A couple of days ago, Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE) External Chair Tim Louis weighed in on the potential for a COPE-Green Party of Vancouver coalition going into the November 15th civic election.

“For people that are progressive, there is a very clear, very highly organized alternative, and that is COPE and the Vancouver Green Party,” Louis told Straight reporter Travis Lupick. “That (would) not (be) a formal alliance, but … progressive parties putting the best interests of this city ahead of the best interests of their own parties.”

At the time we read Louis’ statement, we thought he must be dreaming in technicolor. Adriane Carr, the sole Green Party of Vancouver Councillor on Vancouver City Council, responded to Louis’ invitation, stating …

“The Greens really span the political spectrum. You can’t peg us down as left or right. We really are ahead of that whole old spectrum. We draw support from a wide range of people, which is why in the last election, the Green Party of Vancouver made a decision to not have an alliance with any other party, to stand as a strong, independent choice for Vancouverites, no matter what other choices they might make.”

Although it pains us to say so, we partially agree with (former?) COPE member, Nicholas Ellan, who commented in the Straight, writing …

Carr is right. In 2011 she didn’t win by being the most popular left-wing politician, she won by being the most credible protest vote, receiving significant support from NPA and Vision voters which allowed her to beat Ellen Woodsworth for the 10th spot.

In 2014, she won’t be re-elected by siding with fringe parties, but rather by continuing to build on her record of credible opposition, open politics, and strong on-the-ground campaigning. She will likely have to beat an NPA candidate for 10th spot this time – no small feat. But if the right is split enough, the NPA incoherent enough, and the pipeline opposition strong enough, then it’s certainly possible that she’ll be returned to office.

At any rate, the whole issue of a COPE-Green Party of Vancouver coalition / ‘co-operative agreement’ is moot.
Last evening, in a special general meeting, Green Party of Vancouver members voted unanimously against participating in a coalition or electoral alliance with any other civic party. As Ms. Carr told VanRamblings, at last evening’s Green Party of Vancouver campaign kick-off event …

“Of course, Green Party of Vancouver members of Council would work together with other elected members of Council in the best interests of the citizens of Vancouver, but as the membership of the party clearly stated earlier this evening, there will be no formal alliance with any other civic party seeking office in the 2014 Vancouver general election.

Another 2014 civic election rumour / COPE wishful thinking put to rest.

Earlier today, VanRamblings met with deposed NPA Vancouver Board of Directors member, Ken Charko. Reasonably, we thought that Mr. Charko might wish to wrap his hands around our throat — we have been kind of mean to him in print, after all, these past couple of days — but he proved as genial and forthcoming as we’ve always found him to be.

“I’m still trying to come to terms with my removal from the NPA’s Board of Directors,” Charko told VanRamblings. “I’m not exactly sure what led to the decision taken by the Board. Fortunately, a great many people have reached out to me to offer support for the work I’d undertaken with the NPA these past couple of years, and my commitment to openness and transparency while sitting as an NPA Board member.”

“On other matters you raised in your column: There was reference made respecting my involvement in releasing to the media confidential information pertaining to NPA Board internal decision-making. I want to assure you, and your readers, that was not ever the case. Further, I want you to know that I have not had, nor will I have, any involvement with Vancouver First as a civic electoral party.

Well, there you go. Make of the statements above what you will — if nothing else, the machinations involved in Mr. Charko’s removal from the NPA’s BoD speaks volumes to the bloody sanguininity with which political parties approach the prospect of undertaking campaigns for office.

Finally, in today’s post covering Vancouver’s civic electoral scene …

Always a salutary event, COPE’s Summer Solstice BBQ provides a ready opportunity to get together with a welcoming and friendly group of civic-minded folks who possess a deep caring and commitment to the livability of our city. Low-income tickets are $5, regular tickets only $20 (although, for those who can afford it, a greater sum is always very much appreciated).
VanRamblings will be present at Saturday’s COPE BBQ, as we were for last evening’s welcoming and wonderfully enlightening (not to mention, friendly and inviting) Green Party of Vancouver campaign kick-off, and as we will be for (almost) all upcoming informal civic electoral campaign events that will occur over the summer months — always a great time to be had by all.

New Voices, One Vision slate: Sammie Jo Rumbaua, Coree Tull, Trish Kelly, Naveen Girn

The fix is in: awhile back VanRamblings received the following information from one of our regular correspondents, offering insider insight into the — tried and true, par for the course — selection process for Vision Vancouver Park Board candidates to fill out the slate for this November’s civic election …

Heard through the grapevine that the Vision backroom has decided that the four candidates for Park Board will be Trish Kelly, Sammie Jo Rumbaua, Coree Tull, and Naveen Girn. How exactly this squares with their election by the membership I’m not sure.

Some of COPE’s supporters were approached by both successful and unsuccessful candidates to sign up as members to vote and told various COPE people about it.

If this “gang of four” is true, then that means no Brent Granby and no Catherine Evans. No Katherine Day, Mark Mitchell, or Graham Anderson either. The latter two are bikes & gardens respectively. Granby also espouses bikes.

So … Vision is foregoing their environmental keeners and going for representation from visible minorities (I understand “racialized” is the current term) with Naveen and Sammie Jo, and the “L” in LGBTQ with Trish? And youth with Coree? Hmmm … will be interesting to find out if the rumour is true, but the person who told me seemed pretty sure.

VanRamblings has tweeted out the information above — denied by Vision Vancouver Executive Director, Stepan Vdovine — hoping to open the nomination process, somewhat, and provide a level playing field for those candidates not among the “chosen few” New Voices, One Vision slate.
Thursday morning, a kink was thrown into the nominating process when Hollyhock Board Chair, and Vision Vancouver supremo, Joel Solomon, endorsed five Park Board candidates for the four vacant positions on Vision’s Park Board slate, Brent Granby and Graham Anderson receiving his favour, and Filipina Sammie Jo Rumbaua left to hang out to dry.
According to a story published in The Straight last evening, more than 800 Vision members showed up at the advance polls, yesterday, for park and school board nominations. Results from the nomination process will be announced after 8pm, this Sunday, June 22nd, at the Waterfall Building, at 1540 West 2nd Avenue, near the entrance to Granville Island.

Housekeeping: Ken Charko Dumped from NPA Board of Directors
For the second time in 19 months, maverick NPA member Ken Charko has found himself “removed” from the Non-Partisan Association Board of Directors.
There’s been bad blood between Charko and the NPA for some time now — last summer, at the NPA’s AGM, the NPA’s Board of Directors brought a motion forward that would have stripped Charko of his membership in the party. The motion was narrowly defeated, with the support of a ragtag group of Jesse Johl and Charko acolytes and hangers on who’d turned out at the NPA AGM specifically to defeat the motion.
In respect of Charko’s recent expulsion, which was moved and voted on Wednesday, June 17th, a statement on the civic party’s website reads:

The decision to remove Charko was deemed necessary given his decision to knowingly, purposefully, and repeatedly violate the confidentiality that he and the entire NPA Board agreed to respect and uphold as part of their duty as directors.

Of course, there’s a great deal more to the story than may be gleaned from the otherwise reasoned, if enigmatic, statement above.
For some time now, the movers and shakers in the NPA have believed Ken Charko to be a quisling, an individual who has set about to not only provide aid and comfort to the “enemy” (civic opposition parties), but someone who has set a course to actively undermine the party’s chances for power this November, by consistently acting as a “confidential informant” to members of the fourth (bloggers) and fifth (mainstream media) estates.
In addition to all of the above, various reports have emerged in the community over the past year that indicate Ken Charko was the major funder of the nascent right-wing municipal party, Vancouver First, and that working with Jesse Johl — and anticipating that he’d likely be removed from the NPA once again — Charko and Johl would mount a bid for civic office this autumn, with Vancouver First as their newly chosen vehicle.
With all the controversy surrounding Jesse Johl, in his role as President of the Riley Park-Hillcrest Community Centre Association, Johl has emerged as a disgraced and spent force. Charko — who managed 45,372 votes in the 2011 Vancouver civic election, coming in 14th, just 3276 votes behind the last Councillor to be elected — would like nothing better than to emerge as Vancouver’s oleaginous answer to Rob Ford (minus the drugs, of course).
Ain’t gonna happen, though, despite The Straight’s ringing endorsement.

The Little Mountain Housing Development Story. A documentary project by David Vaisbord

Vancouver-based independent filmmaker and documentarian David Vaisbord has created a compelling crowdfunding campaign on indiegogo, a personal film project to document the story of, as CityHallWatch wrote last year …

The premature destruction of the Little Mountain social housing complex in Vancouver and the ongoing saga about the community and the site’s fate … offshore investors, egos, political influence and spin, bureaucratic bungling, mainstream media blindspots and incompetence, and more, are some of the factors determining the flow of the saga of the Little Mountain housing development.

Riley Park community activist Ned Jacobs weighed in recently, writing …

“Since 2009, when all but four of the 224 homes at Little Mountain Housing were demolished, the 15-acre site, which housed a well-functioning community in 2007, has sat fenced off and empty except for a scattering of trees. A single rowhouse building remains because several of the tenants courageously refused to be displaced by BC Housing (BCH).

Supportive housing is a core element of our social safety net. Former NDP MLA David Chudnovsky has pointed out that we don’t sell off our parks to cover social assistance and disability cheques; why then would we sell our social housing sites to fund supportive housing? It would make much more sense to fund supportive housing through general revenue, and redevelop Little Mountain and other appropriate social housing sites as rentals and cooperatives to house a broad range of incomes — and especially “first responders” and other essential service workers that have been frozen out of the Vancouver market.

For the City to allow the project to proceed without the crucial amenities would be irresponsible and a slap in the face to the entire community, as well, as would permitting greater height or density than set out in the Little Mountain Policy Statement (LMPS).

David Vaisbord’s powerful, revealing documentation of nearly five years of the Little Mountain saga has already helped move the tide of events in a positive direction. A feature-length documentary telling this important story through the spoken words and images of the people and the place could contribute to achieving a far happier outcome.