Sorry, I’m a bit behind on posting this, but here’s the story Rod Mickleburgh and I had in the Globe today on the mounting bills for Southeast False Creek. This comes from city manager Penny Ballem’s report that came out late Monday, where she tried to round up the total costs for all the city […]

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For those of you without Penny Ballem on your Google alert, this story just popped up on the Globe’s website.

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It’s been a gloomy time around city hall lately, with the hiring freeze having stalled many initiatives in their tracks and hit some departments, which had always operated with a lot of temp-contract people particularly hard. Then there’s been a lot of turmoil, with people leaving or hinting that they’re open to leaving. To provide […]

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In the steady march of the 60s generation out of city hall doors the last couple of years, two more left or are leaving this month. One was Trish French, the scarily smart senior planner who terrified more than one councillor, I am positive, with her incisive answers to their wandering questions. Her last day […]

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This went out at 10:11 today (while the civics panel was on at CKNW with Bill Good — how handy) and has quickly spread all over town. CKNW’s Janet Brown is reporting that Ridge is leaving because of “politicization” at city hall, though no word that Ridge is talking directly to anyone. Not a total […]

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The second-in-command at engineering, Peter Judd, has been tapped, it appears, to replace Dave Rudberg as general manager for Olympics preparation. The news came as a surprise to him. There was no posting or even internal application. He was simply asked by city manager Penny Ballem to do it. Peter, engineering’s very energetic and relatively […]

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Everyone who FOI’d Judy Rogers’ severance package got their letter this morning on the amount, though not the full severance agreement. It was $571,788 — not the $700,000 that some people had been chattering about. Still a whack of money, though. You can read my web file here from the Globe and I’ll have more […]

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The latest update from the finance committee is due out today, showing that the new likely tax increase is somewhere around 5.7 per cent. Since this new council plans to keep up with the shift of taxes from the business sector to the residential sector, that will effectively mean an increase of close to eight […]

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That was the word from city manager Penny Ballem this afternoon. Although Councillor Suzanne Anton didn’t get a seconder to her motion, which I posted earlier, asking for clarification in how those contracts were awarded, Mayor Gregor did ask the city manager to give an explanation since “questions have been raised.” Penny’s statement: “It was […]

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This Tuesday email from city manager Penny Ballem about the retirement of Fire Chief Ray Holdgate is slowly filtering out to the public. Any thoughts, public or private, on this move? Planned retirement or something else going on? You can always email me at [email protected] From: Ballem, Penny To: Robertson, G; Anton, Suzanne; Cadman, David; […]

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