Vancouver has spent we don’t know how much money to get lawyer Richard Peck to come up with recommendations for how the city can avoid future leaks of embarrassing documents. One of his main recommendations was that Vancouver hire a full- or part-time integrity commissioner. But it didn’t sound to me yesterday as though Vision […]

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Here’s a fun story I stumbled across last week, now in today’s Globe. I didn’t realize this, but the city and the private telecommunications companies have been dickering over various issues ever since telecommunications got deregulated and all kinds of companies decided they wanted to have their own cables running through the city to serve […]

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Get used to it. Everyone is going to be writing about us ad nauseam for the next year. Here’s just one sample of how we look to the outside world, from today’s Financial Times: homelessness, drug addiction, gang violence all chipping away at our beautiful image.

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My story a couple of days ago referred to the other site Vancouver would be running as part of the Olympics, in addition to the two “live sites” on Georgia and at David Lam Park. Here’s the city report on the details of what’s going to be at that site, which will be “a venue […]

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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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I was so excited when I saw the following public announcement from the city, thinking this was going to be the public’s chance to remake the Olympics transportation plan, even though it’s already been announced. But when i called to get more information, it was clarified to me that the forum and public consultation will […]

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I’m (belatedly) posting my story in the Globe this week about the competition to get and rent party sites downtown for the many, many groups that want to have a presence at the Olympics. What really hit home to me for the first time, as I was researching this story, was just what a carnival […]

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Dave Rudberg, the former head of engineering and, the the last few years, manager of the city’s preparations for the Olympics, has sent city manager Penny Ballem a letter saying that he is retiring. The retirement will be effective this spring. Not a shock to city hall insiders, who are aware that many senior staff […]

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Not all the financial disclosures are in yet — still waiting for many of the Non-Partisan Association candidates — but there’s now enough in to show that the spending reached unbelievable new levels. Vision Vancouver spent almost $2 million, as I report in the Globe this morning. (The documents will be filed with the city […]

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The city’s deputy city manager, James Ridge, got named the chief information officer or some such thing recently, according to city internal emails. That ought to allay the rumours, at least in that corner, that Ridge, who came to Vancouver from North Van a couple of years ago, was going to be one of those […]

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