That handsome, despicablefellow you see pictured above is Kareem Allam.
We’re kidding. Honest. Just joshing. Sheesh, no one can take a joke these days.
Afford yourself the pleasure of listening to / watching B.C.’s most accomplished politico, Kareem Allam
Who is Kareem Mahmoud Abbas Allam?
Most political folks will recognize Mr. Allam as the architect of ABC Vancouver’s overwhelming victory at the polls on October 15, 2022, in that year’s decisive municipal election, where everyABC Vancouver candidate was elected to office.
Clearly, Kareem Allam is a master strategist, a superior motivator and a campaign manager par excellence, an individual who means to win, not necessarily at all costs, but still — and, if we might suggest, a man of principle and integrity who fights the good fight, in 2022 on behalf of the beleaguered citizenry of Vancouver.
In 2022, post pandemic, an irritated Vancouver public had become fed up with a do nothing, whiny, Kennedy Stewart-led (if in anyone’s wildest imagination, Mr. Stewart might have the appellation of ‘leader‘ applied to him) administration, where he worked within a disparate and wildly dysfunctional civic administration. Mr. Stewart is, fortunate for us, now back at the post from whence he came, as the defrocked and much mocked Simon Fraser University Political Science professor.
If you go to the Fairview Strategy website — where Mr. Allam is employed, Fairview Strategy an integrated public relations company which offers government relations liaison and expertise, communication, media relations, digital communication, Indigenous relations, and market research — you will read this …
With two decades of private and public sector experience in public affairs, Kareem has successfully leveraged his knowledge of people, policy and community into triumphant political campaigns at the municipal, provincial and federal levels.
Kareem managed the winning Kevin Falcon for BC Liberal Leader campaign and the ABC Vancouver municipal campaign, electing 19 out of 19 candidates, including Mayor Ken Sim. In 2023, Kareem achieved #9 status on Vancouver Magazine’s annual Power 50 list.
Kareem has served as a member of the Board of the Fraser Health Authority, and as a member of the Translink Screening Panel, among other appointments which serve the community interest.
Sarah Blyth, community advocate and organizer, founding member of the Overdose Prevention Society
Did we mention that Sarah Blyth holds Mr. Allam in the highest possible esteem?
One year ago, Mr. Allam left his post as Chief of Staff to Mayor Ken Sim. Suffice to say that Mr. Allam’s leave-taking — he was very unhappy — was none too pleasant.
After yesterday’s incredible announcement helping to fulfill our 100 police and 100 nurses, and on the heels of 24 months of full time campaigning, its time for me to go back to private life. Thank you everyone for such an unbelievable journey. #vanpoli#bcpolipic.twitter.com/NljTK4LzAj
Well worth watching and listening to the Hotel Pacifico podcast interview with Kareem Allam that you’ll find above — given that Mr. Allam will continue to be long into the future, a British Columbian of wit, intelligence, perspicacity and accomplishment, who will endure as an individual who will make a difference for the better in each of our lives, in the many, many years to come. Best to get to know Mr. Allam a little better now, to help provide a bit of context for your confounding life, and perhaps even inject a smidgen of hope for a better collective future for all of us.
Vision Vancouver celebrates their overwhelming victory at the polls on November 19, 2011
Developers have long run the City of Vancouver, with various of the elected City Councils over the years acting as their all-too-willing handmaidens.
Joel Solomon, Vision Vancouver founder, standing outside, near his home in Railtown
The godfather and founder of the Vision Vancouver municipal party in 2004 was financier / philanthropist / real estate developer, and heir to a capitalist fortune, Tennessee émigré Joel Solomon, a political organizer who cut his teeth working on Jimmy Carter’s successful U.S. presidential campaign in the mid-1970s.
In the early 1990s, Solomon found his way to British Columbia, as he sought refuge on Cortes Island, while recovering from a serious health issue. In 1993, Solomon met a young organic farmer named Gregor Robertson. Their views aligned, especially on the urgent need to address climate change. The two became fast friends.
In 2002 Solomon made a decision to form a Vancouver civic party, which in time came to be called Vision Vancouver.
Recruiting Mike Magee from Stratcom — a strategic communications company dedicated to progressive causes — working with Magee, Solomon promised the then Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE) Councillors Raymond Louie, Tim Stevenson and Jim Green their political futures lay with his newly-formed Vision Vancouver civic party, committing to them that he would dedicate substantial financial resources to their re-election in 2005’s Vancouver municipal election.
Long story short — following the untimely death of Jim Green, who was Vision Vancouver’s Mayoral candidate in the 2005 civic election — in 2006, Joel Solomon recruited his friend Gregor Robertson to seek the nomination to become the Mayoral candidate for Vision Vancouver in our city’s 2008 municipal election.
The rest is history: Vision Vancouver became government, from 2008 through 2018.
Gregor Robertson, Mayor in the City of Vancouver, from November 15, 2008 through October 20, 2018
Upon assuming government at Vancouver City Hall in 2008, Joel Solomon was quick to establish a secretive, behind-the-scenes “Mayoral advisory Board” — most members of which were not only longtime friends of Solomon’s dating back to his days in Tennessee, but were, as well, extremely successful real estate developers.
During their time in government, 12 development-related lawsuits were filed against Vision Vancouver
Over the course of their years in power, there were a number of development-related lawsuits that were filed against Vision Vancouver.
Perhaps the most egregious — and many thought, corrupt — development-related failing by Vision Vancouver involved a legal petition filed with the BC Supreme Court on May 6, 2014, by the Community Association of New Yaletown, to prevent a mega-tower development on the city block containing Emery Barnes Park.
The legal petition alleged the City, in approving development of the 36-storey tower at 508 Helmcken St. and a related building across the street at 1099 Richards Street violated the Downtown Official Development Plan (DODP) bylaws in in numerous and significant ways, while thwarting the long-planned expansion of Emery Barnes Park “to help reduce the City’s significant shortfall in meeting its own green space targets in the area.”
Emery Barnes Park, in the heart of New Yaletown, adjacent to Davie and Seymour streets
That Vision Vancouver had not consulted with the community, nor even made any mention of their plans to build yet another mega-tower in the New Yaletown neighbourhood — a “favour” to the Tennessee-based developer, Brenhill Development, who just happened to be friends with Joel Solomon, and members of the Mayoral Advisory Board — exacerbated not only the ire of residents of New Yaletown, but esteemed British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Mark McEwan, who ruled in favour of the New Yaletown residents, “killing the New Yaletown development”, even though it was already under construction.
Read the Vancouver Sun article on Brenhill Development’s “sweet deal” here.
Some months later, the City of Vancouver prevailed at the B.C. Court of Appeals.
Peter Armstrong, owner of the Rocky Mountaineer, and founder / financier of ABC Vancouver
Now Peter Armstrong — who we know and very much like, who has pulled our behind out of the fire on more than one occasion, and who refers to us as his “favourite socialist” — will not be happy that we’re writing about him (reasonably, we can expect an irate call from Peter at some point today, as in “Why didn’t you call me to confirm with me what you’re writing about today?”).
But a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do (also, we hate to risk being lied to).
Founder Peter Armstrong’s Rocky Mountaineer offers unsurpassed luxury travel to discerning travelers
Now, Peter Armstrong — a pulled himself up by his bootstraps east end kid made good (we share a history as ‘east end kids’) — for many years was president of Vancouver’s oldest and most successful civic party, the Non-Partisan Association.
That is, until some dastardly folks staged a coup, taking over Peter’s beloved Non-Partisan Association in his absence, as he sailed his yacht to visit his good friend, Lululemon founder Chip Wilson, at his luxurious, well-appointed villa in Italy.
The consequence of the coup? Four of five NPA electeds resigned from the party.
And what became of the now former Non-Partisan Association Board members, who succeeded in killing the NPA, which party secured only, a paltry, unimaginably small 2.3% of the vote, when voters went to the polls in October 2022?
“Raymond, do you really think I’ll win re-election in Point Grey when we go to the polls in October?”
Premier David Eby will be heartened to know that these same far-right-of-centre nimrods are currently running the show with the nascent B.C. Conservative Party.
VanRamblings readers won’t be surprised to learn that ABC Vancouver founder, financier and Ken Sim backer, Peter Armstrong — as was the case with Joel Solomon, Vision Vancouver, and Mayor Gregor Robertson — has also created a secretive, behind-the-scenes Mayoral Advisory Committee, said committee comprised of developers, but mostly Peter and his very good friend, Chip Wilson.
A narrative, related to us recently by a very reliable VanRamblings source …
“Ken Sim ‘disappeared’ for a week this past autumn.
No one, save his family, knew where he was. In fact, Ken Sim was on board Peter Armstrong’s yacht, sailing up the west coast of British Columbia.
When Sim arrived back in town, returning to the Mayor’s office, he consulted with his Chief of Staff, Trevor Ford, after which the Mayor called in the ABC Park Board electeds to inform them of his decision to abolish the independent, elected Vancouver Park Board, leaving his now former ABC Park Board Commissioners in the room with Mr. Ford and David Grewal to explain details, and what would happen going forward.
Soon after, now former ABC Vancouver Park Board Commissioners Scott Jensen, Brennan Bastyovanszky and Laura Christensen made the decision to sit on Park Board as independents.
Subsequently, Sim called a press conference to announce his intention to eliminate the 133-year-old elected body, the much cherished, independent, and beloved Vancouver Park Board.”
The more things change, the more things stay the same.
Whether it’s developer Mayor Tom Campbell in the late 60s, or Joel Solomon and Gregor Robertson for a 10-year period when Vision Vancouver was at the seat of power at Vancouver City Hall, or in these latter days, with an avuncular — but dare we say, avaricious — Peter Armstrong and Chip Wilson, we who call Vancouver home are reminded yet again, and much to our consternation, this is not our city, for Vancouver is owned lock, stock and barrel by the developer class.
Tom ‘Not So Terrific’ Campbell, controversial Vancouver mayor, in office from 1966 to 1972
In 1966, running as an independent, a brash Tom Campbell defeated sitting Non-Partisan Association Mayor Bill Rathie to become Vancouver’s 31st mayor.
From the outset, Campbell’s ascension to the Mayor’s office heralded a pro-development ethos that would make even our current ABC Vancouver-dominated City Council blush, with Campbell — and his now ‘on board’ NPA colleagues — advocating for a freeway that would cut through a swath of the Downtown Eastside, require the demolition of the historic Carnegie Centre at Main and Hastings, and bring about the construction of a luxury hotel at the entrance to Stanley Park.
Vancouver’s West End neighbourhood, 1960, pre-high-rise construction. Photo, Fred Herzog.
In the West End, where Campbell owned substantial property — a wealthy, successful developer, Campbell was reputed to own one-third of the land located between (south to north) Davie and Georgia streets, and east to west, Denman Street and Stanley Park — the newly-elected Mayor all but ordered the demolition of almost the entirety of the well-populated West End residential neighbourhood — housing mostly senior citizens in their single detached homes — as he set about to make way for the rapid construction of more than 200 concrete high-rise towers.
In six short years, Mayor Tom Campbell and the Non-Partisan Association transformed a single family dwelling West End neighbourhood, irrevocably and forever.
That all of these “changes” augered controversy among large portions of the populace was a given, leading to regular, vocal and sometimes even violent protests throughout Campbell’s treacherous tenure as Mayor, finally lead to his overwhelming defeat at the polls in the November 1972 Vancouver “change” civic election.
Oct. 22, 2022 | Newly-formed civic party, ABC Vancouver, wins an overwhelming victory at the polls
Why raise ancient history now?
Not since the late 1960s / early 70s have Vancouver voters — seemingly, unknowingly — elected a more greed-inspired (this, on behalf of their financial backers), and wildly pro-development slate of lock step Vancouver City Councillors to office, at the heart of our city’s seat of municipal government at 12th and Cambie.
In early 2024, Vancouver sits on the wary edge of massive tower development, as promulgated by the “super majority” ABC Vancouver civic administration installed by Vancouverites at City Hall only 15 short months ago today. If Tom Campbell’s greed was able to destroy a single family-oriented West End neighbourhood 50+ years ago over six short years in power, imagine what the current ABC Vancouver-led municipal government can achieve over the course of the next 32 months?
Vancouver Park Board Commissioner at Vancouver City Hall, holding her new, month old baby
Click on this link to hear (former, and now independent) ABC Vancouver Park Board Commissioner Laura Christensen address the whole of Vancouver City Council on December 13, 2023 — including her ABC Council running mates — on the initiative of the political party she ran with to eliminate the elected Vancouver Park Board.
It was difficult to distill my thoughts on this into a 3-minute speech. Incredibly disappointed in the mayor and ABC councillors for turning their back on their campaign promises and completely ignoring the electorate in this decision. https://t.co/W0we9exUHT
In her address to Council, Ms. Christensen pointed out to her now former ABC Vancouver City Council colleagues that there are 242 parks in the City of Vancouver, only 142 of which are designated as parks — leaving these latter non-designated “parks” open for development, including such beloved parks as Burrard Inlet’s Sunset Beach, Locarno Park, and Spanish Banks East and West.
Fans enjoy the Vancouver Canadians at Nat Bailey Stadium. Could the city-owned stadium be put up for sale? A report suggests sport & cultural venues should be shed by the city. Photo: Jason Payne /PNG
“… budget task force assembled last year by ABC Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim delivered its report with 17 recommendations on how the city could improve its financial health while reducing pressure to increase on property taxes.
One recommendation suggests the city look at divesting some of its “non-core assets.”
When Fumano asked ABC Vancouver Councillor Brian Montague, one of two ABC Councillors who served on the task force’s advisory panel, if the “non-core assets” in the report would include include community centres, libraries, civic theatres, and sports facilities, Montague replied …
“I think it’s something we need to talk about, because there might be assets where divestment is the best approach.”
Former Vancouver Park Board Chairperson John Coupar clarified the matter on X:
Former Vancouver City Councillor Colleen Hardwick, and 2022 TEAM Mayoral candidate writes …
@elviralount the land is at the heart of the matter. Removing the separate fiduciary responsibility of the elected Park Board for control of land disposition is existential. It was never about 'efficiencies' and saving millions of $. It is about the control of the land.
A cynical and egregious land grab, a decision demanded by ABC Vancouver’s avaricious financial backers, who fancy adding billions of dollars more to their already ungainly wealth, all at the cost of: environmental devastation and climate change unchecked, a degraded quality of life in Vancouver for decades to come, reduced access to our public beaches — or, in some cases, no access at all to what were once but would no longer be “public beaches”— and long dark corridors of black towers lining the arterials and Vancouver’s beach fronts, all across the city.
Vancouver Park Board History + Commissioners’ Mandate & Compensation
Established by an 1889 amendment to the Vancouver Incorporation Act, 1886 (later the Vancouver Charter). The Vancouver Park Board is unique not just across Canada, but across North America, as well (and the globe, for that matter), as the sole elected body of its kind, and as British Columbia’s Attorney General, Niki Sharma — herself, a former celebrated Vancouver Park Board Commissioner — recently told VanRamblings, “the Vancouver Park Board is a cherished institution.”
Vancouver Park Board has seven elected commissioners who are charged with determining the policy direction of the institution. The Board’s mandate: “provide, preserve and advocate for Vancouver’s parks and recreation system … to the benefit of the citizens of Vancouver, the many neighbourhoods that comprise our beloved home, the City of Vancouver, and to advocate for the environment, as our parks represent the lungs of our city, contributing to the health of the community.”
Commissioners are elected at large every four years, with a chair and vice-chair elected by the Commissioners each December, their term to begin at the first meeting of Park Board Commissioners, in January, following the holiday break. At present the Vancouver Park Board Chairperson is Brennan Bastyovanszky, the Vice-Chairperson Scott Jensen, Park Board Committee Chairperson (the body which hears public presentations, and where all the “real” work of the Commissioners takes place), Laura Christensen, with Scott Jensen Vice-Chair.
Vancouver Park Board Commissioners | L-R: Jas Virdi (ABC), Marie-Claire Howard (ABC), Tom Digby (Green), Angela Haer (ABC), Independents: Scott Jensen, Brennan Bastyovanszky, Laura Christensen
Park Board Commissioners served without remuneration until a 1972 amendment to the Vancouver Charter allowed them an annual honorarium of $1000. At present, for a not unusual 45-hour work week (this apart from the Commissioners’ regular employment in their professions), the Park Board Chairperson earns $23,428.65 per annum, with Commissioners earning $18,743.38 annually, or about 12.5% of the compensation afforded the average City Councillor at Vancouver City Hall.
The Vancouver Park Board oversees 242 parks and gardens, including major park “attractions” such as the 1,000 acre / 406 hectare Stanley Park, the VanDusen Botanical Garden on Oak Street, and the Bloedel Conservatory atop Queen Elizabeth, 24 active community centres located in each neighbourhood across the city, the Park Board also responsible for Vancouver’s pools and water park system, and well-maintained skating rinks and playing fields, as well as three non-profit, well-used-and-enjoyed public golf courses, Langara, McCleery and Fraserview.
Today and tomorrow, we’re taking a break from the politics of Vancouver City Councillors making the horrendous, anti-democratic decision to eliminate the elected 133-year-old Vancouver Park Board, the last bastion of civic democracy in Metro Vancouver, where members of the public are listened to and respected, and have a direct impact on the setting of public parks and recreation policy.
On Wednesday, we’ll write about tender moments around the Park Board table — involving past Park Board Chairpersons John Coupar and Aaron Jasper, once on opposite sides of the political spectrum and avowed “enemies”, but who thanks to the shocking decision of the ABC Vancouver Councillors at Vancouver City Hall to attempt to abolish Vancouver’s elected Park Board have, in common cause, become new best friends, with John Coupar saying to VanRamblings recently ..
“I can’t believe how skilled Aaron is at organizing. Each and every time we get together I am more and more impressed with his intelligence, his dedication, and his love and commitment to Vancouver’s parks and recreation system, and the preservation of Vancouver’s elected Park Board. Working with Aaron is a joy!”
As you can see from the commentary above, some good is coming out of the Ken Sim-led fiasco to eliminate Vancouver’s elected Park Board. In addition to John Coupar and Aaron Jasper’s newfound friendship, former Vancouver Park Board Commissioners Sarah Blyth (a city hero, and founder of the Overdose Prevention Society) and Melissa De Genova, a two-term Vancouver City Councillor, have also now become new best friends, working together in common cause to ensure going forward, and long into the future, Vancouver will enjoy an elected Park Board.
