Category Archives: News

#VanPoli Civic Politics | The Death of Cynicism | Part 4 of 4

May 9, 2019#VanPoli Civic Politics, BC Politics, Canada, Jude and Megan, News, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2018, VanRamblingsRaymond Tomlin

Vancouver City Hall

From a diehard VanRamblings reader (and friend and associate, who holds VanRamblings to account), a former Park Board Commissioner, longtime politico, keen observer of Vancouver’s civic political scene, a well-respected local architect and designer, a city-builder, world traveler, husband and father, and sometimes, just sometimes, a bit of a curmudgeon…

“Not sure why you think these Councillors are doing such a great job!

In addition to being overly swayed by staff, these novice Councillors continue to sit back and leave the Vision Vancouver agenda intact, an agenda which got Vision un-elected, decimated, and an agenda that has resulted in so much damage to our City. As well, in each of your examples in your series this week on our City Councillors, the initiatives you think are so wonderful are contradicted by other decisions they have made.

In particular, Councillor Boyle’s energy shift sounds great if it is meant only to be read. But, think about how each of these ideas can be realized. She wants all neighbourhoods to be walk / bike / transit-friendly, and to use wood frame construction, and yet she voted to support the Skytrain SUBway, and it’s greenhouse gas-spewing green glass concrete towers, unfriendly to neighbourhoods, our seniors’ population and young families.

If Councillor Christine Boyle was really as good a listener as you suggest she is, as a first term Councillor she could have taken advice from knowledgeable people (think: Patrick Condon) that the two approaches are not compatible. Only Councillors Colleen Hardwick and Jean Swanson seem to have their heads screwed on straight on the transit file.

I am surprised (and disappointed), as well, to learn that Councillor Adriane Carr continues to support bonus density policies that have long proven to be and are destructive to neighbourhoods. Meanwhile, her Green seatmate on Council, Pete Fry, is trying to get everybody to drive no faster than 30kph when the most energy efficient speed is 38-40kph. While that gets him media coverage, is that sensible Green policy?

Perhaps a better sum up of Council’s performance to date is a ‘hmmm‘”.

- Bill McCreery, architect, VanRamblings reader, politico, keen city observer.

Much of what Bill McCreery writes in indisputable; he, like many across our city, is frustrated at the slow pace of change at City Hall and the cumbersome nature of decision-making, not to mention an unbecoming naïveté and acquiescence to staff, masked as the defining, seemingly newfound ethos at City Hall, now guided by “being respectful of others.”
There’s a lot of that going on at Vancouver School Board, as well - which not only makes for dull politics, it makes for unproductive, unfocused politics, politics too often in the sway of an entrenched bureaucracy, with the decision-making that takes place not for the people, but rather at the expense of the interests of the very people who elected our city officials into office, responding to a campaign of hope for better, when all we’re getting now is the same ol’ same ol, an utterly unacceptable status quo.
The lack of action thus far in civic governance is frustrating, maddening.
Swept into office on a wave of optimism and the belief that change, change for us, for parents & for children, for seniors & for renters, for the disenfranchised, for the struggling single mother and all the struggling families across our city was possible, and as assiduously as our electeds apply themselves to their work at City Hall, day-by-day, and week after frustrating week, the hope the electorate felt emboldened by last October fades into the miasma of an “I’m alright, Jack” ethos that has set our well-heeled civic officials apart from the “hoi polloi” who thrust them into office.

Sadhu Aufochs Johnston, the City Manager of Vancouver, British Columbia, the CEO.

When Mayor Gregor Robertson and his majority Vision Vancouver Council assumed office at City Hall in December 2008, the first order of business for the fledgling party was to appoint a new City Manager to carry out the programme the party had announced, run on and committed itself to during the course of their thirty-day (and night) winning campaign for office.
From 1999 until 2008, when she was unceremoniously turfed from City Hall, Judy Rogers was the city manager for the City of Vancouver, our city’s first female city manager. At the time of her dismissal by the new Council, Ms. Rogers had worked for the city of Vancouver for 25 years, spending 10 years in the role of city manager, after having become assistant city manager in 1994, and deputy city manager in 1996. She started her new employment as Vancouver City Manager on New Year’s Day in 1999.
In 2008, within one week of Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson taking office, Rogers was fired by Robertson to be replaced by Dr. Penny Ballem — who had only recently voluntarily left her role as Deputy Minister in the province’s Ministry of Health — as the new head of Vancouver’s civic administration, to provide a “fresh start” for Robertson’s and Vision Vancouver’s agenda. Ms. Rogers received $572,000 severance pay.
The catchphrase around Vancouver City Hall from late 2008 until September 15, 2015, when Mayor Robertson announced that Dr. Ballem’s service had “concluded” and Sadhu Aufochs Johnston would be her replacement was “get ‘er done.”
Dr. Ballem well understood her role: fulfill Vision Vancouver’s agenda, don’t second guess the decision-making of the new Vision Vancouver Councillors and Mayor, pave the way for substantive change and remove any impediments to change, and under no circumstance, ever, ever, ever use the word “no” when addressing Vision Vancouver Councillors, and the Mayor, during Council meetings, or when Council was in session at City Hall.
Finally, though, the people of Vancouver (and the Vision Vancouver Council) had had enough of Dr. Ballem’s strong-armed tactics, as the years went by her loyalty to her “masters” proving increasingly counterproductive to the carrying out of the Vision Vancouver agenda. Mayor Gregor Robertson all but promised the electorate during his 2014 campaign for office that he’d get rid of the cantankerous, and to many off-putting, Dr. Ballem — and after a 10-month delay, on Sept. 15, 2015 he proved true to his word.
Dr. Ballem received $556,595 in a severance package when she left Vancouver City Hall.
On September 1st, 2009 Dr. Penny Ballem announced that Sadhu Johnston would be hired as Deputy City Manager to lead the city’s environmental efforts. Note should be made that Mr. Johnston’s hiring was not that of Dr. Ballem, but of Mayor Gregor Robertson and the Vision Vancouver braintrust, who had come to know and like Sadhu Aufochs Johnston through their mutual association at Cortes Island’s Hollyhock “Lifelong Learning Centre”, which a few reporters have inferred is a “cult”, as Georgia Straight reporter Shannon Rupp wrote in an article published in The Straight on March 28th, 1996, with Rupp writing that the …

“… artificial feeling of love & acceptance is what people are paying for, but I have to admit I find these get-togethers oppressive. Perhaps the most annoying aspect of Hollyhock is its culture of conformity — Goddess forbid anyone should question anything. After five days here, I’ve found Hollyhock is really two places: the site itself is delightful, but the half-baked spiritual and psychological concepts it peddles make me uneasy.”

Over the course of the past six months as the new Mayor and eight novice Councillors have settled into their term of office and their newfound responsibilities at City Hall, as VanRamblings has attended or watched City Council and committee meetings, we have observed city manager Sadhu Johnston consistently, egregiously and unremittingly turning into “Dr. No.”
When Vision Vancouver were in power, telling the Mayor and Vision Vancouver Councillors that they couldn’t do something they had their minds set on, or even implying that there was a “no” in his address to Vision Vancouver electeds would have been tantamount to a tendering of his resignation — Sadhu Johnston was kept on at City Hall after the dismissal of Dr. Penny Ballem, to carry out Vision’s agenda, which he does these days every time he speaks at Council, and every time he scolds a Councillor with a near denunciation of their naïveté, that his is “the way things are done.”

Malcolm Bromley, General Manager of Vancouver Park Board since July 2010

The time is nearing for our current City Council to put their stamp on civic governance in the city of Vancouver.
More than one Councillor — and dozens of VanRamblings’ readers — has expressed a concern about how, as Bill McCreery puts it at the outset of today’s post, that some Councillors have been “overly swayed by staff” and that a change of city staff will be required in order that our new Council might fulfill their campaign commitments to the people of Vancouver.

“There are those of us who’d like to see a change at the top,” various Councillors have told VanRamblings, “but having to pay more than $550,000 in severance pay to the city manager, or the $1.2 million Vision Vancouver paid out in severance money to 11 employees in 2016 is just not palatable, to Councillors or the public.”

VanRamblings is not suggesting that Sadhu Johnston be fired or dismissed, rather that the accomplished Mr. Johnston be transitioned into another position of authority at City Hall, while maintaining his current salary.
Vancouver’s Mayor and Council need a leader at the top of the City Hall bureaucracy who will carry out their agenda, and not the defeated Vision Vancouver agenda. Who would that person be to replace Sadhu Johnston?
Take a look at the photo above — that is Malcolm Bromley, the current General Manager of the Vancouver Park Board, who is one of the most passionate persons with whom VanRamblings is acquainted about city-building. Most of the members of Council are familiar with the many accomplishments of Mr. Bromley, his commitment to democratic engagement, and finding a path that will enable the electeds to carry out their commitment to the citizens who elected them to office.
Councillors Melissa De Genova, Sarah Kirby-Yung and Michael Wiebe sat on Park Board when Mr. Bromley was GM. In 2014-15, when Sarah Kirby-Yung was Park Board Chairperson, Malcolm Bromley was instrumental in helping Ms. Kirby-Yung fulfill her commitment (and it was her commitment to the people of Vancouver, and not to her Non-Partisan Association party) to ban cetaceans (whales and dolphins) in captivity in Stanley Park.
VanRamblings has written previously that UBC’s Patrick Condon, Park Board’s Malcolm Bromley, and the Green Party of Vancouver City Councillor Pete Fry are the finest minds in our city on the topic of city-building, the three seasoned urban geographers familiar and admiring of the work of each member of the triumvirate VanRamblings has identified above.
Fiscal responsibility is always a concern in governance. Transitioning Malcolm Bromley from Park Board General Manager to the role of city manager, while maintaining his current salary (although he’s due for a raise), perhaps transitioning Sadhu Johnston into the role of GM of Environmental Innovation, while maintaining his salary, downsizing City Hall’s bloated communications department, would mean savings in staffing costs — and a better run city, with a bureaucratic governance in place that will facilitate the agenda of Mayor & Council, rather than appear to impede.
As we say above, “the time is nearing for our City Council to put their stamp on civic governance in the city of Vancouver,” to let the public know that they’re in charge and ready to get to work on the people’s business.

“The Death of Cynicism,” the name VanRamblings has assigned to this week’s series?
As VanRamblings has suggested throughout the week, the electorate of Vancouver displayed their unerring wisdom on Oct. 20 2018 in electing the finest group of change makers ever to sit around our city’s Council table.
Last year, when writing about the incoming Council, we wrote that it would take a year and half for our new Councillors to “find the bathrooms,” a metaphor for how long it would take new Councillors to begin to implement their agenda. And so it is, and is proving to be. Only by shaking up the bureaucracy at Vancouver City Hall, putting their own senior staff in place to carry out the new Council’s agenda, will this Vancouver City Council achieve their goal of creating a healthier, fairer and more just city for all.
VanRamblings remains confident that our new Council will usher in generational change, and that by 2022 the vast majority of the electorate will come to view governance in our city differently, knowing that the Mayor and all 10 Councillors are on their side, working for them, while achieving and putting into practice the change that will serve us all, each and every one of us, on the road to the death of political cynicism and the renewal of hope in our city, in every neighbourhood, across every diverse community.

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Health and Wellness | The Low FODMAP Diet a Digestive Wonder

April 24, 2019Food & Health, News, Vancouver, VanRamblingsRaymond Tomlin

Do you suffer from the occasional bout of gastro-intestinal distress? Most people do, and at best find it to be uncomfortable and discomfiting.
At times, that gastro-intestinal distress can flare up to such an extent, a person becomes bed-ridden, as was woefully the case in February and March with VanRamblings, in the process gravely depleting one’s energy.
Some years back, research scientists at Melbourne, Australia’s Monash University developed an eating regimen called the “low FODMAP diet”. Simply eliminating and reducing specific, high FODMAP foods proved to be such a salutary resolution to the alleviation of gastro-intestinal distress in patients with digestive disorders that many years later, the low FODMAP diet has become the default treatment for most digestive disorders.

High FODMAP foods are not well tolerated by most people’s digestive system, and should certainly not be consumed by persons who suffer with digestive disorders, whereas low FODMAP foods are well tolerated, lessening or even eliminating gastrointestinal distress

FODMAP is an acronym that stands for Fermentable Oligosaccharides Disaccharides Monosaccharides and Polyols.
In plain language?
FODMAPs are specific carbohydrates that are poorly digested by the vast majority of people (that’s you and me). Since these foods are not absorbed by the body, these short chain, sugar-laden carbohydrates travel through the digestive tract where they become fermented, resulting in painful gastro-intestinal distress, severe lower abdominal pain and discomfort, bloating, inflammation and a range of bacterial disorders that cause severe gastric distress in a person’s digestive system, more often than not resulting in discomfiting stomach cramps, bloating and problems with a person’s elimination system. In other words, not a lot of fun.
Twenty years ago, at the strong suggestion of our family physician, we eliminated dairy from our diet (probiotic lactose free yogurt, and Daiya coconut cream yogurt are just fine, though). Brad, our doc for the past 36 years, has also long been on our case to eliminate wheat from our diet — which we’ve now done, fortuitously and much to the benefit of our health.
We’re now consuming products, and baking and cooking at home with foods made with buckwheat (there’s no wheat in it!), brown rice, tapioca, almond and other non-wheat flours. We made a great, fluffy Strawberry Cinnamon Dutch Baby (with organic brown rice flour, eggs, raw turbinado sugar, and almond milk) yesterday morning for breakfast — mmmm, good.

Here’s a pdf of the definitive list of low and high FODMAP foods.
A month ago, VanRamblings had never heard of the low FODMAP diet (you’ll want to watch the Monash University produced video available in the preceding link). Fortunately, VanRamblings’ friend (and saviour, as it happens) Maureen Bayless — we’ll be writing much about Maureen in the months to come, given her pivotal role in seeing us through our seven month cancer journey back in late 2016 and early 2017 (quite simply, we wouldn’t be here without her) — came to our rescue with information on and a suggestion to adopt the low FODMAP diet (which had worked wonders for friends of hers, she said), and one month later, our energy has returned and the symptoms of our digestive disorder have been reduced by 80%; most days, anyway. We really are feeling much, much better.

All and all, the low FODMAP diet has been a snap to adopt, resulting in little change to our daily eating habits. Oatmeal — love it, and that’s still on the menu. Peanut butter on rice cakes. Almond milk rice pudding made in our Instant Pot (which, by the way, is on sale for half price at Best Buy this week, with the sale ending tomorrow, so you’ll want to rush right out to acquire this must, must, must, must have kitchen appliance).

The latest 10-function (with sous vide!) Instant Pot on sale at Best Buy til Thursday

Cantaloupe, pineapple, strawberries (organic, of course, cuz non-organic strawberries are at the top of the Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen list of pesticide-ridden, cancerous foods), blueberries and every other berry, save blackberries, are also on the approved low FODMAP list.
There are a great many low FODMAP beverages that are readily available. Lots of approved low FODMAP sweeteners are also on the list.
SPUD.ca have hundreds of gluten free / low FODMAP foods available. Save On Foods carries dozens of gluten free products, and has in fact dedicated a whole long aisle and refrigeration case to gluten free and low FODMAP foods. The same is true for Real Canadian Superstore, and most bulk food stores (for years, we’ve visited regularly at Kitsilano Natural Foods, now located at 1st Avenue and Yew, open 365 days a year, with a friendly staff).
We sorta miss apples, and have found a way to get around not being able to eat garlic (which we love!) and onions — most recipes that require garlic and onions also require oil, so we just cook the garlic and onions in the oil, infusing the oil with the taste we love, then remove these allium foods. It’s a small price to pay to not eat celery, cauliflower, and some mushrooms — when, in fact, if one is careful, one can eat small amounts of each of these foods, including wheat-based foods (but only one slice of bread a day).
Still, long term use of the low FODMAP diet is not recommended, even by those who developed the diet at Monash University, and as you’ll read in the article by respected holistic nutritionist, Julie Daniluk.
In fact, Monash University scientists make changes to their recommended list of low FODMAP foods weekly, while suggesting that one acquire their low FODMAP app to stay on top of their latest findings, and as a helpful and necessary aid when out grocery shopping.
Their scientists also recommend adding back high FODMAP foods, one by one, after 8 weeks on the diet to determine their impact on your health.
Monash University scientists are also big proponents of adopting a vegan diet, and eliminating sugars, as Ms. Daniluk recommends. As a supplement to the low FODMAP diet, VanRamblings’ doc also recommends a regimen of Align Probiotic, should one’s digestive disorder rear its ugly head.
So that’s what been happening on the health front in VanRamblings’ life since the beginning of the year. Fortunately, we’re now feeling much better, and as we’ve written earlier, as long as our health holds out — and we’re doing pretty darn good, we think — our intention is to continue to publish daily on VanRamblings through the end of June, more sporadically in the summer, while ramping up our federal election coverage full steam ahead throughout the months of September and October, until year’s end.

Decision Canada | Resurrection of Canadian Poli | Values

April 21, 2019BC Politics, Decision Canada 2019, News, PoliticsRaymond Tomlin

Six months from today, Canadian voters will go to the polls in the 43rd Canadian general election, to elect 338 Members of Parliament to Ottawa. As is the case in every election, our democracy and most cherished values will be very much on the line in the late evening of Monday, October 21st.
On this Easter Sunday, when according to the Christian faith God raised Jesus from the dead after his crucifixion, in a Sunday morning resurrection, the 43rd Canadian general election, too, is very much about resurrection.
Will Andrew Scheer’s right-of-centre Conservative party be resurrected, once again allowing the Conservatives to come to life as the governing party of Canada? Will Justin Trudeau’s Liberal party, having suffered the poor misfortunes of the Jody Wilson-Raybound ‘scandal’ be resurrected in time for the October 21st general election, and find themselves given new life after having suffered an unrelenting death spiral these past months?
Will Jagmeet Singh resurrect the federal New Democratic Party from their 42-seat position in Parliament, and bring the party a renewed vibrancy and new life? And what of Elizabeth May, Canada’s one-seat Green Party of Canada leader — with the advent of a Peter Bevan-Baker led PEI Green party government possibly in the offing this upcoming Tuesday evening, and given a vibrant and effective Green Party caucus in Victoria and a poll topping Green Party contingent in Vancouver civic government, on the evening of October 21st will Ms. May be joined by a half dozen or more of her Green Party colleagues, resurrecting grassroots democracy in Canada?
Over the course of the next six months, VanRamblings will delve into the issues that will help determine the 43rd Parliament of Canada, and whither our democracy — although, truth to tell, we also intend to write about our civic and provincial governance, as well as provide idiosyncratic coverage of the arts, the stories of our life, and during the course of the year our cancer journey, and how we find ourselves once again present and accounted for.
VanRamblings’ plan is to write daily through the end of June, addressing any number of topics that interest us, while cutting back our publishing scheduled somewhat during July and August, while once again ramping up our federal election coverage following Monday, September 2nd Labour Day.
We hope to see you back here often. We’ll be looking for you tomorrow.

Save Kits Beach: Hadden Park Trio Triumph As Bike Path Halted

November 10, 2013BC Politics, Environment, News, Politics, Save Kits Beach, VancouverRaymond Tomlin

Hadden Park trio: Megan Carvell Davis, lawyer Robert Kasting, Kitsilano activist, Tina Oliver

On Monday, November 4, 2013 — the same day as the Special Park Board Meeting, about which we’ve written previously — lawyer, and former Olympian and renowned and respected administrative barrister Robert Kasting filed a petition, in the Supreme Court of British Columbia, asking that the Courts grant his client, historian Megan Carvell Davis, an injunction pending a hearing into the issue of the tenets of the Hadden Park Trust, which Mr. Kasting and his client argue the City / Park Board to be in breach of in imposing a 12-foot-wide bike path through Hadden Park. Here’s the precise Bob Kasting to better explain the legal events of the past week …

Administrative law lawyer Bob Kasting explains legal events of the week, re: Hadden Park

As Kitsilano resident and Save Kits Beach activist Tina Oliver wrote in the Press Release that was issued on Friday …

The land on which Hadden Park sits was bequeathed to the City by Mr. Harvey Hadden in 1928, with the stipulation that Vancouver City and Park Board “shall keep the property as near as possible in its present state of nature, it being the desire of the grantor that those using the park shall, as far as reasonably be, enjoy the same in its natural state and condition.”

In recent weeks, neighbourhood residents and other concerned citizens from across the Lower Mainland have held rallies protesting the section of the bike lane that would run through Hadden Park. Ms. Carvell Davis argues that this City-approved bike path is in direct contravention of Mr. Hadden’s wishes when he deeded the park to be used as natural parkland.

The City is Court-ordered to halt any construction of the bike lane through Hadden Park until the Court addresses Ms. Carvell Davis’ Petition. The date of the trial is yet to be determined.

As Ms. Carvell Davis states, “Harvey Hadden smiles upon us today: he would be pleased to know the park he bequeathed, for all citizens, for all time, has been protected.”

Now for some more good news. As the Vancouver Sun’s Jeff Lee writes in a story published on Saturday and headlined, Vancouver park board shelves Kits Beach bike path in wake of lawsuit, “The Vancouver park board has shelved a $2.2 million plan to separate bike lanes through Kitsilano parks.”

Park Board Commissioner Constance Barnes confirmed Friday afternoon that the entire project, from the Vancouver Maritime Museum through to the other side of Kitsilano Pool has been temporarily halted as a result of a citizen-backed lawsuit over one portion of the route.

“We’re putting the whole thing on hold because we’re being sued and we need to be respectful of the process,” she said.

The Hadden Park Trust hearing likely won’t occur til sometime in June 2014.

VanRamblings believes that the section of the Seaside Greenway bike path through Hadden and Kitsilano Beach parks will never be built.
At present, we are almost exactly one full year away from the next Vancouver municipal election. By June 2014, all of Vancouver’s municipal parties will have selected their candidates for office in Vancouver’s 2014 election. Vision Vancouver will hold their nominating meeting in June 2014, the same month the Hadden Park Trust issue goes to Court. The Justice who hears the matter will likely take time to reserve judgement on the issues respecting Hadden Park that have been placed before her or him.
Whatever decision is rendered by the courts respecting Hadden Park, Vision Vancouver will not order construction to commence immediately upon judgement, should the City prevail in the Courts — Hadden Park is simply too much of a hot-button issue. While construction of the remaining sections of the Seaside Greenway (completion set for 2017) continues, Vision will likely order construction of the parks portion of the Greenway halted until 2015, “pending extensive consultation with the public.”
Despite the information being fed to the sitting Vision Vancouver Park Board Commissioners that Strategic Communications (Stratcom) polling continues to show a convincing majority win for the party at all levels, VanRamblings believes that Vision Park Board Commissioners will be thrown out of office en masse on election night, Saturday, November 15, 2014.
As little as a 5000 vote loss by Vision Vancouver in 2014, at Council and Park Board, and a consequent gain by the Non-Partisan Association, would reverse the party standings, and result in a near-majority NPA government following the November 15th, 2014 Vancouver municipal election.
From the furore over the Langara Golf Course, to the potential foreshore destroying 30-foot-wide pedestrian and bike path Vision attempted to impose in the area between Kitsilano and Jericho beaches, from Vision Park Board Commissioners’ refusal to support the construction of a Killarney Seniors Centre, to the continue hubbub over the dispute, and attempted hostile takeover, involving Vancouver’s community centres, in the past two and one-half years, in all the years VanRamblings has covered Park Board matters, never have we witnessed a Park Board regarded in lower repute than the current Vision Vancouver-dominated Vancouver Park Board.
Make no mistake, the current Vision Park Board is far and away, and by any reasonable measure, the worst elected Park Board in the 125-year storied history of the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation. In 2014, the electorate will gleefully throw the bums out — an entirely deserving fate for the most tone deaf, anti-park Park Board to ever hold office in Vancouver.
And make no mistake, either, the Non-Partisan Association (NPA), or the New Progressive Association, the party of the purple revolution, are well-prepared to take a majority position on, if not sweep, Park Board in 2014. At present, there are 19 candidates vying for an NPA Park Board nomination, led by incumbents Melissa DeGenova and John Coupar — two of the most community-minded park advocates it has been VanRamblings’ pleasure to witness in our 40+ year coverage of Park Board.
VanRamblings is aware of an active “Draft Christopher Richardson movement“ — former NPA Park Board Commissioner, current Mount Pleasant Community Centre Chairperson, and one of the finest people you could ever want to meet — as a Park Board candidate, and a “Draft Sandy Sharma” movement, as well — she ran with the NPA for a Vancouver Board of Education Trustee position in 2011 — both of these individuals incredibly bright, compassionate, non-partisan and democrats of the first order.
In addition to Coupar, DeGenova, Richardson and Sharma, there’s another prominent, and well-loved Indo-Canadian candidate, a woman, as well as an organizer with the Save Kits Beach movement, who are being hotly pursued by the NPA. Should the NPA take power at Park Board in 2014, citizens will not witness the sort of arrogant, bullying and entirely anti-democratic style of decision-making that has defined the Vision Vancouver Park Board approach to governance at the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation.
With a majority NPA Park Board in place, the Hadden + Kitsilano Beach bike freeway parks portion of the Seaside Greenway will not proceed.
And what of COPE, you ask — you mean the party of “There are no parks issues, there are only development issues“? You have to ask yourself, why would the Vancouver electorate vote for another group of “we know what’s good for you, and we’re going to shove it down your throat” Stalinist miscreants to take the place of the current crop of former COPE members, now Vision Vancouver Park Commissioners? Without the voices of former, celebrated COPE Park Board Commissioner Loretta Woodcock running for elected office, or former Park Board Chair Anita Romaniuk, or even former Park Board Commissioner Tim Louis, in the mix to run for COPE Parks in 2014, COPE does not stand a chance in hell of electing a single soul to Park Board in 2014 — which is, we would suggest to you, as it should be.
In 2014, the Green Party will likely run one candidate for Park Board — whoever that candidate might be (and it won’t be former Green Party Park Board Commissioner Stuart Mackinnon, who will be running for a Council seat, along with incumbent Adriane Carr — who has been perversely silent on the Save Kits Beach issue, lo these many weeks — in 2014). As for the “other parties”: TEAM 2.0 will not run candidates for Park Board — the same is true for the upstart Cedar Party, Vancouver First, Neighbourhoods for a Sustainable Vancouver, De-Growth, and the Work Less Party.

GlobalBC Noon News: Hadden Park bike lane put on hold. November 8, 2013

Park Board General Manager Malcolm Bromley — one of the voices of reason in the whole Save Kits Beach schmozzle, and a candidate to replace Dr. Penny Ballem as City Manager, when she is seconded to Translink to become its new CEO, in 2015 — informed Save Kits Beach organizer Howard Kelsey Friday morning that the Special Advisory Committee on the Hadden and Kits Beach parks bike route “would be placed on hold pending the outcome of the Court action brought by Ms. Carvell Davis.”
Save Kits Beach organizer Howard Kelsey has issued this statement …

Lawsuits tend to pop up when our civic leaders do not do proper due diligence, or try to ram ill-advised initiatives through without proper planning or proper public consultation. In the case of Hadden and Kits Beach parks, a tremendous resentment has been built up, as the City’s “accepted bike route” was ‘intrusively’ rammed through an already delicate balance of recreational / user groups at Kitsilano Beach. Forcing cycling via a 12-foot-wide asphalt roadway ‘inside’ an already busy park, a bike highway that could be nothing other than the riskiest of park use activities — in a park well-used by Frisbee players, for family picnics, volleyball, tennis, basketball and other activities, into the relatively harmonious state that we enjoy now — is wrong, plain wrong.

Cyclists are welcome to cycle along the nearby roadway, where they can enjoy a great seaside view and experience. Everyone can ‘win-win’.

Until the Courts determine the outcome of Megan Carvell Davis’ lawsuit, as the Chair of the Canada One Athletic Foundation, I will remain active on issues that impact on park user enjoyment of Kitsilano Beach. While the Park Board Special Advisory Committee is ‘on hold’, along with the exceptional group of people I have worked as part of Save Kits Beach, collectively and working together we will remain vigilant in our work to preserve green space at Kitsilano Beach and Hadden parks.

As Howard, and others, pointed out to VanRamblings over the past 24 hours, “the fight is not over.”

GlobalBC NewsHour, 6pm: Hadden Park bike lane put on hold. November 8, 2013

The past month organizing with Save Kits Beach has proved to be one of the finest examples of grassroots movement politics we’ve witnessed, or been a part of, in the past 40+ years of community organizing activities.
Filmmaker / activist, Laurence Keane posted the following on Facebook …

A BIG high-five to our friends at Vision Vancouver, this was way more fun than last summer’s block party!

Vision dumped a surprise community project in our laps and challenged us to work together. And we did, we made a great team full of amazing, passionate individuals with so many disparate talents. It’s been a pleasure working with all of you remarkable guys and gals!

VanRamblings would like to pay tribute to Save Kits Beach folks …

Howard Kelsey. The key media spokesperson for, and de facto leader of, Save Kits Beach, a tough, organized, hard-working guy, a former Olympian (his work ethic and dedication to task shone through each hour of every day), not a political animal — but an affable man who, through character and determination, pulled a group of concerned citizens together over the past month to rescue Hadden and Kitsilano Beach parks from the back hoes and assorted construction activities that would have imposed a 12-foot-wide asphalt bike freeway right through the middle of these two beautiful waterfront parks.
Elvira Lount. Absolutely tireless, and like Howard, full of energy, whenever and wherever there was an event to be organized, Elvira could be counted on. Her Keep Kits Beach Wild Facebook page, as well as her own Facebook account, was day in, day out, the ‘go to’ to place for information on Save Kits Beach. Elvira’s photography is simply exquisite (there’s yet another example at the top, and end, of today’s post), her computer design skills exemplary, hers a fine mind of unparalleled creative talent and ability, her demeanour calm always. Elvira is at all times warmly engaging and inspiringly enthusiastic — and her addresses to our exhausted Park Board Commissioners, researched and reasoned in their line of unassailable argument.
David Fine and Laurence Keane. David won an Academy Award for Best Animated Short for Bob’s Birthday. When days were looking darkest, David’s brilliant short, Kits Bike Path – The Movie, injected needed humour, perspective, wit, and a warm attention to the issues that we were doing our best to articulate to the public.
Laurence was the unofficial cinematographer of the Save Kits Beach movement, that’s his Utopia Pictures videos of all Save Kits Beach events over the past month, online, on social media, and on VanRamblings. We’re grateful to you for all your fine work, Laurence.
The anonymous individual who drew the accurate bike path lanes through Hadden and Kitsilano Beach parks — you are owed a debt of gratitude from all of us in the Save Kits Beach movement, and all those who value of our parks and green space.
Megan Carvell Davis, Tina Oliver and Bob Kasting. It was Hadden Park historian Megan Carvell Davis whose idea it was to bring suit against Park Board and the City of Vancouver to halt construction of the paved bike path through Hadden Park. Thanks to Megan’s unparalleled knowledge and insight into Hadden Park history, with the help of Bob and Tina, the imposition of a 12-foot-wide asphalt bike path through Hadden Park was stopped in its tracks.
Bob Kasting. Bronze medal winner in swimming, in the 4x100m Medley Relay, at the 1972 Summer Olympics, in Munich, and multiple medal winner at the Empire, and the British, games, Bob came on board, not as the legal counsel for Save Kits Beach, but rather for Megan Carvell Davis. The respect Bob has garnered in the legal community, and a style of presentation of argument (as can be seen in the video near the top of this post) that is both devastating in its peerless internal logic and presentation, and a wonderment to behold, has carried the day for all of us who care passionately about our parks, our green spaces as oases of tranquility amidst the hurly burly of our daily lives.
John Coupar and Melissa DeGenova. Prior to the October 7th Park Board meeting, it was John Coupar who first raised the issue of concern with Howard Kelsey, and with the media, respecting the paved bike path through Hadden and Kits Beach parks — in respect of the dark decision-making at Park Board (par for the course for Vision Vancouver) that imposed a 12-foot-wide asphalt bike path through the parks, sans consultation and public outreach.
The Save Kits Beach movement was born October 9th. John has been present at each activity conducted by Save Kits Beach, and has spoken out publically to anyone who would listen, about the travesty that would occur should a paved bike route through the parks be imposed. John’s father was a horticulturalist, and as a consequence he emerged in his adult life as an advocate for parks and horticulture.

Working to save the Bloedel Conservatory situated in Queen Elizabeth Park, between the 2008 and 2011 election, when it appeared that Park Board was going to sacrifice the Bloedel Conservatory to the altar of “fiscal responsibility” (and in the process destroy / desecrate an iconic feature of the Vancouver landscape) was what ended up bringing John into politics, although he’s far from what most of us would consider a politician to be. In fact, where many of those in the political realm are driven by expediency that is not the case with John — if you look up the word integrity in the dictionary, John’s picture accompanies the definition. Over the past two years, John Coupar has gained the respect of everyone whose path he crosses — including the Vision Park Board Commissioners; it is quite simply an impossibility to not like and admire John Coupar. We in Vancouver are fortunate to have John as an elected representative, as an ardent, articulate advocate for parks.

John conducts the best research of the two NPA Commissioners, and finds his way to putting on the Park Board table a reasoned, coherent, and unassailable argument (doesn’t mean his Vision colleagues don’t ignore him — they do, and call him names in the process, all the while impeaching his integrity, character, reputation and good name, to the extent that John has to, consistently, take his Vision Vancouver
Park Board Commissioner colleagues to task, and even then they ignore him, as if being a person of integrity is something to be scorned).

Melissa DeGenova, on the other hand, is one tough cookie — it is Melissa who consistently holds Vision’s feet to the fire, and is present to support and encourage every initiative that her NPA Park Board Commissioner colleague John Coupar undertakes. Melissa is the ‘politician’ of the two NPA Park Board Commissioners — she knows procedure, she’s quick on her feet, and despite the worst, most abusive treatment directed toward her by her Vision Vancouver Park Board Commissioner colleagues [we’re talking ’bout you, Aaron Jasper, Niki Sharma, Constance Barnes, Trevor Loke, and — less often, but often enough — Park Board Chair, Sarah Blyth] — that VanRamblings has ever had the misfortune to witness in the political arena, at any level of government - when most of us would be running home to cry to our moms - Melissa consistently gives as good as she gets, and time and again she bests her woefully inept, mean-spirited, and terribly bullying Visionless Park Board Commissioner colleagues.

This past Monday, November 4th, Melissa outdid herself. Melissa’s address to her Park Board colleagues — and to the approximately 100 members of the public who were present just as the vote was to be taken on John Coupar’s motion calling for “transparency of process” in the determination of a final route for parks portion of the Seaside Greenway — was, quite simply, the single most moving evocation of community spirit and commitment to democratic engagement at the Park Board table that we have ever heard voiced and been witness to; we were, all of us who were in attendance, in awe.
Sandra Thomas, Jeff Lee, Jennifer Palma, and all the media. Without the inveterate coverage of the Save Kits Beach movement by Sandra Thomas in The Vancouver Courier — whose writing on parks issues, as has long been the case, is incisive every time, and without peer — and Vancouver Sun municipal affairs reporter, Jeff Lee — the finest writer on municipal affairs of a generation (the citizens of Vancouver must remain grateful every day that Jeff did not take ‘early retirement’ — particularly now that a Vancouver municipal election is looming in the next year) — not to mention, the indefatigable Jennifer Palma, at Global BC, whose command of the core Save Kits Beach issues, Park Board and City governance amazed, and whose humanity and intelligence shines through in all of her reports on Save Kits Beach.
And let us not forget, Steve Bohus and Randy Helten at CityHallWatch, who were the first in the media to jump on the Save Kits Beach issues and report out, and Sam Cooper at The Province who wrote to deadline with a keen intelligence and precise understanding of the Save Kits Beach issues, and Charlie Smith and Yolanda Cole, at The Straight — the ‘go to’ place to read about what’s going on in our City. And to award-winning producer and host of The Rush on Shaw TV, Fiona Forbes, who has stood with Save Kits Beach since day one.

And lest we forget, freelance writer Bob Mackin, the hardest-working ‘holding the pols feet to the fire’ / ‘no fear, no favour’ muckraking journalist to emerge on Vancouver’s ‘often too polite’ Vancouver media scene in years and years, whose ‘down and dirty’ — and always relevant — local coverage of parks and civic issues is without peer.

As well as, the news department of our public broadcaster, the CBC; the production team at CBC Radio One’s The Early Edition, and host Rick Cluff, and to all those in the media who assisted those of us involved in the Save Kits Beach movement to inform Metro Vancouver residents in order that they might better understand what was at risk contingent to the issues Save Kits Beach sought to bring to the fore — the loss of Hadden and Kitsilano Beach parks as places for families to gather, for folks to play tennis, basketball and volleyball, sit in peace under the maple trees on the north end of Kits Beach, or picnic with their families, or to sit on one of the memorial benches placed along Hadden Park, in order that we might gaze in wonderment across Burrard Inlet, to the mountains, English Bay and the ever-burgeoning towers of the West End — to recognize what we were at risk of losing should a 12-foot-wide asphalt bike freeway be constructed within the midst of two waterfront parks of unsurpassed beauty.

Those of us involved in the Save Kits Beach movement will remain grateful always for the coverage by Vancouver media that informed and enlightened, and allowed Save Kits Beach to get our message out to all among us who love Kitsilano Beach and Hadden parks.
To Randey Brophey, who has won accolades in the community and online, for taking the fight for the preservation of Kits Beach and Hadden parks to the Park Board Commissioners, a man of clear conscience and integrity, with the support of everyone who knows him, and everyone who comes to know him.
To Maria Coehlo, who emerged as one of the keynote speakers at the Sunday, October 20th Save Kits Beach rally, and the first person to bring to light the safety issues that would impact on park users - and, most particularly, small children - should the paved bike freeway be imposed by the City.

To Lynne Kent, who played a pivotal role in the Kits Point Residents Association, who when she’s not working with the Save Kits Beach folks, fulfills her role as President of the Executive Committee of the Board of YWCA Canada. Somehow in her busy schedule, no matter the time day or night, Lynne was on her computer sending out and responding to e-mails, her reasoning on every issue impeccable, her voice at the October 20th rally, clarion. In addition, Lynne introduced Megan Carvell Jones to Tina Oliver, who in turn introduced Megan to Robert Kasting — the rest is, of course,
history.

Adam Smith played a pivotal role, as well, not only as a member of the Kits Point Residents Association, but in large measure as the ‘communications’ / social media / rally the troops guy, the person who worked most closely with Lynne Kent, and in some measure, one of the individuals who was the glue that held us all together.

And to Jason Johns, parent and Kits resident, who spoke out November 7th at Park Board, and has worked with Save Kits Beach every step of the way, as has Don Shaw, Bill Hooker, Mike Lount, Julian Phipps, Gloria Sully, Grant Vanderhoek, we hope-the-soon-to-be NPA candidate for Mayor, Ian Robertson, Colleen Hardwick (migawd, Colleen, those early videos of Hadden and Kits Beach parks), Garry Chalk, Ken Leung, and far too many more names than we have space to mention in this blog post — each of whom has made a contribution of tremendous import to the Save Kits Beach movement that has, now, stopped the parks portion of the Seaside Greenway dead in its tracks.
And to all those who commented frequently on Facebook, wrote letters, attended the rallies and media events, encouraged all of us whose lives were overtaken by work on the Save Kits Beach movement, to Anita Sigur, Catherine Welsh, Pauline Maden, Ricardo Zborovszky, Chris Cross, Roni Jones, Jane Burkart, Jamie Lee Hamilton, Stuart Mackinnon, Connie McGinley, and oh so many more, thank you, thank you for your support — we couldn’t have done it without you.

If you’ve not signed Margaret Partridge’s petition, we would ask that you do so now, and tell your friends about what’s been going on between the Vision Vancouver-dominated Park Board, and our beautiful Hadden and Kitsilano Beach parks, and ask them please to sign the petition.

Hadden Park Injunction Press Conference. Courtesy of Elvira Lount. November. 9, 2013