important work that we can do to serve the needs of our community.”

One of the founding shareholders, Rick Pushor says “on behalf of our owners’ group and our families we are very proud of our application. We look forward to playing an integral role in media and making a difference in Vancouver.” 

 Roundhouse Radio 98.3 FM is a privately owned company of British Columbians who aspire to create a world-class broadcasting platform on the air, online and on the street – focused on the City and people of Vancouver.

For further information about Roundhouse Radio visit us on Facebook, Twitter, or www.roundhouseradio.com

Poor Riley Park Hillcrest community centre — now in the middle of a custody dispute by two boards, one led by Jesse Johl, another led by residents who got fed up with the lack of financial statements, strange new rules for electing board members, and more. They were in court last week and the latest word I had was that they would be back this week to try to resolve who is legally in charge.

In the meantime, the association’s bank account (which at one time in the not too distant past held a quarter million dollars) is frozen and the park board is having to pay the instructors who are technically the employees of the association.

My story here tried to explain some of this. Also had a reference to the out-of-left-field news that the City of Vancouver is considering allowing a new aquatic centre to be built as one of the community amenities on land it plans to sell next to the Granville Bridge. The aquatic centre of is of a long list of amenities the city suggested that developers consider offering, as part of the land purchase, including the Qmunity centre, social housing, and other stuff.

Oddly, no one ran this by the park-board commissioners, but so far the reps from both sides (Vision and NPA) are taking it calmly, saying it’s a chance to see whether there are any potential wins out of any of the developer offers.

As I mentioned in tweets over the past week, I had heard talk the last couple of years about replacing the Aquatic Centre. There was some suggestion, during the planning for Northeast False Creek, that some of the community-amenity contributions from developers go towards that. In the end, Fern Jeffries from the area told me, residents asked for that CAC money to go to parks closer to the area instead.

I had always imagined the new aquatic centre would go in the same general area as the old one — only this time, one would hope, with windows to take advantage of the gorgeous setting. It was a bit of a surprise to hear the city would entertain having it move so far south and east, which would mean 40,000 people from the West End and the 10,000 or so at Coal Harbour would have to trek a bit further, though it would be more convenient for the new Yaletown, Downtown South and Concord residents.

Last week, Doug McCallum attacked the current city council for its development corporation’s lack of action in Cloverdale.

This week, he’s out with a hard-hitting news release saying that Barinder Rasode and Linda Hepner both voted in favour of closed police committee meetings. This is going to get testy — and interesting, as everything has been so placid in Surrey for years, with not too much critical media coverage of Mayor Dianne Watts or any of her team’s policies. His news release below. (I note that Jonathan Ross, who did some work with Vision Vancouver, is on board with McCallum’s campaign. Things continue to be weird in Surrey.)

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I went to get some of my crazed summer-frizzed hair chopped the other day, so got to talk to my hairdresser, my infallible guide to the mood of the city. He has a lot of west-side clients, so he gets a sense of things percolating before I do. He told me when the tide was turning against Sam Sullivan, how much people liked Gregor Robertson at first, and then how fed up they’ve been with him lately.

This time, he said that everyone (of his clients, a select group, as I said) is looking for a hopeful saviour. And they’re interested in Kirk LaPointe, the NPA’s newbie political candidate. They just don’t know a thing about him, even in this small town where everyone knows everyone. (This fact is always brought home to me forcefully when I get calls from people wanting to know what I really think of this or that job candidate — when I haven’t been listed as a reference. People in this tiny city trade information constantly about who’s who.)

LaPointe was not the kind of editor like my old Kamloops Daily News boss, Mel Rothenburger, who followed council closely and was forever opining aboutcivic stuff. When people voted for Mel as mayor back in 1999 and in 2002 in Kamloops, they had a pretty good idea who he was and what he would do. In contrast, LaPointe was not quoted often during his 2003-2010 at the Vancouver Sun on any topic, where he was the second in command. And he wasn’t that interested in civic politics at the time.

I did a story on the latest Justason poll in today’s Globe, linked to here, that showed that, although 59 per cent of decided voters are still committed to Vision’s Gregor Robertson, a surprising ly strong 41 per cent said they would vote for Kirk LaPointe as mayor — even though he had declared his candidacy only the week before and hardly anyone knows anything about him. (I should mention that 45 per cent of people in the poll were undecided.)

So LaPointe is starting with an advantage and the few people who did know something about him liked the fact that he sounded smart and honest. (See more on what people thought of the two mayoral candidates here.)

But he and his team have to know that that’s not enough. The political elders I talk to all the time like to say, “People vote governments out, they don’t vote them in.” That’s been the conventional wisdom for a while and I’m sure that will be true for some voters.

But, as we saw in B.C. and Ontario provincial elections recently, it doesn’t seem like it’s enough just to say, “I’m not the other guy.” A party that doesn’t present a credible enough alternative will drivers voters back into the arms of even those governments with a messy track record.

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When I was at a Bulablogger brunch organized last spring by jenables, I heard the story about this family living in an artists’ loft with two kids. It stuck in my head. Well, really, it would for any of us who have lived with kids and locked ourselves in the bathroom for a little privacy, even in relatively spacious, three-bedroom houses.

Could I do this, I wondered? Probably not, was my conclusion. But Kirk and Elaine, along with hundreds, even thousands, of other parents do in the city. Here’s their story.

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I educated-guessed the prices that CP and Vancouver might be dickering with over the Arbutus rail corridor in my last post. Then Daphne Bramham at the Sun got off-the-record info confirming those prices. And now here’s me catching up on the story in today’s Globe.

I personally can hardly wait to see what CP will do next. For most companies I know, the mere thought of cameras rolling while their bulldozers mow down people’s flower gardens would be enough to make them blench. Others I talk to say CP really doesn’t care about public opinion — it’s not dependent on any level of government for support for its operations, so a bunch of people crying over their crushed dahlias is not going to matter one way or another.

But the CP spokesguy did sound somewhat conciliatory about the deadline in my story, saying there was no plan to go in on Friday at 7 a.m. to start dismantling people’s gardens.

Anyway, the intelligent, thoughtful comments on the last CP post have inspired me to put up this story. It was so great to see people talking about the history of the line and the various methods of valuation, instead of calling each other cretins. Is there something about rail lines that inspires higher-order thinking?

While you’re all here, any guesses on what might happen next and whether there’s a possible solution? Someone suggested to me privately that the city could offer CP the $20 million and put on a covenant or agreement saying if it were ever rezoned to residential/commercial development, then CP would get the full $100 million.

Continuing to catch up on posts here. (Sorry, as many of you know, I was camped out at the Vancouver Folk Festival all weekend, though without a “structure,” so no park rangers came to chase me out. As a result, I fell behind in alerting you to all of my brilliant recent pieces of journalistic prose.)

I filed this one on Sunday from the festival, re Mayor Gregor Robertson’s initiatives to guarantee some local control for Granville Island, either by having the city buy or lease the island, and to preserve the Arbutus rail corridor as it is now.

We, the taxpayers aka residents, don’t know what the price tags on these would be exactly. My guess is that the city would only be interested in Granville Island if the federal government transferred it for a nominal fee, since it probably takes some federal money now to subsidize rents and maintain the place. That’s currently paid for by everyone in Canada. If the city had control, guess who would be covering those costs?

As well, with the Arbutus corridor, the city’s “fair-market assessment” probably is based on it being zoned as a transportation corridor, which would make it a lot less valuable than if it were zoned for condos.

Richmond recently got a big chunk of old CP rail line for its 3.7-kilometre greenway for, apparently, $5 million in 2010. So that would indicate the price for Vancouver for 11 kilometres might be around, say, $20-30 million. On the other hand, Mayor Philip Owen and the city paid CP $9 million for a 1.5-kilometre section near Granville Island back in 1996. Based on that price of $6 million per kilometre and using the old Bank of Canada inflation calculator, the current price for 11 kilometres would be $93 million.

All of this, of course, is just fun imaginary math, as CMHC, the current managing body for Granville Island, says it’s not even clear in legislation whether the government has the power to sell this piece of Crown land. And, given the current state of animosity between CP and the city, hard to see an amicable and reasonably priced sale any time soon.

Got to talk to yet another one of my former bosses, Mel Rothenburger of the once-great Kamloops Daily News, about what it’s like to go from journalist to politician. Do your former colleagues give you the kid-glove treatment? (No) Is it more rewarding than journalism in some ways? (Yes, because you get things done instead of just saying they should be done.) Is it harder than it looks? (Yes)

Here was my story in the Globe last week on this.