Day 4: Little Mountain Housing, the NPA, and the Greens Party

June 18, 2014Decision 2014, VancouverRaymond Tomlin

The Little Mountain Housing Development Story. A documentary project by David Vaisbord

Vancouver-based independent filmmaker and documentarian David Vaisbord has created a compelling crowdfunding campaign on indiegogo, a personal film project to document the story of, as CityHallWatch wrote last year …

The premature destruction of the Little Mountain social housing complex in Vancouver and the ongoing saga about the community and the site’s fate … offshore investors, egos, political influence and spin, bureaucratic bungling, mainstream media blindspots and incompetence, and more, are some of the factors determining the flow of the saga of the Little Mountain housing development.

Riley Park community activist Ned Jacobs weighed in recently, writing …

“Since 2009, when all but four of the 224 homes at Little Mountain Housing were demolished, the 15-acre site, which housed a well-functioning community in 2007, has sat fenced off and empty except for a scattering of trees. A single rowhouse building remains because several of the tenants courageously refused to be displaced by BC Housing (BCH).

Supportive housing is a core element of our social safety net. Former NDP MLA David Chudnovsky has pointed out that we don’t sell off our parks to cover social assistance and disability cheques; why then would we sell our social housing sites to fund supportive housing? It would make much more sense to fund supportive housing through general revenue, and redevelop Little Mountain and other appropriate social housing sites as rentals and cooperatives to house a broad range of incomes — and especially “first responders” and other essential service workers that have been frozen out of the Vancouver market.

For the City to allow the project to proceed without the crucial amenities would be irresponsible and a slap in the face to the entire community, as well, as would permitting greater height or density than set out in the Little Mountain Policy Statement (LMPS).

David Vaisbord’s powerful, revealing documentation of nearly five years of the Little Mountain saga has already helped move the tide of events in a positive direction. A feature-length documentary telling this important story through the spoken words and images of the people and the place could contribute to achieving a far happier outcome.

Donations to the Little Mountain Film Project may be made here.

Rogue NPA Board of Vancouver Education trustees Ken Denike and Sophia Woo

As reported widely in the media, rogue Non-Partisan Association Vancouver Board of Education trustees Ken Denike and Sophia Woo (pictured above) were expelled from the NPA caucus this past Friday for having “chosen to follow their own course in various matters without consulting with the other members of Caucus,” a statement from the party read, relating to the adoption of an updated policy designed to better accommodate LGBTQ+ and Gender Variant persons enrolled in Vancouver schools.
In a statement issued yesterday by the NPA’s Board of Directors …

The NPA Vancouver Board of Directors has voted to support the recent expulsion of school trustees Ken Denike and Sophia Woo from the NPA Caucus.

The Board also decided that Denike and Woo will not receive the party’s endorsement as candidates in the upcoming municipal election.

NPA President Peter Armstrong said the Caucus’s decision to expel Denike and Woo was not unexpected.

“The Caucus has had ongoing issues with Ken and Sophia for a long time and the Board has been aware of this,” said Armstrong. “The raucous news conference called by Ken and Sophia last week was just one issue among many that forced the Caucus to take action.”

The NPA Caucus celebrates and supports the diversity of all of the people in our city and fully supports efforts to assist LGBTQ+ and Gender Variant persons in our community and in our schools. Fostering inclusion and understanding is central among the NPA’s guiding principles

For further background, read this story in the Vancouver Courier.

Tickets for the Vancouver Greens 2014 campaign kick-off are available here.

Decision 2014: Vancouver Civic Election Campaign Coverage

June 17, 2014Decision 2014, VancouverRaymond Tomlin

VanRamblings was disappointed to hear yesterday, from informed sources, that Vancouver’s newest municipal political party, One City Vancouver, has made the decision to contest only seats for Vancouver City Council in 2014, and will not be offering candidates in the Board of Education or Park Board sphere heading into Vancouver civic election day, on November 15th.
Our sources report that the decision was made some time ago, and despite the imprecations of many associated with the nascent civic political party, the decision’s been made, and there just ain’t no changing it. Sad.
With former COPE School Board trustee Jane Bouey, former Vancouver PAC Chair Gwen Giesbrecht, and longtime education activist Marcy Toms ready to head up a One City Vancouver Board of Education slate — and given the support of Vision Vancouver Board of Education chair Patti Bacchus for the candidacies of these three aforementioned, well-respected community and education activists — it is a pity, indeed, that One City Vancouver will focus solely on gaining one or more seats on Vancouver City Council this autumn.
In respect of Park Board, as we wrote to OneCity co-founder David Chudnovsky yesterday, there is very little doubt in our mind that OneCity’s Mia Edbrooke would make a damn fine Park Board Commissioner. Seems that the affable, informed and very bright Ms. Edbrooke will not present her name as a candidate for Park Board this autumn — a loss for all Vancouver citizens who possess a degree of caring for parks and recreation in our city.

NPA Running to the Left in Campaign 2014, Means to Win This Time
Speculation is running rampant as to the nature of the civic election campaign that Vancouver’s natural governing party, the Non-Partisan Association (now, the New Progressive Association) will run this autumn.
Will it be the unfocused NPA, Rob Ford apparatchik-led botch job that Vancouverites experienced in 2011, or has the NPA in 2014 finally learned their lesson, and set about to embark on, and adopt the strategy of, a winning, centrist, socially progressive, neighbourhood-focused and citizen-engaged campaign for office? In the coming months, VanRamblings will report out on NPA strategy. Suffice to say: the NPA means to win in 2014.

Readers have written to enquire as to why VanRamblings had not included Vancouver First in Sunday’s posting on municipal political parties vying for office this autumn? Hell, we were very much looking forward to a viable Jesse Johl (pictured above) campaign, but alas it is not to be — which is not to say that Jesse won’t run, but rather to say with all the recent shenanigans afoot surrounding allegations about “misappropriated” funds at the Riley Park-Hillcrest Community Centre Association (where Johl sits as President), and lawsuits launched by Park Board, and NPA Board of Directors (and former good friend) member Ken Charko, directed at the oleaginous (if amiable, and outspoken) Johl, any latent candidacy for Vancouver civic office by Mr. Johl would only be met with huzzahs of derision. Would’ve been an interesting, noisy candidacy, tho. C’est la vie.

Civic Election Spending: Vision Pot Calls NPA Kettle Black

June 16, 2014Decision 2014, VancouverRaymond Tomlin

Vision Vancouver is in no position to play the money card against the NPA in this fall’s civic election after condo developer Bob Rennie hosted a $25,000 a plate fundraising lunch for Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson in March, according to IntegrityBC’s Executive Director Dermod Travis, in a statement issued last week. The luncheon caused outrage across the city.

“Political parties that live in glass money houses shouldn’t throw stones. Neither of Vancouver’s two major civic parties is holier-than-thou when it comes to political fundraising and neither of them seemed pressed for cash in 2011. The Bob Rennie lunch will also likely set a Canadian record for the cost of admittance to a political fundraising event.”

Rennie’s luncheon for Vision Vancouver also included a private “roundtable” discussion granting special access to Mayor Gregor Robertson. “It’s a pretty safe bet that they weren’t discussing the Vancouver Canucks for two hours over canapés,” said Travis.

Coalition of Progressive Electors members Daniel Tseghay, Maria Wallstam, Nathan Crompton, Sean Antrim and Tristan Markle, writing in The Mainlander, recently asked the pertinent question, “When developers give Vision $25,000, what kind of government do they get in return?”

Corporations and the real-estate industry donate to Vision Vancouver because it pays off.

The ruling party strategically approves developments that make their donors rich. Most notably, Wall Financial was a founder of Vision Vancouver and donated $280,000 in 2011. Since Vision came to power in 2008, Wall has seen its profits increase from $18 million to $61 million. Rize Alliance (who donated $10,950 to Vision in 2011) had their 26 story tower approved at Broadway and Kingsway, right in the heart of working class Mount Pleasant, despite community opposition of 80%.

Westbank, which donated $11,705 to Vision and $31,000 to the BC Liberals in the last municipal and provincial elections, was given a rezoning in Chinatown right in the middle of a community planning process. The Aquilini Family, who donated at least $10,000 to Vision over the last two elections … got a $35 million tax exemption for their project next to GM Place. Concord Pacific, which donated $36,250 to Vision in 2011 … is allowed to use urban farms to evade property taxes.

Under Vision’s corporate governance, condos are targeted at the most affordable existing neighbourhoods: Marpole, Grandview Woodland, the DTES, Mt. Pleasant, and the West End. Corporations see affordable and social housing as a threat to the market and an unwelcome competitor in the scarce supply of housing. As a result, Vision has worked to liquidate the existing affordable housing stock.

In the 2011 election, Vision Vancouver raised $2.2 million, mostly in five figure donations from corporations/developers and unions. The NPA raised $2.5 million. Last time out, campaign spending in Vancouver hit $5.3 million, in a city with 419,000 eligible voters. In 2008, it was $4.5 million.
Meanwhile, under Mayor Gregor Robertson’s leadership, the city has seen rents soar and its street homelessness population more than double this year, a 249 per cent increase since the last regional count in 2011. In 2014, there were 1,798 people without homes in Vancouver, and more people sleeping outdoors than in any other MetroVancouver municipality.
In March, candidates in Calgary’s 2013 election filed their campaign disclosure reports. Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi — who ran his campaign on a self-imposed limit of 65 cents per eligible voter — spent $391,124. In April of this year, a Vision Vancouver-led majority City Council defeated a motion by Green Party of Vancouver City Councillor Adriane Carr urging voluntary campaign finance restrictions for the November 2014 election.

“I think we have, in the public, a feeling of distrust of politicians,” said Carr. “I hear us not trusting ourselves, not trusting each other in terms of holding to a voluntary pact together. I know that (my motion) would be voluntary, it would not be enforceable. It would however be ultimately trackable. I think perception here is critical, and it is related to the confidence in democracy, and the democracy in our decisions, and that we should as a Council extend the hope that speakers have asked us to uphold, the hope that we can work together in terms of setting some voluntary limits, and adhere to them.”

Meanwhile, in Calgary, with 668,000 eligible voters, Mayor Naheed Nenshi underspent his own cap by six cents per voter and ended the campaign with a surplus of $120,000, most of which he donated to local charities.
Three provinces — Quebec, Ontario and Manitoba — have existing campaign finance rules for local elections that could easily be adopted in Vancouver, argues IntegrityBC, which goes on to state that since Vancouver is the only major Canadian city that doesn’t have a ward system, Vancouver should adopt Ontario election spending rules as a basis for discussion among the parties and candidates, where campaign expenditures for Mayor, Council and School Board trustee candidates top out at 85¢ per elector.

“This isn’t a big leap for Vancouver’s municipal parties,” says IntegrityBC’s Travis. “The four parties that have sat on Council in the past eight years have all supported motions calling for electoral finance reform. This is a chance to show some leadership and put into practice what they’ve already agreed to. The will is there and there’s sufficient time before this fall’s elections to find the way.”

From CityHallWatch: Donation declarations are done on an “honour system.” No independent audit is conducted. Of particular concern, CityHallWatch suggests, is the non-reporting of “in-kind” donations (think: the undeclared 2011 CUPE BC Vision Vancouver election “donation” of $1.5 million, which months later magically transformed into a precedent-setting 6.85 per cent wage increase over three years for Vancouver civic workers, setting the stage for municipal employee contracts across the province).
And where does this leave the average Vancouver citizen, minimum and low wage workers, our homeless population, senior citizens living on a fixed income, and all the rest of us? At best, of secondary concern to a cynical, Vision Vancouver-led City Council, who are more focused on paying off their friends and supporters than in representing the needs and aspirations of the diverse, majority population who reside in the city of Vancouver.

VanRamblings Revives to Cover the Vancouver Civic Scene

June 15, 2014Decision 2014, VancouverRaymond Tomlin

Five months from today, on November 15th, 2014, Vancouver voters will head to the polls to elect a civic government to a four-year term in office at Vancouver City Hall. No municipal election in recent Vancouver civic electoral history will prove as critical to the vision for, and livability of, our city going forward than the current civic election campaign that is already underway.
At present, there are eight declared municipal parties in Vancouver that have announced for office, ranging from …

Vision Vancouver, the relatively new, only 9-year old municipal political party, a breakaway party from the leftist Coalition of Progressive Electors, which had held civic power from 2002 through 2005. Vision Vancouver first elected candidates to office in 2005, and since the 2008 Vancouver municipal election have held majority power at City Hall, where Mayor Gregor Robertson, his Vision Vancouver councillors, and political eminence gris/political fixer/Chief of Staff to the Mayor, Mike Magee, have embarked on a revolutionary development plan for the city that knows no precedent in our city’s 128-year history;
Non-Partisan Association (NPA), Vancouver’s oldest civic political party, first formed in 1937, a fiscally conservative party that many feel to be the city’s natural governing party, out of office since 2008, and (we would suggest) completely renewed and re-constituted, the only civic party than has a chance in hell of unseating the Vision Vancouver civic administration, a party that now fashions itself (and rightly so, we believe) as the New Progressive Association. In the next short while, the NPA will announce their Mayoral candidate, although general consensus is that it will be former broadcaster, journalist and current publisher-editor of Self Counsel Press, Kirk LaPointe;
Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE), Vancouver’s second oldest political party, long the conscience of our city, a party that over the years has found broad support across the 23 neighbourhoods that constitute the Vancouver we love, a party that some feel has fallen on hard times, with a retinue of former COPE members having recently broken away to form One City Vancouver, a left-progressive party, largely dominated by provincial NDP party stalwarts, and former Green Party leader Stuart Parker and recently resigned COPE Executive member taking regular potshots at COPE. Still, if we know COPE Executive Director Sean Antrim, and Tim Louis and Tristan Markle, who count themselves among a most committed group of social activists working to change Vancouver to transform our city into a much fairer, and more just, city (and we do), there’s simply no counting COPE out in 2014 — there’s just too much on the line this time around;
Green Party of Vancouver. Vancouver City Councillor Adriane Carr, who just squeaked into office in 2011, has done our city proud. Consistently the conscience of Vancouver City Council, the signal voice at Council and in the civic sphere representing and speaking for the interests of all Vancouver citizens, the Greens look to do well come November 15th, and based on Ms. Carr’s fine work in office this past almost three years, she will in all likelihood have coattails that will see relative political newcomers, and her Green Party of Vancouver running mates Pete Fry and Cleta Brown ascend to elected office, and a seat at the Council table, following the 2014 Vancouver civic election.

As to the remaining four Vancouver civic parties, although each of the parties is constituted of publically-minded citizens of good conscience, no one of them will come close to electing candidates to Vancouver City Council. That said, we are supportive of the aims of some of these political entities, and will in time write at length about each one of them. We realize in this first post, that our writing will be viewed by many as enigmatic — let us assure you, you will be left with no doubt in the coming months as to what VanRamblings believes are the issues of most importance to all of us as we head to the polls on November 15th, and who civic-minded citizens must consider as worthy candidates for elected office in Vancouver.
In closing, we’ll write a bit on the four remaining Vancouver civic parties …

One City Vancouver. Migawd, do we like these folks. Even though they ain’t gonna elect anyone to Council, One City is a definite threat to elect several candidates to Vancouver’s Board of Education, and we would suggest, as well, to Vancouver Park Board. At a future date, we’ll dedicate an entire column to One City Vancouver, and write at length (and supportively) about their candidates, once they announce;
Neighbourhoods for a Sustainable Vancouver (NSV). Another group of civic-minded folks for whom VanRamblings has a great deal of time. Even though CityHallWatch is not, necessarily, the party’s journalistic arm, there are a great many NSV folks who contribute to one of Vancouver’s most critically important websites for democratic engagement. We will write about NSV, at length, at a future date;
The Electors’ Action Movement (TEAM). Good-hearted, civic-minded folks to be sure, but sad to say, apart from nostalgic name recognition, hardly a currently effective political force in Vancouver;
Vancouver Cedar Party. Largely a vehicle for the political ambitions of west side resident and financial analyst, Glen Chernen, you’ll likely hear a great deal from the Cedar Party in the coming months, signifying, we would suggest, much ado about not very much, a party of smoke and mirrors and anger, without much to say of consequence on the policy front. Still, between now and November, we will give Mr. Chernen, and his running mates, a forum on VanRamblings, as we will to all of the Vancouver municipal parties seeking elected office in 2014.

Well, that’s it for our first post on the upcoming Vancouver civic election.
In the coming days, VanRamblings will break news stories, and plan on providing every good reason to you to check in with us on a regular basis. Although it may take us a little while to ramp up (we’re a tad rusty, not having written in months), we promise you thorough — and, at times, pointed — coverage of Vancouver’s civic scene, in the coming months.
More tomorrow, thru til the November 15th civic election, and beyond.