Category Archives: Vancouver

Alex G. Tsakumis: Breakdown of Gregor Robertson’s Marriage

July 6, 2014Decision 2014, VancouverRaymond Tomlin

Alex G. Tsakumis breaks story on end of Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson's marriage Alex G. Tsakumis breaks the story, on Facebook, of the breakdown of the Mayor’s marriage

VanRamblings has wrestled for days as to whether we might comment, on this blog, on the breakdown of Mayor Gregor Robertson’s marriage.
We had thought we might tentatively broach the subject in an upcoming post, but would couch reference to the issue of marital discord within an analysis of the impact unfolding events have had on the Vision Vancouver electoral campaign — we’ll likely post on that subject in the coming week.
Note should be made: the background and details of the breakdown of the marriage are salacious and disturbing — still, there’s not a reporter in town who would print / broadcast what they know. VanRamblings will not, either.
Every reporter in town, and every person who is a member of Vancouver’s political class, was well aware of Mr. Robertson’s separation from his wife some three months ago — some in the political class have known for years about trouble in the Robertson relationship. And yet, up until muckraking reporter Alex G. Tsakumis printed the information on the marital breakdown on his Facebook page Friday night, most in Vancouver were unaware.
For reporters and their editors, there was no contextualizing the story, for those associated with political parties, there was no desire whatsoever to trade on the information for political gain — because there’s no political gain to be had. Everyone goes through rough periods in their lives, many (including VanRamblings) have experienced the pain of bitter divorce, and the consequent fallout from the ending of a once loving relationship.
In Vancouver, the fifth estate does not trade on the vicissitudes of human misery for the content of their publication, or broadcast outlet, and neither do members of the political class — an approach to the practice of politics, experience has shown, that is most unfortunately not shared by those associated with Vision Vancouver, but that’s a story for another day.
For now, there is general consensus on one thing, among the media and the political class: there is a terrible human sadness attendant to the impact on the lives of the many principals involved in this unfolding story.
In the quiet moments of the early morning, one cannot help but weep.

Seaside Greenway Completion Party, Picnic and Celebration

July 4, 2014VancouverRaymond Tomlin

The Kitsilano portion of Vancouver’s Seaside Greenway, from Burrard Bridge to Jericho Beach, will explode with waterfront activity on Saturday, July 5th, with a three kilometre-plus-long, multi-park neighbourhood block party to celebrate the recent completion of the Seaside Greenway project.
Despite controversy and protests the Seaside Greenway is now complete, connecting the downtown seawall to Jericho Beach. Saturday, celebrate the new green space the true Vancouver way, with food trucks, bicycles, and live music. Grab your costume (there’ll be a contest) and hop on your bike for a ride down the separated bike/pedestrian path. Stop at Volunteer Park for a community jam session (play ’em if you got ’em), and continue on to Hastings Mill Park to figure out what exactly Tostitos and Chef Josh Wolfe (Fresh Local Wild) are serving up from their Nacho Average Food Truck.
On the eastern front of the new Seaside Greenway, activities kick off in the new green space just south of the Burrard Bridge, and meander along through Kitsilano Beach (where there’ll be both a bring your own picnic, and a volleyball tournament), as well as Volunteer, Tatlow, Point Grey Road, and Hastings Mill parks. Near the western end of the Seaside Greenway, look for food trucks galore, live music, yoga and a bike valet service, as Hastings Mill Park (Point Grey Rd & Alma) will transform into a welcoming picnic venue.
“We’re hoping area neighbours, residents of Vancouver and visitors to the city will take the opportunity to walk, run, roll and ride their way along this amazing new Greenway,” offers Paola Qualizza, Chair of the Vancouver Public Space Network (VPSN), one of the event supporters. “The party is a great opportunity to experience this beautiful part of the city. On Saturday, there’s something for people of all ages at this free, family-friendly event.”
In addition to the VPSN, Seaside Greenway Party supporters include groups of local residents and businesses, including the Save Kits Beach-Hadden Park coalition, HUB Cycling, the UBC-AMS Bike Co-op, BEST (Better Environmentally Sound Transportation), and a host of others (see below).
Seaside Greenway Completion celebration events are set to include:
The Save Kits Beach and Hadden Park Seaside Greenway Picnic and Party

Kitsilano’s very own Fraser River Ramblers will offer live bluegrass and folk music, at this celebratory potluck / bring your own picnic and party. Location: the family picnic area, located at the north end of Kitsilano Beach, nestled within the grove of maple trees (see the picture above). Refreshments will be provided. Come meet your neighbours and enjoy the natural beauty of one of Vancouver’s most welcoming land-and-seascapes.
Volleyball BC Clearly Contacts Open

Now in its 23rd year, the ClearlyContacts.ca Beach Volleyball Open is a three-day beach volleyball tournament run by Volleyball BC, featuring the best pro beach volleyball players from Canada, North America, and destinations worldwide. The event takes place at Kitsilano Beach, and offers the largest pro beach volleyball purse in Canada — with $15,000 in prize money, the event attracts more than 20,000 spectators each year.
This is an all-ages event that includes a youth volleyball tournament, prize giveaways, interactive crowd activities, food and beverages, and some of the best beach volleyball action in North America. Live streaming broadcast coverage will be available throughout the tournament.
Tournament hours: Friday: 8:30am - 6pm; Saturday & Sunday: 8:30am - 7pm. The Donnelly Group/Granville Island Brewing Beer Garden hours: Friday, 1pm - 7pm, Saturday 11am - 7pm, and Sunday 11am - 7pm.
Hastings Mill Museum

The iconic Old Mill Store stood at the foot of Dunlevy Street, East of Gastown for more than 60 years, before it was rescued when Hastings Sawmill was slated for demolition. The store was barged to its current location in Hastings Mill Park, at Point Grey Road and Alma, and re-opened as a museum in 1931 by the Native Daughters of B.C. Founded in 1919, the non-profit, historical society composed of B.C. born women, continues to operate and own the building and steward its amazing collection.
Don’t forget: at the Hastings Mill Park venue, there’ll be food trucks galore, live music, yoga and bike maintenance on offer, as well as a HUB Cycling bike valet service, as the park will transform into a welcoming picnic venue.
The Brock House Annual Summer Fair

A Brock House showcase that annually brings family and friends together for a day of beachfront fun, this year’s event offers two BBQ’s (hot dogs and salmon burgers), The Morris Dancers, beverages, snacks, and a pub. In addition, Brock House-sponsored events will feature musicians’ performances under the tent, including the peerless Brock House Big Band, as well as the Brock House Orchestra, and the Brock House Jazz Band.
The Brock House Woodworkers, Porcelain Painters and Monday Ladies Crafts will display, and sell, beautiful handmade items (they make perfectly lovely, year-round gifts), the crafts fair also featuring jewelry, books, gifts and games, a vast array of plants, baking and preserves (mmmm, good), white elephant items, and a silent auction. The Brock House Artists’ Group will be selling their own work, as well as art donated by Society members.
Transportation. There’s a shuttle bus that will run every half-hour from Alma at West 4th Avenue, beside Jericho Village; the first trip is at 9:30am.
Jericho Sailing Centre 40th Anniversary

Occurring in concert with the MEC Paddlefest, this anniversary celebration will feature live music, balloons, clowns, a BBQ, cake and wake, as the Jericho Sailing Centre celebrates 40 years “as Vancouver’s ocean community centre”, on Saturday from 11am til 5:30pm. Everyone’s invited to this family friendly, face painting, ice cream eating, wave lapping, ocean festival.
At the MEC Paddlefest, you can go for a test paddle, participate in a hands-on skills clinic, browse the various exhibitor’s booths, and hunt for deals at the MEC Paddleswap. Paddlefest will also feature live performances, entertainment, food vendors and children’s activities for kids of every age.
Bring your friends and family, and come celebrate the fun of floating!

Clearly, the Seaside Greenway completion party, picnic, party, BBQ, paddlefest, Jericho Sailing Centre anniversary celebration — and appreciation of the beauty of the Kitsilano and West Point Grey neighbourhoods, as well as the newly-enhanced pedestrian-and-bike-friendly Seaside Greenway — is the place to be on Saturday.
Thank you to the organizers of this west side summer’s day celebration!
See you all at some festival point along the Seaside Greenway pedestrian / park / bike corridor, a day to celebrate with your friends and neighbours.

Vancouver Municipal Politics May Be On The Dawn of a New Era

July 3, 2014Decision 2014, VancouverRaymond Tomlin

According to VanRamblings’ insider politico contacts, Vancouver may be on the verge of a new dawn in municipal political affairs.
Vision Vancouver will be history come November 15th — except at the Board of Education, where Patti Bacchus’ approval ratings are overwhelming — the ascendant Green Party of Vancouver with a near controlling majority, and as many as five New Progressive Association Council candidates set to take a seat around the Council table, this autumn, at Vancouver City Hall.
As VanRamblings posted a couple of weeks back, Adriane Carr remains Vancouver’s most popular politician, so popular in fact that she’d have coattails that would sweep Green Party candidates into the Council chambers in record numbers. According to early election trend polling conducted by Stratcom, for Vision Vancouver, and the NPA’s Dimitri Pantazopoulos, were the Green Party of Vancouver to run six candidates (deemed to be the ideal number, according to enumeration results), five of six of Green Party candidates would win election to Council on voting day.
Although Vancouver’s Greens are currently running a barely-funded, grassroots campaign, when poll results are published in the early fall the, by then, almost empty Green Party coffers are predicted to fill up — donors, from every economic strata, would come out of the woodwork — to the extent that Councillor Adriane Carr and her principled band of Green Party cohorts could consolidate their standings in the polls through election day.
For the well-funded Vision Vancouver and Non-Partisan electoral campaigns, the prospect of a Green Party swell of votes this autumn could be daunting — but it’s not. Why not? At present, the Green Party of Vancouver has nominated only three Council candidates — all three locks for a seat on Vancouver City Council. But as long as the Greens keep their candidate numbers low, although Vision Vancouver Council candidates will lose votes to the Greens, there may be enough votes left over to secure a victory for Vision — the same logic is in operation for the NPA, although Vision will lose more votes to the Greens than will the New Progressive Association.
Make no mistake, as well, a reinvigorated New Progressive Association will emerge in voters’ minds, the NPA as a renewed 21st-century centrist party.
The NPA, with whoever is finally chosen to lead their campaign as mayoral candidate, will run on a progressive platform of hope and change, with truly green and environmentally-friendly policies (not Vision’s greenwashing nonsense); and a worker-friendly platform that should come as no surprise to anyone — as newly-elected Premier Kathleen Wynn did in apologizing for the past mistakes of a Dalton McGuinty-led Liberal party, the NPA will take every opportunity to apologize for the hurt that was caused by Sam’s Strike, as the party commits to negotiating a fair wage settlement for city workers this next term, as well as engendering a renewed respect for a public service that’s been under siege by a vicious Vision Vancouver regime.
Make no mistake, a well-funded New Progressive Association plans to re-establish itself as a powerful political force in our city, in the months, weeks and days leading up to the November 15th municipal election.
Combine the NPA’s newfound power with the populism of, an ascendant, Green Party of Vancouver platform built on transparency and respect for the voters (also key components of the NPA campaign), come the evening of November 15th, the Vancouver electorate may finally be delivered from the anti-democratic, non-consultative, and community-dismissive policies of an arrogant and polarizing Vision Vancouver civic administration — Vancouver’s fatally flawed party of wrong — as a new and hope-filled era in Vancouver municipal political affairs takes hold at Vancouver City Hall.

While LaPointe Dithers, Taylor Considers Entering the Campaign

July 2, 2014Decision 2014, VancouverRaymond Tomlin

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

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

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

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