Category Archives: Politics

#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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#VanPoli Civic Politics | The Death of Cynicism | Part 3 of 4

May 8, 2019#VanPoli Civic Politics, BC Politics, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2018, VanRamblingsRaymond Tomlin

Vancouver City Council, 2018 thru 2022, left to right: Councillors Rebecca Bligh, Christine Boyle, Colleen Hardwick, Pete Fry, Adriane Carr, Mayor Kennedy Stewart, Melissa De Genova, Jean Swanson, Michael Wiebe, Lisa Dominato, and Sarah Kirby-Yung.

Part 3 of The Death of Cynicism series offers again a brief insight into, this time, four Vancouver City Councillors: the “she’s the only Councillor who has kept her focus on why Council was elected” Jean Swanson; the incredibly articulate and bright (and, dare we say, hope of our future), Sarah Kirby-Yung; the indefatigable, hard-charging, never-say-die Colleen Hardwick; and the ‘wears his heart on his sleeve’, ‘man of the people’, who by the way is also incredibly bright and articulate (and a great writer, to boot), migawd are we glad he’s on Council, hard-working for us, Pete Fry.
Note. Today’s posting represents a bit of a departure from the ‘survey of what they’ve done’ coverage of the six Councillors we’ve written about to date this week — today’s column more an impressionistic take on the four Councillors we write about (glowingly, as it happens) in this column.

Much beloved Vancouver City Councillor Jean Swanson, pictured with Council ‘helpmate’ (who offers Jean support at Council meetings), former COPE Councillor, Anne Roberts.

There’s a reason Jean Swanson was elected in the top four of City Councillors thrust into office in Vancouver in the October 2018 municipal election. Councillor Swanson (“Jean, call me Jean — I mean, really“) made it abundantly clear during last year’s raucous election cycle that she was about one thing and one thing only: making ours a fairer and more just city, to wit … that housing is a human right, and that she would be dogged in working to secure social housing for those most in need, and affordable housing for women and men and families who are being driven out of the city by Vancouver’s unaffordable housing prices, and sky-rocketing rents.
And true to her word, Councillor Jean Swanson has done just that.

Councillor Swanson’s frustration at the unfocused, off-topic flights of fancy in which her Council colleagues often engage — forgetting all the while, and seeming to utterly ignore that job one for this Council is the provision of affordable housing — has only kept her more single-minded in her pursuit of social justice for the 80% of Vancouver residents who are having a hard go of it in Vancouver, and look to her to resolve the morass that life in our city can sometimes prove to be resultant from an economic unfairness.
Although Councillor Swanson initially found the process of decision-making and the adherence to Roberts Rule of Order at Council meetings contrary to what for her constituted good governance — which is to say, getting on with the job she, and her Council colleagues were elected to perform … by which she means, an immediate restructuring of decision-making at City Hall in order to undertake the massive task of ensuring the provision of affordable housing in our city — in recent months, as she has become aware that a mastery of Roberts Rule of Order was mandatory if she were to be effective in promoting our cause at the Council table, Ms. Swanson has proved an effectual and determined Council procedural whirlwind, while having to develop patience with a contingent of her younger Council colleagues who far too often seem to be held in sway to the wishes of city staff, and most egregiously to gainsaying City Manager, Sadhu Johnston.

Vancouver City Councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung (in the middle) on one of her many forays into the community, at this year’s S.U.C.C.E.S.S. Gala, flanked on her right by the organization’s CEO, Queenie Choo, and Pete Fry’s long-suffering but loving wife, Donna, and on her left, Councillor Pete Fry, and her NPA Park Board colleague, Tricia Barker.

One of the three most media savvy Vancouver City Councillors (the other two, Councillors Christine Boyle and Pete Fry, although we would be remiss not to place truth-telling, far from naïve, ‘always speaks her mind’ Councillor Colleen Hardwick in this category), VanRamblings’ favourite City Councillor, focused and on our side to a fare-thee-well, for us the star of this Council, the camera loves her and so do we (and by ‘we’ I mean the people of Vancouver, and our sometimes cynical press), Sarah Kirby-Yung.
Sarah Kirby-Yung is a populist of the first order (and, no, not a Trump-like populist), who practices the ‘politics of the people’ in much the way that the much-missed Rafe Mair did when he was in office. Calm, reasoned and reasonable, a woman anyone who knows her or listens to what she has to say becomes quickly aware that while articulate, informed and forthcoming on a range of topics of concern to the public, that when Councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung speaks, she is speaking directly to you, plain-spoken always, her words measured, substantive and easy to ‘grok’, her reassuring voice tinged with just a hint of an upbeat, hopeful and inspiring tone, leaving all who know or have heard her with a sense that “this Sarah Kirby-Yung person, she’s on our side, she’s the real deal, a woman we can count on.”
Councillor Kirby-Yung is by far the best communicator on Council (although she has competition on that front from the tireless, always on our side, Christine Boyle). We have written previously, and will write again, that it is mandatory that all citizens in Vancouver follow Ms. Kirby-Yung on Twitter — at the moment, Sarah Kirby-Yung has 2,875 followers on Twitter (and 9251 tweets! … that’s double, triple, quadruple and as much as 10x as many tweets - that’d be tweets to us - as any of her earnest Council mates).
Sarah Kirby-Yung oughta have 28,740 followers on Twitter! Make it happen!
Just last week, we were speaking to a revered community activist of our acquaintance, an almost scarily bright and informed and accomplished woman of an age who, in the midst of a discussion of Board of Variance ‘third party appeals’ (of which Council will be hearing much from VanRamblings in the months to come) when, during a reflective pause in the conversation, my well-schooled interlocutor calmly stated to me …

“Raymond, Sarah Kirby-Yung is, by far, my favourite City Councillor - she listens well and responds to questions put to her in an authentic manner, hears what the questioner has asked, and actually answers the questions. The more I see and hear of her, the more interviews I read with her, the more I hear her speak at community functions, the more I’ve become impressed with what a treasure Councillor Kirby-Yung is proving to be.”

And this, from a woman on the left, an activist difference-maker, well-educated, erudite and — again — an informed activist very much on the left side of the political spectrum, a woman of great acccomplishment who has done much for the livability of our city as a longtime social justice warrior.
In having covered politics for 50 years, I’m not sure that I’ve ever ‘covered’ a political figure who speaks to & for citizens across the political spectrum, as cogently as Sarah Kirby-Yung does every single day of her political life.

For VanRamblings, Councillor Colleen Hardwick has proved to be the biggest, and most pleasant, surprise for her many important contributions during her now six month tenure on Vancouver City Council.
Throughout last year’s municipal election, those in the know - regular VanRamblings correspondents who have worked in and around civic politics in our city, sometimes for generations - kept protesting to VanRamblings …

“Raymond, why the hell are you not throwing your support behind Colleen? You know her, you know how accomplished she is, and you agree with all of the positions on the issues she espouses and has long espoused, yet you’ve been sparing in your support of her. Give your head a shake, man! Colleen is a lock for Council, and she’s going to prove to be a difference-maker. The sooner you get on board, the better off you’ll be.”

Lo and behold, VanRamblings’ many friends were absolutely correct in their assessment of Councillor Colleen Hardwick’s effectiveness on Council, often a lone voice - on the transit file, for instance, where her support for light rail remains unchanged (in the long run she will be proven right), and on which position, VanRamblings is 100% in accord with the good Councillor.
As we have reported directly to Councillor Hardwick, not a day has gone by this past six months when a friend of ours living in one of Vancouver’s 23 neighbourhoods has not extolled the virtues of Ms. Hardwick, and because we tend to run with a socialist crowd we’re talking left-wing activists here. Just yesterday, in fact, our friend Terry Martin (whose 65th it is today, by the way!), the Chair of the Board of Variance on which we sat a decade ago and more - all but gushed throughout our lunch together about how …

“Colleen is the only truth-teller on Council, she is the only one not in sway to despicable elements within City staff who have ridden roughshod over Council since they were elected last October. Not to mention, Colleen Hardwick emerged as the only Councillor who stood opposed to that white elephant, neighbourhood-destroying, Geoff Meggs promoting Broadway subway line. Seems to me that your friend Colleen is the only Councillor willing, able and capable on getting on with things.”

We’ve not heard much from Councillor Hardwick this past little while (she’s missed some Council meetings) due to a bout of illness — VanRamblings believes that Colleen was simply experiencing sympathy pains for VanRamblings’ own, recent health travails (we sit in the same pew together at church; perhaps whatever I had was catching?).
At church this past Sunday, Councillor Colleen Hardwick assured us that she is back (!), fully recovered, raring & ready to go, all set to once again apprise her Council mates and the electorate that Vancouver City Councillor Colleen Hardwick is a force of nature, a woman who will not be denied, who will continue to fight for what she believes in even if hers is, on occasion, a lone voice on an issue of contention. A voice on our side, fighting for us.

Pete Fry, supporting the creation of a Vancouver Junior Roller Derby League for our city! Gathered with skaters — the next generation who will cast a ballot for him, because Pete Fry is going to be around for a long, long time — looking for a space for this healthy, fitness achieving and popular and growing sport in our city.

As is the case with Vancouver City Councillors Sarah Kirby-Yung and Christine Boyle, VanRamblings is simply over-the-moon about Councillor Pete Fry’s ascension to a position of political power in our city, who we fittingly described at the outset of today’s posting.
The Death of Cynicism? How to achieve that in Vancouver civic politics?

Thy names are Sarah Kirby-Yung, Christine Boyle and Pete Fry who, by 2022, working with their colleagues on Council, will have begun the process of transformation in our city that will endure for generations to come, each a member of the city of Vancouver Council triumvirate that by dint of their hard work, dedication, intellect, passion and compassion, and visionary leadership will have created the conditions that will see the realization of a city for all, with every economic and social strata, with members across every ethnic community, indigenous and First Nations groups, and the breadth of the gender variant spectrum resident in every neighbourhood in our city, housed when such is required in affordable housing, where families will flourish, where our parks and recreation system and community centres will once again thrive and serve the interests of our burgeoning community.
Pete Fry’s is one of the voices you hear, read and have read about most often these past six months (along with Councillors Kirby-Yung and Boyle), is the Councillor who most believes in community consultation and collaboration — as a democrat, and longtime supporter of the work of the Coalition of Vancouver Neighbourhoods — who takes responsibility for the decisions he takes at Council, and apologizes when he deems it appropriate (willing always to be held to account, reconsidering his position on an issue following democratic input from the public — all of which, of course, makes Pete Fry a mensch, given that only healthy men, and women, know when it’s appropriate and necessary to take responsibility, apologize and reconsider an issue when they deem it fit to do so).
Councillor Pete Fry is also willing to make the hard decisions, telling Globe and Mail freelance reporter Adrienne Tanner that he won’t shy away from controversial political conversations, even about Council’s continued funding of school lunch programmes “just because it’s politically unpalatable.”
Note. The province, as part of its poverty reduction strategy, as of March of this year, has accepted responsibility for the funding and administration of hot lunch programmes in school districts across our province.
There is about Councillor Pete Fry a gregariousness and warmth, an authenticity and sense of purpose, a humanity and caring that all at once acknowledges social responsibility that is tempered by fiscal responsibility, and appropriate jurisdiction. Heart and mind: that’s Councillor Pete Fry, in your corner, always there and available to listen, approachable and kind, a renaissance man for our age & an historic difference maker for the better.

#VanPoli Civic Politics | The Death of Cynicism | Part 2 of 4

May 7, 2019#VanPoli Civic Politics, BC Politics, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2018Raymond Tomlin

Vancouver City Council, to serve from 2018 thru October 2022, clockwise: Councillors Rebecca Bligh, Christine Boyle, Adriane Carr, Melissa De Genova, Lisa Dominato, Michael Wiebe, Jean Swanson, Sarah Kirby-Yung, Colleen Hardwick, and Pete Fry.

VanRamblings’ four part series this week on the state and nature of civic politics, as practiced in the City of Vancouver, continues.
Today, we’ll provide a bit of history and insight into Councillors Melissa De Genova, Lisa Dominato and Michael Wiebe, all elected to Council this past October, providing as well a brief insight into how each is faring in the current term of office at Vancouver City Hall.

Second term Vancouver City Councillor Melissa De Genova, Chairperson of Council’s standing committee on City Finance and Services, and Council delegate to the Metro Vancouver Board, where she will be joined by her first term NPA colleagues, the estimable Colleen Hardwick and Lisa Dominato, as well as OneCity Vancouver’s entirely tremendous Christine Boyle, and the Green Party of Vancouver’s Adriane Carr, who will joined on the Metro Vancouver board by her Green Council colleague, Michael Wiebe.

Vancouver voters first elected the quite wonderful, on our side, Melissa De Genova to office in 2011, to our city’s much cherished Park Board — but, at the time, woefully underfunded, due to the Vision Vancouver City Council of the day’s demolition of the Park Board budget — securing for herself and the party with which she ran and remains a member, the Vancouver Non-Partisan Association, a fifth place finish, securing 56,501 votes, exactly 6,622 votes more than Vision’s Trevor Loke’s seventh (and last) place finish. Vision Vancouver + the NPA = trouble writ large.
The Vision Vancouver-led Park Board, first elected to a majority in the 2008 election, were quite something to behold, good people but very much loyalists to their party, often at the expense of serving the public interest.
From the outset, given Vision’s poor treatment of Ms. De Genova, and her NPA Park Board colleague, John Coupar, in her first term in elected office, Melissa (“Melissa, just call me Melissa”) knew she was in for the fight of her life — to know Melissa is to know that she was very much up to the task. Park Board Commissioner De Genova never gave an inch to her opposition on the Board, making it abundantly clear she felt they were scoundrels.
During her now eight years at the seat of political power in our city, Melissa De Genova, to be effective, has always needed a foil. At Park Board, in Aaron Jasper, Niki Sharma, Sarah Blyth, Trevor Loke and Constance Barnes, Ms. De Genova had foils times five, although she reserved most of her disdain for Mr. Jasper, Ms. Blyth, Ms. Sharma and Mr. Loke, in that order — more often than not, letting the admirable Ms. Barnes off scott free.
In her second term on Council, Ms. De Genova has acquitted herself well, adjusting to the more collegial approach to governance that has come to define our new Council. But ever in need of a foil, most unfortunately Councillor De Genova has chosen her very bright NPA colleague, first term Councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung (the latter, VanRamblings’ favourite Councillor). Almost makes one harken for the good ol’ toe-to-toe battles Councillor De Genova waged with Vision Vancouver climate change warrior, Andrea Reimer, who always gave as good as she got — a worthy adversary, indeed.

[In an article from The Georgia Straight]. “Recently, Councillor De Genova was one of the five members of Council who voted against Council’s tax shift burden motion, joined by Mayor Kennedy Stewart and councillors Christine Boyle, Colleen Hardwick, and Jean Swanson.

‘That doesn’t mean that I voted against supporting small businesses, Ms. De Genova told The Straight’s Carlito Pablo in a phone interview.

Councillor De Genova said there are other ways of reducing the tax burden on businesses without pitting them against homeowners. One example she cited is for the city to work with the province to modify the business-property class so multinational companies pay higher taxes. Revenues can be passed on to help local businesses.”

Note should be made that Councillor De Genova was part of a recent unanimous vote to pass a precedent-setting climate action plan for our city.

Lisa Dominato, another one of VanRamblings’ favourite new Councillors, the quiet intellectual heft behind this new Council, a Councillor who really knows how to consult and listen (and do her homework), a communicator par excellence, a woman of great accomplishment (as may be seen below), one of the four millennials on Council — in fact, one of the more than two dozen millennials elected across our region this past October — and a recent outstanding Vancouver School Board trustee, who served with distinction on Vancouver School Board following the 2017 by-election.

[From the City website]. Ms. Dominato is a a public servant who has held several senior management portfolios with the Government of British Columbia, specializing in social policy. A former chief of staff to the Deputy Premier and Minister of Education, and a senior advisor to the B.C. government’s Minister of Management Services, throughout her time in the public service, Ms. Dominato became known for her collaborative and pragmatic approach to tackling complex issues and building strong relationships to achieve common goals.

Graduating with a Master of Arts in Leadership from Royal Roads University, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from UBC and University of Burgundy in Dijon, France, Ms. Dominato is fluent in French and English, a recipient of the Premier’s Annual Innovation and Excellence Awards, and (am I allowed to say this?), a loving and attentive mom.

An utterly charming person with whom to speak to and interact with (pretty rare in this day and age of too often rank partisanship), Councillor Lisa Dominato continues to live in Hastings-Sunrise with her husband, Dale, and their two daughters, who are aged 7 and 5.
Truth to tell and unsurprisingly, Councillor Dominato has proved to be one of the more fiscally conservative (or is that, fiscally responsible?) members, among her new colleagues on Council (but not socially conservative, by any stretch of the imagination), who among other initiatives, recently supported Council’s 2% tax shift from small business to homeowners …

“The small businesses are really fundamental to the character of our community, to our city, and when I talked to homeowners about [a tax shift], it was welcomed — they understand that it might be $40 or $80 more on their property tax,” Councillor Dominato recently told Vancouver Courier civic affairs reporter, Mike Howell. “I didn’t feel there was a divide of homeowners versus businesses. It was very much that we value our small businesses, we value having jobs in our community so people can work here and live here.”

On the environmental front, Councillor Dominato was one of the strong voices on Council supporting Councillor Christine Boyle’s activist and necessary climate action motion, and when responding to a query from the TriCity News’ Grant Lawrence averred that Vancouver is considering a plastic bag ban by 2021, referring Mr. Lawrence to the City of Vancouver’s director of waste management and resource recovery, who told the reporter that “a recommendation for a bag ban may come sooner than 2021.”
Councillor Dominato is also a heritage advocate, recently expressing concern at a public hearing about the pending demolition of the 71-year-old Kitsilano Lutheran Church, at 2715 West 12th Avenue.
Councillor Lisa Dominato sits on the Metro Vancouver Board, and in November 2018 was appointed as the Chairperson of the Pacific National Exhibition Board.

Arising from an often raucous 2018 change election, Vancouver City Councillor Michael Wiebe represents one of four millennial voices on Council — Vancouver’s other millennial councillors, Rebecca Bligh (NPA), Christine Boyle (OneCity) and Lisa Dominato (NPA) — has emerged as our city’s most passionate arts advocate, and staunch representative of small business (himself the owner operator of eight 1/2 Restaurant Lounge, just off Main on East 8th Avenue), last week supporting Council’s motion to shift the tax burden away from small business operator to homeowners.
Councillor Wiebe was one of only a few Councillors who supported granting the 4/20 organizers a permit, as he did last term, when he sat as both a Park Board Commissioner, and later as the Park Board Chairperson.

“If we permit them, we would be able to deal with the stage. We could work to make [the event] smaller, to make sure there are enough washrooms, and work to establish a site plan,” Councillor Wiebe told the CBC. “In a non-permitted event, we don’t have those controls.”

Councillor Wiebe also spoke in favour of finding the capital funding for rebuilding Coal Harbour’s shuttered Harbour Green Dock, the closure of which in 2018 meant the end of a Bowen Island commuter passenger service provided by Bowen Land and Sea Taxi since 2010.
Councillor Wiebe, along with his Green Party Council colleagues and the full contingent of NPA Councillors, in December 2018, voted with a Council majority 7-3 to ask the B.C. NDP government to withdraw the province’s school surtax levied on homes valued at $3 million, or higher. Mayor Kennedy Stewart, and Councillors Jean Swanson and Christine Boyle of the Coalition of Progressive Electors and OneCity, respectively, cast the negative votes. NPA Councillor Lisa Dominato was absent during the vote.
Truth to tell, Councillor Michael Wiebe is still finding his feet on Council, attendant to the voices of City Hall staff, and his fellow Councillors.
To date we’ve not heard much from Mr. Wiebe on either of the critically important affordable housing or transit files — a circumstance that is likely to change this upcoming September, when City staff report back to Council on proposed changes to the Rental 100 programme. Mr. Wiebe’s fellow Green Councillor, Adriane Carr, has already spoken in favour of mandating that developers set aside 20% of units in all new rental (and we would hope, condo) construction at the CMHC / Council “moderate rental rate” — $950 for a studio unit; $1,200, one bedroom; $1,600, two bedrooms; and $2,000, three bedrooms (with lower “moderate rents” on Vancouver’s eastside), for those earning between $30,000 and $80,000, which would be one component of Council’s upcoming affordable housing strategy.

#VanPoli Civic Politics | The Death of Cynicism | Part 1 of 4

May 6, 2019#VanPoli Civic Politics, BC Politics, Canada, Environment, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2018, VanRamblingsRaymond Tomlin

The time has arrived once again for VanRamblings to weigh in on the state and nature of civic politics, as practiced in the City of Vancouver.
Today’s post will begin a brief insight into the 10 City Councillors who were elected this past October, and how each is faring in the current term.

As per the graphic above, Councillor Rebecca Bligh is Vancouver City Council’s delegate to, and a Board member of, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, replacing retired City Councillor Raymond Louie in that role.
The socially-skilled Ms. Bligh has emerged, as might well be expected given her background in business, as one of the more conservative voices on Council — although, as is the case with her Non-Partisan Association colleagues, a fiscal conservative and certainly not a social conservative.
Working with her fellow elected, progressive and feminist NPA City Councillors, Council Finance Chair Melissa De Genova, Lisa Dominato, Colleen Hardwick and Sarah Kirby-Yung, Ms. Bligh’s focus has tended towards looking after the public purse, keeping taxes low and, most recently, championing the shifting of the tax burden away from small business owners — who you may have noticed have been going out of business in record numbers these past months, with vacancy signs on arterials throughout the city — to homeowners — receiving support for this important initiative from councillors Sarah Kirby-Young, Lisa Dominato, Michael Wiebe, Adriane Carr and Pete Fry. Note should be made that small business bears up to 49% of the tax burden in the City of Vancouver.
Note should also be made that the passage of the tax shift motion represented the first time this current term Councillors voted contrary to staff wishes, who unsurprisingly emerged as the only voices in opposition to the tax shift — for a Council that has tended to be in sway to City staff, Councillors’ decision to act in the public interest rather than bureaucratic staff interest, represents hope on the horizon that Council, in future, may more consistently vote for us, rather than adhere to bureaucratic wishes.

Councillor Christine Boyle (pictured above) has emerged as Vancouver City Council and our city’s leading climate change warrior, this past January introducing a ground-breaking, precedent-setting motion that in the process of declaring a climate emergency, mandated Six Big Moves …

1. That 90% of Vancouver citizens will eventually live within an easy walk or stroll of their daily needs. That implies much more densification in South Vancouver, where this is mostly not the case — apart from in Marpole, Oakridge, Dunbar, Kerrisdale, and South Hill;

2. Council will set a target of 50% of kilometres driven in 2030 will be made in zero-emission vehicles. This implies a sharp increase in electric-vehicle charging stations and far more extensive efforts to make these available to tenants, who comprise 53 percent of the city’s population;

3. By 2030, two-thirds of trips will be by walking, cycling, rollerblading, and transit. This implies that more road space for motor vehicles will be taken away to accommodate non-motorists. This process has already begun on the Granville Street bridge;

4. That all new replacement heating and hot water systems will deliver zero emissions, which implies a sharp expansion of neighbourhood energy utilities and the use of heat pumps;

5. Setting a target of reducing embedded emissions in new buildings and construction projects to 40% of 2018 levels by 2030, which as Georgia Straight editor Charlie Smith writes, “would inevitably lead to far more wood construction and far less use of cement, as well as fewer underground parkades”;

6. Passing policies that will remove one million tonnes of carbon annually by 2060 through regeneration of local forests and coastal ecosystems, which as Mr. Smith writes, “… implies a whole lot of tree planting.”

This past week Council unanimously approved the climate action initiative.
As VanRamblings has long contended, 34-year-old Councillor Christine Boyle represents the hope of our future, a visionary leader made for our times, a humble political figure who surveys a broad cross-section of public opinion (listening, really listening) before acting, a Tommy Douglas-like figure (although, she’s not there yet — but she will be!) who inspires, has consistently proven she can work productively with others, and whose clarion voice — as is the case with many of her Council colleagues — is undeniable, honest and true & in Ms. Boyle’s case, authentically her own.

Vancouver City Councillor Adriane Carr celebrating Pride Day in our city, in 2018.

After serving two terms in office leading the charge at City Council on behalf of citizen interests, three-term Councillor Adriane Carr has taken somewhat of a back seat to her more vocal, recently-elected, activist, and ambitious colleagues on Council: think Councillors Christine Boyle, Sarah Kirby-Yung and Ms. Carr’s Green colleague, Pete Fry, in particular — all of whom have proved, as well might be expected to anyone in the know, as the most media savvy of our Vancouver councillors, consistently articulate, the most progressive and forward thinking, plain spoken and engaged councillors, and absolutely tireless in their service of the public interest, out and about our city engaging with the broadest range of citizens in every neighbourhood across our city every opportunity they get … and who, for the record, constitute VanRamblings’ favourite councillors.
Still and all, we’re talking Vancouver City Councillor Adriane Carr here — two elections in a row emerging as Vancouver’s most beloved City Councillor, reflected in poll topping numbers on election day in both 2014 and 2018 — no piker she. As the Chairperson of Vancouver City Council’s Standing Committee on Policy and Strategic Priorities (Councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung is vice-chair), chairperson of the Metro Vancouver Board Climate Action Committee, and since 2009 the co-chair of the Canadian Women Voters’ Congress non-partisan Women’s Campaign School, Ms. Carr has long worked on behalf of citizens, as she continues to do to this day.
Councillor Carr has argued articulately and well in the current term for awarding extra density to developers in exchange for renting 20% of the suites in new construction at CMHC (and Council’s) “moderate rental” / median market rental rents, rents well below market, the best example of which is the proposed Kitsilano development at 2nd and Larch.
Let us all hope that Councillor Carr carries the day on this important initiative, a constituent element of a broader affordable housing strategy.
At present, under the existing Vision Vancouver-initiated Rental 100 programme, in exchange for extra density, developers offer rents only slightly below market rates (e.g. $1,768 for a studio, $2,056 for one bedroom, $2,703 for two bedrooms, and $3,559 for three bedrooms), as opposed to $950 for a studio unit; $1,200, one bedroom; $1,600, two bedrooms; and $2,000, three bedrooms (with lower “moderate rents” on Vancouver’s eastside), as the “moderate rental rates” proposed by Councillor Adriane Carr, for those earning between $30,000 and $80,000.
In case you were wondering: yes, Adriane Carr remains very much on our side, as we presume will continue to be the case throughout the term.

For anyone paying attention to the goings-on at Vancouver City Hall this past six months, you have to know that our new Council is the most action-oriented, public interest serving, neighbourhood-consulting and activist City Council Vancouver voters have elected to municipal office in years.
Although, the new Council members sometimes lose the thread of the argument that got them elected (which we’ll write about on Thursday), most Councillors consistently finding themselves in these early days of their four-year term too often in the sway of bureaucratic staff. In consequence, even given their activist bent, our new Council has emerged as quiescent.
VanRamblings believes that our current very bright and dedicated group of Councillors by this autumn will finally have begun to find their feet (and independent activist, community-serving voices), leading to a new era of hope in our city, and as we suggest in the headline of today’s VanRamblings’ posting, the death of cynicism in Vancouver civic politics.