Category Archives: Decision 2014

While LaPointe Dithers, Taylor Considers Entering the Campaign

Going up against Vision Vancouver a risky, but necessary, endeavour

With a war chest said to be in the range of $6 million, going up against Vision Vancouver is certain to be a risky venture this autumn. Still, almost a dozen political parties will dedicate their full-time energies and monetary resources to defeating the most arrogant, tone-deaf and anti-democratic civic administration since the days of brass-knuckle NPA Mayor Tom Campbell, one of the most polarizing figures in Vancouver municipal history.
VanRamblings looks forward to continuing our coverage of Vancouver’s civic scene in the lead-up to the November 15th municipal election.
Commencing next week, though — given that it’s summer, and somewhat of a laid back time — VanRamblings will cut back on our coverage of the civic political scene, posting only two or three times a week — although on the remaining days of the week we may supplement our political coverage with columns on the topics VanRamblings has traditionally covered, which is to say, the arts/cinema, web & tech, and other topics that catch our fancy.

Carole Taylor may enter civic race to run against NPA Vancouver's Kirk LaPointe

Word emerging from inside the NPA camp has one, or more, members of the party’s Council slate “reconsidering” their candidacy, as putative Non-Partisan Association mayoral candidate Kirk LaPointe continues his, now, weeks’ long vetting of the prospective NPA slate of candidates who will seek office this autumn in Vancouver 47th municipal election.
Apparently, La Pointe wants a more culturally diverse slate than the NPA had originally identified — there’s also some indication that he wants more women, and more younger folks, on the Council, Park Board and School Board slates. All of this well-intended dithering has caused some grousing about LaPointe’s own candidacy among a coterie of NPA folks, who (many of them) were none-too-thrilled with Mr. LaPointe’s ascension as the New Progressive Association mayoralty candidate, when it was set to be announced, as early as the beginning of May, only a couple of months ago.
All of this grousing and dithering has reportedly resulted in a renewed draft Carole Taylor movement. The prospect of a Carole Taylor candidacy was not looked upon favourably by her as little as two months ago, but apparently the accomplished Ms. Taylor has had a change of heart and is now giving serious consideration to entering the 2014 Vancouver municipal race as an Independent, and one would have to think, winning candidate for Mayor.
Meanwhile, extensive internal polling conducted by Stratcom, for Vision Vancouver, and Dimitri Pantazopoulos, for the NPA, has Kirk LaPointe running neck-and-neck with sitting Mayor Gregor Robertson, with an even odds chance of sending juice boy back for a long, long, long stay at Cortes Island’s warming and welcoming Hollyhock Centre for the truly misguided.
Now we have the prospect of not only a Carole Taylor independent mayoral candidacy, but according to The Straight’s Carlito Pablo, Hadden Park / Yaletown Residents lawyer, the talented and very bright Bob Kasting, is also considering a run for the Mayor’s chair this autumn electoral season.
Word from within The Electors’ Action Movement, and from some associated with Neighbourhoods for a Sustainable Vancouver suggest that there’s support for a Bob Kasting mayoralty run — there’s even speculation that the Green Party of Vancouver (or, at least some of its candidates) could support A Better City’s Bob Kasting for a mayoral civic election run.

star.jpg star.jpg star.jpg

Carole Taylor, Gregor Robertson, Bob Kasting, Kirk LaPointePotential mayoral hopefuls Carole Taylor, Gregor Robertson, Bob Kasting, and Kirk LaPointe

The fact that Kirk LaPointe, Carole Taylor, Bob Kasting and, we hear, retired provincial court judge Carol Baird Ellan (who was considering at one time, and may still be a serious COPE candidate for Mayor) may enter the race, suggests there’s significant dissatisfaction with the direction that Gregor Robertson and his overly developer-friendly Vision Vancouver “we roll over you, because we don’t give a damn about you, and we know what’s best for you, anyway” colleagues have taken our city these past six years.
Here it is, the beginning of July — these are early days in the 2014 Vancouver civic election campaign. That there’s some jostling about going on, a clarifying of candidacies, and political machinations in aid of ensuring that Gregor Robertson and Vision Vancouver will be defeated this autumn is, for VanRamblings, just fine. VanRamblings is heartened that serious electoral campaigns of purpose, from all of the opposition parties and candidates who will place their names before the voting public this autumn, in order that we might all be rescued from one of the most dishonest civic administrations in Vancouver history — well, as we say, that’s fine by us.

COPE’s Left Front: Viva la revolucion | Tim Louis No More

Josef Stalin offers tips to COPE's Left Front

Word filtering out of the offices of the Coalition of Progressive Electors has COPE’s Left Front maneuvering to remove party stalwart Tim Louis from any elected office within Vancouver’s socialist municipal political party. The Left Front message is clear: Tim Louis no longer represents the forces of the vanguard, but rather that of a repressive counter-revolutionary force.
At COPE’s upcoming annual general meeting — to be held this Sunday, July 6th, at the Ukrainian Hall, 154 East 10th Avenue — the Left Front will actively oppose the re-election of Tim Louis as a COPE co-Chair, and de facto voice of the party, as well as any of his supporters — and instead offer a socialist slate wholly committed to revolutionary Marxist principles.

Vancouver is in the throes of a social and economic crisis; ours is a city on the verge of disintegration and collapse. The vital socialist forces of the Left Front will work together with the marginalized and the working class to develop a new economic order. This November, the masses once aroused, will emerge from the subterranean fires of their brutal repression, and establish a new and vital revolutionary sovereignty.

VanRamblings feels quite assured that the Left Front will set about to establish a necessary 100-year dictatorship of the proletariat that will lead, as it has in mother Russia and in China, to a free and egalitarian society without social classes and government, a just and democratic state for all.
Gosh, it’ll be just like the Paris Commune — VanRamblings, for one, can hardly wait to join the revolutionary brigades, as the Left Front proclaims a Republic of freedom, equality, and the fraternity of the people, while constituting a government of municipal defense and economic harmony.

star.jpg star.jpg star.jpg

The palaver above aside (only some of which is invented, by the way), VanRamblings’ sources tell us that, in fact, the members of the Left Front — a revolutionary cadre within COPE, mainly associated with the online publication, The Mainlander — will, indeed, oppose the election of Tim Louis to the position of COPE co-Chair, as well as any of his supporters who intend to run for the COPE BoD — that, indeed and in fact, the members of the Left Front consider the indefatigable Mr. Louis to be too “right wing”.
Yes, you read that right — Tim Louis, married (bourgeoise, don’tcha know), a lawyer (Q: What do you call 5000 dead lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? A: A good start), and most egregious of all, a west side Vancouver resident, is too right wing, and represents the forces of counter-revolution.
Migawd, with less than five months to go before the upcoming November 15th municipal election, the once proud and now fractured and fractious Coalition of Progressive Electors finds itself in a sorry, unelectable state. COPE has marginalized itself or is, perhaps, finally and once and for all, about to fully marginalize itself, to recede as a powerful electoral force, as a potent voice for the marginalized within our city, to become what — a voice only for hoary, empty and nostalgic socialist platitudes, and little else?

star.jpg star.jpg star.jpg

Make no mistake, VanRamblings would fully support the election of a populist, socialist city councillor to Vancouver City Council. We’re just not entirely sure that the otherwise good-hearted folks in the Left Front represent the aspirations of the diversity of the Vancouver electorate.

Kshama Sawant becomes the first ever socialist Seattle City CouncillorEconomics professor Kshama Sawant elected as Seattle’s first socialist City Councillor

Before and since her election as a member of Seattle City Council, on November 5th, 2013, VanRamblings has watched in awe as software engineer, socialist activist, and economics professor Kshama Sawant not only became the first socialist to win a city-wide election in Seattle since the radical progressive Anne Louise Strong was elected to the School Board in 1916, but led and won the fight to establish a $15 an hour minimum wage.
Sawant has advocated on LGBTQ+ issues, women’s issues, people of color issues and cuts to education and other social programmes, implementation of a “millionaire’s tax” on wealthy Seattleites, and rent control, about which she has said, “rent control is something everyone supports, except real estate developers …”, while comparing the legal fight for its implementation to same-sex marriage, and the legalization of marijuana, both of which she supports. Sawant’s campaign for a $15 an hour minimum wage is credited for bringing the issue into the mainstream across the United States. In response to criticism that the $15 an hour minimum wage could hurt the economy she said, “If making sure that workers get out of poverty would severely impact the economy, then maybe we don’t need this economy.”
Kawant also advocates for an expansion of public transit and bikeways, ending corporate welfare, ending racial profiling, reducing taxes on small business and homeowners, protecting public sector unions from layoffs, living wage union jobs, and the expansion of social services. Unsurprisingly, Kshama Sawant has emerged as Seattle’s most popular elected official, and one of the most popular elected representatives across Washington state.
We might just as well have written about Dr. Ben Isitt, a Canadian historian and legal scholar (area of study, the relationship between social movements and the state), an avowed and proud socialist, who since his election in November 2011 has held public office in Victoria as a city councillor and regional director — Isitt has also been touted as a future Victoria mayor.
In Vancouver, with a wolf in sheep’s clothing, anti-democratic Vision Vancouver civic administration in place, the progressive forces within COPE find themselves engaged in a continuing bitter struggle for control of the party apparatus, a struggle defined by recrimination, name-calling and tests of ideological purity — a dissolute municipal political party utterly unfocused on the needs of a desperate Vancouver electorate crying out for change, and ill-prepared to run a serious campaign for elected office this autumn.
Tim Louis. Whether the Vancouver voting public realizes it or not, we have all of us sorely missed the witty, angry, clarion voice of Tim Louis at Vancouver City Council, by far the most articulate and hard working member of Council (and Park Board) when he held elected office, and the sole hope for COPE this November 15th, as the candidate for Vancouver City Council who might best advocate for the concerns, interests and aspirations of the broadest cross-section of those of us who reside in the city of Vancouver, from the vast numbers of our populace who rent, to the marginalized, the homeless living on our streets, pensioners on fixed incomes, minimum and low-wage workers, and our immigrant population.

Vancouver: Litter Strewn, Poorly Maintained, Unkempt & Unsafe

Street trash, unsightly streetscapes, boulevards left unkempt with uncut grass and strewn with trash, overflowing waste receptacles, poor parks maintenance that make them unsafe for use by families — this is the legacy of Vision Vancouver, this is how our majority municipal government realizes its much touted greenest city action plan, yet another obfuscation, among many more, that belies the reality of Vision governance, as over the course of the past six years of a two-term Vision Vancouver administration, Canada’s west coast paradise has become a blighted, third world landscape.
In his weekly column in the Vancouver Courier, Michael Geller writes …

In the past, I was generally proud of how our city was maintained.

However, in recent years, I have noticed a general decline. Weeds are growing in street medians and sidewalks. Boulevards and parks appear overgrown, and more cigarette butts, chewing gum and garbage are strewn about.

There is also an increase in the number of unkempt properties, presumably slated for redevelopment or unoccupied, which become scars on otherwise beautiful, well-maintained streetscapes.

On a recent visit to C Restaurant at the foot of Howe Street, I was disgusted by the neglect of a once-prized waterfront walkway. Weeds were growing through pavers, under benches and around tree grates.

A couple of weeks ago, Park Board Commissioner John Coupar asked us to join him on a walk along the pathway from the Olympic Village to Yaletown.

“Invasive species have grown up all along the shoreline of False Creek, choking out the trees that were planted to enhance the livability of the Village,” John pointed out to us. “From Granville Island to the Olympic Village, through to Yaletown, Park Board maintenance has become near non-existent. A beautiful waterfront area that was meant to be enjoyed by the people of Vancouver is becoming overgrown and covered with invasives, including blackberry, morning glory, broom …”

Nearing the controversial Concord Pacific sales centre opposite the Village, John pointed out a blighted landscape of broken bottles, shopping carts, discarded mattresses, and refuse of every description, carelessly scattered all along the fenced off area on the north shore of False Creek.

“Governance is all about setting priorities. It is clear to me that Vision Vancouver has not prioritized Parks and Gardens. Cuts to operating budgets in Vision’s first term have not been restored. A structural deficit in the Park Board maintenance budget remains. While from a distance all looks green, a close inspection of our parks all around Vancouver reveal standards have slipped drastically. Our staff are under siege, are working hard, but without the boots on the ground to keep up, it’s clear that a proud history of horticultural excellence has slipped away.”

“The lack of respect for the legacy and history of the Vancouver Park Board system continues unabated. I am very concerned about the future of Park Board, which cannot survive in a meaningful way with four more years of Vision neglect.”

Recently, VanRamblings had the opportunity to speak with former Park Board chair, the Coalition of Progressive Electors’ Anita Romaniuk, on the topic of park maintenance. Here’s, in part, what Ms. Romaniuk had to say:

“At Douglas Park, near my home, families in the neighbourhood have told me they feel the park has become unsafe. Park Board maintenance — weeding, the cutting of the tall grasses, and attention to the bushes around the periphery — has gone by the wayside with the Vision Vancouver-led majority Park Board, a Park Board that while politicizing the institution has cut nearly $3 million annually from the budget.”

“Parents have reported to me that children running through the tall grass and bush area of the park have emerged — much to the horror of their caregivers — covered in dog feces. Who’s maintaining our parks? The present circumstance is unacceptable, unsafe and unconscionable.”

Reports from friends living nearby John Hendry Park, on Vancouver’s eastside, tell us the situation is no better at Trout Lake. Says a friend:

“Over the past few years, I’ve noticed that the grass in the park is rarely cut and tended to, and the park poorly maintained, which has lead to a situation where teenagers partying on weekends casually throw their discarded beer bottles into the tall grasses. Broken glass is everywhere — creating an unsafe situation for park users. We used to love to picnic in the park with our friends and family; not any more.”

In his weekly column published in today’s Vancouver Courier, civic affairs commentator Allen Garr covers the selection of the “dream team” slate of Vision Vancouver Park Board candidates seeking office this November 15th.
A question: Do you honestly believe that the cynical, one issue identity politics new faces of the probably well-meaning, but misguided Vision Vancouver Park Board slate would do anything at all to remedy the years of neglect our parks have suffered under a Vision-led municipal government, that Coree Tull, Trish Kelly, Naveen Girn or Sammie Jo Rumbaua would, for one moment, consider themselves stewards of our parks system?
Or, do you believe, as Park Board watchdog Jamie Lee Hamilton does, that:

(These four political naifs were nothing) other than … willing participants to the deal-making of the (Vision Vancouver) backroom … no different than the current Vision Commissioners, who always and still do as they are told … this new younger crop (constituting) the new faces of Vision, but sadly for voters (members of) … the same old Vision. (With these four) … the only outcome of moving forward with Vision will be the complete dismantling of an independent Park Board.

In the past, self-serving Vision Vancouver councillor Raymond Louie hit the airwaves, blaming Mother Nature, claiming that spring and summer rains caused the grasses to grow “a bit longer than normal,” all the while failing to acknowledge the $3-plus million annual cut to the Park Board budget.
Louie has even gone so far as to cite an opinion survey that says an overwhelming majority of Vancouver citizens are happy with the level of trash pickup in the city — none of which squares with Bal Brach’s story for the CBC last evening, when she reported that complaints to the city about neglect of our streets and our parks is up six per cent this year alone.
More than a few Vancouver citizens would beg to differ with Louie’s assessment of the state of disrepair of our streetscape, and our parks.
In fact, one person went so far as to write an e-mail to Vancouver City Councillor George Affleck, and City Hall, writing …

“To tell the truth, we have been looking to move to West Van as it is so much cleaner over there. Even in the busy areas of Ambleside. North Van is much cleaner also, just check out Lonsdale Ave. It’s such a pity Vancouver has been allowed to get so bad.”

As far as basic street maintenance is concerned, Charles Gauthier, president of the Downtown Vancouver Improvement Association, says the city no longer spends the budget on cleaning like it used to. He has noticed a significant decline in those funds in the last 10 years.

“Power-washing sidewalks, removing gum from sidewalks, trimming around the tree wells where there has been weeds,” he lists. “Grasses grown has reached heights that are unacceptable,” says Gauthier.

Former 24 Hours civic affairs columnist Daniel Fontaine has written

Long grass and overflowing garbage bins do appear more acute in Vancouver than other neighbouring jurisdictions. While most of us expect West Vancouver to look picture perfect, even Coquitlam, Burnaby and Richmond are doing a better job of keeping their cities looking clean and green.

Few could have predicted when Vancouver set a target of becoming the greenest city in the world it would translate into poorly maintained boulevards.

Michael Geller told News1130 reporter Alison Bailey, last evening, that he wants the City to openly admit if it doesn’t have the money to properly maintain streets and parks, or tell the public if it’s a deliberate strategy in keeping with the goal of making Vancouver a greener city. Geller also commented that a public discussion is both timely and necessary on what Vancouver citizens believe is important in terms of keeping the city clean.

Vision Vancouver Begins Its Online Campaign of Mass Hypnosis

Niki Sharma's Facebook ad touting her Vision Vancouver candidacy for Council

For those of us who spend any time at all on social media, or online news sites (including The Straight and The Tyee), one can hardly avoid the plethora of online ads touting Vision Vancouver — focusing mainly on the chiseled features of Mayor Gregor Robertson, and the campaign’s initial Go Forward branding — supplemented by sponsored ads (such as the one above for current Park Board Commissioner / acclaimed Vision Vancouver Council candidate, lawyer Niki ‘she doesn’t suffer fools gladly‘ Sharma).
Even for those of us whose lives revolve around a consuming interest in municipal political affairs, the deluge of Vision Vancouver ads wherever you turn online is, well, a bit much, too many ads, too soon, long before the campaign for civic elected office is set to get underway in earnest this fall.
For some of those among us, the every other Facebook posting-sponsored Vision Vancouver ads have about them an unpleasant sense of electoral desperation, as per putative NPA candidate / former Park Board chair Ian Robertson’s comments to The Straight’s Carlito Pablo today, “Vision Vancouver are nervous … are scared, and quite frankly, they have every reason to be nervous and scared about this upcoming election.”
Honest, Mike and Kevin, those ads are too much, too soon. It’s summer time, after all, beach time, family time, and generally considered to be the silly season in politics. Do you really want to position Vision Vancouver as silly this early in the 2014 municipal election campaign? Nope, thought not.
Helpful hint: For those of you looking to avoid those mass hypnosis Vision Vancouver ads — particularly on Facebook — correspondent / Kits Beach environmental activist Elvira Lount posted the following advice today …

Sick of seeing Gregor’s face & the Vision Team ad in your newstream? Well — it’s easy to get rid of them! Click the little down arrow on the top right of the ad and click on “hide all ads from Gregor Robertson and the Vision Team”. Presto. No more Gregor ads. Big relief. Couldn’t stand 5½ more months of those. Hurray!”

Well, there you go — problem solved. Thanks Elvira!

star.jpg star.jpg star.jpg

Word has filtered through to VanRamblings that yet another lawsuit directed at Vision Vancouver is in the works — this latest proposed legal action concerning the issue of campaign spending (can you just imagine how much those Tyee / Straight / Facebook ads cost, in heavy rotation — none of which fund expenditure requires disclosure by Vision Vancouver).