There was a time when I didn’t know much about Vancouver city hall except where it was on the bus route. I hadn’t even thought about becoming a journalist in 1975 and was just starting my journalism career in the 1980s. I never imagined that I would ever be interested in things like zoning, bylaws, development, density, single-family housing, lengthy council debates, or any of that. It was all a bunch of old guys in suits doing boring things, as far as I knew.

But there was this writer who wrote columns on the last page of Vancouver magazine all about city hall, from 1975 to 1991, and he made what happened at 12th and Cambie sound interesting, as interesting as All the President’s Men (almost). There were dramatic stories and personalities and skulduggery and people making pompous speeches.

Sean Rossiter made me care about city politics and see that what was going on there was funny, tragic, important.

Others in town knew him much better than I did, and so wrote more detailed tributes to him last week upon his death. Charles Campbell’s is here. I just want to thank him again (I got to do it once in public a few years ago) for blazing the trail, making people pay attention through his careful, descriptive, sharp reporting.

His family and friends are getting together at Sun Yat-Sen Gardens tomorrow (Thursday, Jan. 15) 4:30 – 6:30, for those who haven’t received the word privately yet.