It looked like it was going to ho-hum day at city council, with councillors Suzanne Anton and Raymond Louie continuing their energetic pillow fighting over the the budget, the Olympic village, the kinds of candies given out for free in the mayor’s office, and so on. But, instead, at the end of the budget presentation, […]

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There’s a news conference skedded tomorrow on the York Theatre with a host of city personages, including developer Bruno Wall, Mayor Gregor Robertson, former councillor now consultant Jim Green, architect Gregory Henriquez, theatre advocate Tom Durrie, and Cultch manager Heather Robertson. That can only mean 1. Bruno Wall has been successful in buying the Commercial […]

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I feel bad that I’m not on an advisory committee to the mayor. Everyone else in town seems to be. First, there was the homelessness action team, a high-powered group that meets Sunday afternoons to figure out how to get 1,500 people out of shelters and off the streets ASAP. Then, there was the developers’ […]

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On the occasion of Barack Obama’s historic inauguration, I was reminded that I asked the city’s communications department a couple of weeks ago for a total on the inauguration costs for the new Vancouver city council. Various Non-Partisan Association types have been muttering for weeks about the costs, with their estimate of the total going […]

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As expected by faithful readers of this blog, Mayor Gregor Robertson announced today that he is forming an advisory committee from the development industry to help the city during the completion phase of the Olympic village. They’ll be looking at possibilities for trimming costs over the next nine months. Yes, nine months until this baby […]

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Okay, now we have Penny Ballem locked in a room with Fortress trying to come to a deal on the financing. Next, the mayor and Penny have to figure out who is going to take Jody’s place. As I wrote for the Globe, the deputy city manager’s role in dealing with development projects is critical. […]

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Okay, one more bit of news for you to wake up to in the morning. Eyebrows are lifting slightly around town at the news that Mira Oreck, the Vision Vancouver campaigner who was literally welded to Gregor Robertson’s side during three months of the campaign making sure he got from event to event on time, […]

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My pal Jeff Lee over at the Sun had an interesting story in Friday’s Vancouver Sun with details about the in-camera meeting back in June 2007 where the Non-Partisan Association majority voted in favour of the $193-million loan guarantee and completion guarantee for Fortress, so that Millennium could get its financing for the Olympic village. […]

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I’m continuing to hear from inside city hall how bad people feel about the resignation of Jody Andrews, who quit yesterday after apparently weeks of feeling that he was being effectively pushed out of his job as the manager of the Olympic village. For obvious reasons, they’re not going to be talking publicly. But there […]

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A little bird called me today and read out an email from a Vision board member that has somehow escaped to a larger audience than intended. The email, from Marcella Munro, went out this morning to the rest of Vision’s tight communications team, which frequently debates how well they are doing on their message. That […]

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