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#VanPoli | Team for a Livable Vancouver Holds Its Founding AGM

#VanPoli Civic Politics, BC Politics, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2022, , ,

Architect & charter TEAM for a Livable Vancouver member Brian Palmquist speaks at TEAM’s AGM

Team for a Livable Vancouver, our town’s newest political party, held it’s first AGM on Sunday evening, an event open only to members of the nascent political party.

Jak King, a longtime Grandview-Woodland and community activist, was one of 12 policy committee speakers addressing Sunday evening’s AGM.

Vancouver City Councillor Colleen Hardwick was the evening’s keynote speaker.

Brian Palmquist, an award-winning architect, provided an Affordability Policy analysis at Sunday evening’s founding event, which took place at the Anza Club on 3 West 8th Avenue. Mr. Palmquist is the author of the substack newsletter, The PATH Project, where he reflects regularly on development in the city of Vancouver, recently emerging — along with UBC’s Patrick Condon — as an increasingly important voice in civic politics, and as a regular speaker at Vancouver City Hall debates.

Unlike the fancy soirées conducted by Ken Sim and his newly-formed A Better City municipal party, or Mark Marissen’s Progress Vancouver event, both of which drew dozens of well-heeled supporters — as well as all the press that matters (no journalist worth her or his salt foregoes a free meal), the founding TEAM AGM was — surprising to many — a members only event, a decidedly déclassé affair, with a solid and upbeat attendance, nonetheless, of those party members who’ve been working with Team for a Livable Vancouver founder, Vancouver City Councillor Colleen Hardwick, to transform Vancouver into a more “livable city” for all.

Sunday evening’s founding TEAM AGM — which, in the early going, would seem to be a no press ‘we don’t want any of those stinkin’ wretches‘ allowed — which for us would seem to comprise an kind of odd, almost stealth campaign for office, a members only ‘ if you don’t love us, we don’t love you’ civic party that somehow possesses definitive plans on sweeping to office at Vancouver City Hall, at Park Board and at School Board, come Saturday, October 15, 2022. Sunday’s AGM follows on the heels of a series of policy workshops organized by Councillor Hardwick in October. VanRamblings was unable to find anyone in Team for a Livable Vancouver to speak on, or off, the record about Sunday’s AGM.

Allow VanRamblings to say that we believe that come the latter part of September 2022, leading up to October 15th Vancouver civic election day, a groundswell of support for Team for a Livable Vancouver will embolden voters to cast their ballot for TEAM — despite whatever jerks like VanRamblings have to say on the matter, in the months leading up to next year’s Vancouver municipal election — and that TEAM will sweep to victory, in the same manner COPE did in 2002, and Vision Vancouver achieved in 2008, surprising many.

TEAM’s October 24th Policy Conference, where 12 groups developed TEAM party policy

VanRamblings was told, simply, to wait for a series of announcements and a new and dynamic party website that will emerge throughout the month of December.

TEAM’s founding Board of Directors, former Green Party civic candidate and architect, David Wong; longtime community activist Sal Robinson; current Vancouver City Councillor Colleen Hardwick; founder of the VanPoli Facebook group, community activist, and Oscar-winning animator (and probable TEAM Park Board candidate), David Fine; and outgoing TEAM Board member, Sean Nardi.

As Sean Nardi wrote in the hours following the TEAM founding AGM …

“TEAM elected its first, 9-member Board of Directors, a talented, concerned group who bring a diversity of skills, experience, knowledge and perspectives to guide TEAM’s evolution.”

For the moment, the party is playing its cards close to the vest, and at least for now the party has taken down both of its websites, the initial https://voteforteam.ca/, and more recently, http://www.teamlivablevancouver.ca/.

It would seem that, arising from VanRamblings persnicketyness (there are those who employ harsher language), Team for a Livable Vancouver moved up the début of its audacious and snazzy new website, which may be found at …

https://www.voteteam.ca/ 

VanRamblings had been told that TEAM’s webmaster was something of a perfectionist — you can see for yourself what that means (pretty great, we think).

VanRamblings received a call from a TEAM founding member, this a.m. …

“Ray, I think you’re going to be impressed with who the nine people are who were selected as TEAM’s new Board members. They’re a pretty impressive group, who in the days and weeks to come will play an ever increasingly important role in working to develop policy, and a narrative on what TEAM stands for. Over time, Colleen will play an ever diminishing role in directing the affairs of the civic party she has worked so hard to create. Colleen will turn her focus to becoming Vancouver’s next Mayor on Saturday, October 15, 2022, and carrying her team to office.

The announcement of the new Board members, and the launch of the new website , will occur in short order, perhaps as soon as next week. The launch of Team for a Livable Vancouver bodes well for all of us, and most particularly, for the citizens of Vancouver.”

VanRamblings awaits future Team for a Livable Vancouver announcements.

#VanPoli | The 2022 Mayor’s Race | They’re Off and Running | Part 2

#VanPoli Civic Politics, BC Politics, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2022, , , , ,

Colleen Hardwick, TEAM Vancouver, running against incumbent Mayor, Independent, Kennedy Stewart

In the next month or so, current and sitting independent Vancouver City Councillor Colleen Hardwick — who is at present seeking the Mayoral nomination with the recently-formed Vancouver municipal political party team … for a livable vancouver — will, in all likelihood, announce at the end of the nascent civic party’s upcoming AGM that she has won the TEAM Mayoral nomination, and will officially announce her bid to become Vancouver’s next Mayor, on Saturday, October 15, 2022.

Colleen Hardwick’s platform?

The platform has occurred as a function of a series of policy meetings TEAM conducted on October 24, 2021. VanRamblings would understand that Ms. Hardwick and the TEAM candidates who will soon be announced will prioritize …

  • A return to neighbourhood democracy, where residents in the 22 neighbourhoods across Vancouver will be empowered to formulate policy affecting their neighbourhood, and will be listened to when decisions are taken at Vancouver City Hall;
  • A move away from podium and high-rise tower-driven plinth construction, in favour of medium-and-low-rise, largely wood frame townhouse, affordable apartment and rowhouse construction, along arterials, and along some residential streets;
  • At Park Board, a re-prioritization of elected Park Board Commissioners as stewards of our parks and recreation system, while working to develop policy to strengthen our community centres, and developing new public pools and parks;
  • A commitment to sustainable fiscal management at City Hall that will reduce annual property tax increases, while prioritizing the delivery of core city services;
  • Arts & culture, transportation, reconciliation, public safety and security, finance and administration, economic development, climate emergency, and School Board policies that were decided on at the October 24, 2021 TEAM Policy Conference, and set to be announced at the upcoming team … for a livable vancouver AGM.

The team … for a livable vancouver AGM will take place either before year’s end, or early in the New Year / first quarter of 2022.

According to a Research Co. poll published in The Vancouver Sun on June 23rd, early pre-election polling has incumbent Mayor Kennedy Stewart with an almost insurmountable lead, and a 49% approval rating among the Vancouver electorate.

Note should be made that the Research Co. poll was commissioned by the Vancouver and District Labour Council , which represents more than 100 Vancouver-based unions. The Labour Council endorsed Kennedy Stewart as their Mayoral candidate in the 2018 election, and has announced their intention to do so again in the lead-up to the 2022 Vancouver municipal election.

Not everyone is thrilled with Kennedy Stewart, though.

Mike Howell, longtime and well-respected Vancouver civic affairs columnist, in a column published in Vancouver is Awesome, posted the question, Why is a former Vancouver councillor bringing developers to meet the mayor?

“Former Vancouver City Councillor Raymond Louie has been advocating for some of the city’s high-profile developers and joining them in a series of private meetings at City Hall with Mayor Kennedy Stewart. Louie participated in seven meetings in February and March in the Mayor’s office, which included Ian Gillespie of Westbank Projects Corp., Bruno and Peter Wall of Wall Financial Corporation, and Brian McCauley of Concert Properties.

Louie, who served 16 years on Council with COPE and Vision Vancouver before retiring (prior to the 2018 election), also met three times by himself with Stewart, according to the mayor’s monthly calendars posted on the city’s website. The frequency of Louie’s visits to City Hall are in contrast to a major plank of Stewart’s election campaign in which he called for new conflict of interest and lobbying rules for elected officials and senior staff members.”

Meanwhile, The Tyee’s Paul Willcocks took Stewart to task last year for his “painfully lame” response to police reform.

“There are 11 municipal police forces in B.C., including Vancouver … Stewart chairs the 9-member Vancouver Police Board, but he’s the only elected and publicly accountable member. The Police Act says Police Boards are responsible for determining the ‘priorities, goals and objectives of the municipal police department.’ But they are also required to “take into account the priorities, goals and objectives of the Council of the municipality.”

If Stewart and Vancouver’s Councillors agreed on measures to combat systemic racism — and shared them publicly — the Police Board would have to respond, or be held to account. That doesn’t take (a provincial government) review, as Kennedy Stewart suggested. No. It just takes leadership.”

VanRamblings believes Kennedy Stewart to be Vancouver’s worst, most inept Mayor since Jack Volrich was elected Mayor in the late 1970s.

Kennedy Stewart has proved throughout his term in office to be a feckless leader, given to whining about a “lack of support” from senior levels of government on the housing file, objectively the worst Mayor of any major Canadian city when it came to responding to the COVID crisis we’ve been living through over the past 20 months, and given to taking positions on issues that rather than serve the public interest, serves the plundering interests of Vancouver’s development community.

Two examples of how Kennedy Stewart serves the development community, rather than interests of all of us who call Vancouver home …

Councillors reject Christine Boyle & Kennedy Stewart’s developer-friendly motion

On May 28th, Vancouver City Councillor Christine Boyle brought forward a controversial motion that would allow projects up to 12 storeys to be built across the city, sans public hearing and community input, a proposal Boyle had worked closely on with Mayor Kennedy Stewart before bringing it before Vancouver City Council.

Boyle and Stewart’s cynical proposal called on the City’s Planning Department to come up with suggestions that would allow 12-storey, so-called ‘social housing’ developments in areas designated for apartments, without the benefit of a public hearing that would allow neighbourhood resident comment. The following Vancouver neighbourhoods would have been impacted were Boyle’s and Stewart’s motion to pass: Fairview, Grandview-Woodland, Hastings-Sunrise, Kensington-Cedar Cottage, Kitsilano, Marpole, and Mount Pleasant.

The Coalition of Vancouver Neighbourhoods posted a statement online on May 16th in opposition to Boyle’s and Stewart’s motion.

“This will increase development pressure, increase rental inflation, gentrification, demovictions, and displacements for existing older more affordable rental buildings,” the coalition said. It noted that existing rents in older buildings “tend to be much lower than new rentals, sometimes even lower than typical subsidized social housing rents, while existing older units are also generally larger”.

The Coalition also reiterated its longstanding objection to the city’s definition of social housing that allows 70% of the units at market-rate rents, but counts entire projects as 100% social housing “when it is mostly market rents”.

“It’s the carrying on of the policies that were established during the Vision administration, and the staff who was in place then is still in place now, and is simply carrying on with these things,” Larry Benge of the Coalition said, “and unfortunately, staff is directing the way this Council is approaching housing policies.”

Boyle and Stewart’s motion offered a cynical sinecure to the development industry that would allow developers to designate an entire building as ‘social housing’, when in fact, 70% of such proposed units within a 12-storey tower would be made available at market rental rates (generally $2150 for a studio, $2575 for a 1-bedroom, $3100 for a 2-bedroom, $3722 for a 3-bedroom), with the remaining 30% of units available at 20% below the going market rates, rather than the much more affordable 20% below CMHC-determined median rental rate — resulting not only in unaffordable housing units for the vast majority of Vancouverites, but creating unnecessary, counter-productive land inflation across the city.

When the motion failed (miserably) — as well it ought to have —  both Mayor Kennedy Stewart and Councillor Christine Boyle’s OneCity Vancouver municipal party sent out withering funding letters to their supporters, derisively calling out those who had voted against this ‘very important equity motion’.

Balderdash.

The bottom line, for the beleaguered citizens of Vancouver: the majority of Vancouver City Councillors saw through Boyle’s and Stewart’s cynical, developer-friendly ruse, voting against the Boyle/Stewart motion, voting in favour of democratic citizen engagement in the planning processes in our city’s neighbourhoods.


REJECTED | City of Vancouver Real Estate Department Plan for False Creek South

When the City of Vancouver’s Real Estate Department put forward a proposal to Vancouver City Council that would have laid waste to False Creek South, and turned this friendly, low-and-medium-rise townhouse and four-and-six storey apartment-style, and largely housing co-operative neighbourhood into a mirror image of the podium and high-rise tower-driven plinth False Creek North neighbourhood, Mayor Kennedy Stewart was first out of the gate to sing the praises of …

“The new False Creek South Plan”, Stewart wrote, “will add more than 4,600 new below-market and market rental, strata, and co-op homes, so thousands of more Vancouver residents can enjoy the benefit of these publicly owned lands. Great cities like ours can never stand still. We must always examine whether our city is meeting our needs, both for today and tomorrow.”

Too bad that the 171 articulate and informed speakers who appeared before Council to denounce the Plan were so moving Council unanimously rejected the Plan, preserving the heart of our city for generations to come. Notice how in the graphic below, Kennedy Stewart has ‘changed his mind’ on the appropriateness and efficacy of the City’s greed-driven plan for False Creek South.

Kennedy Stewart’s last minute change of heart: rejects greedy False Creek South Plan

As might be expected, one of Kennedy Stewart’s main rivals for Mayor of Vancouver in 2022, the very bright and principled Mark Marissen, takes the Mayor to task for re-announcing and re-launching proposals already soundly rejected by Council. “This is not leadership,” writes Mr. Marissen.

Seems that other of Vancouver citizens — you know, the ones that Research Co. didn’t call — are among the many who find Mayor Kennedy Stewart wanting, in the integrity and climate emergency departments …

Make no mistake, Kennedy Stewart retaining power at Vancouver City Hall for a 2nd term will prove no easy task, for reasons other than you’ll find above. That issue, though, will be the topic of Thursday’s VanRamblings column.

#VanPoli | A Friendship | Vancouver City Councillor Colleen Hardwick

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First term Vancouver City Councillor and 2022 Mayoral hopeful, Colleen Hardwick

In 2013, a group of community activists came together to Save Kits Beach, a community-led environmental response to a Vision Vancouver proposal to run a 12-foot wide asphalt bike path through Hadden and Kitsilano Beach parks.

Although I had known Colleen in the years prior to 2013 — both as an arts reporter writing about the film industry, in which she was involved, as well as working with her father, the late Dr. Walter Hardwick, in the late 1980s / early 1990s on the Livable Region Project — it was not until 2013 that Colleen and I came to know each other better, working on Save Kits Beach, when we first became true friends.

In mid-2016, when I was diagnosed with hilar cholangiocarcinoma, Colleen gave me a call one morning, and in her inimitable, straightforward manner exclaimed boldly to me over the phone, “If you’re going to beat this thing, Raymond, you’re going to need a spiritual element in your life. I’ll be picking you up this coming Sunday morning at 10 a.m. to take you to church!”

During the course of the telephone call Colleen revealed to me that she, too, had earlier been diagnosed with cancer, and that she was still in recovery, as was a good (and mutual) friend of ours, Tina Oliver — who was still receiving treatment. If you know Colleen, you know that there’s no refusing her when she has her mind set, so that next Sunday morning, I dragged myself out of my sick bed, and the two of us headed off to Fairview Baptist Church — where I gratefully attend to this day.

Quite obviously, Colleen was right — for despite my terminal cancer diagnosis, I am still here today, grateful to be alive, and thankful for Colleen’s friendship.

Over the years, Colleen had spoken with me about making a run for Vancouver City Council. In 2014, she created A Better City, the name of the nascent Vancouver political party since “appropriated” for the upcoming 2022 Vancouver municipal election by former Non-Partisan Association President, Peter Armstrong — without permission, of course, with not even a call, text or e-mail posted / made to Colleen.


A Better City, a political party created by City Councillor Colleen Hardwick in 2014

After much thought and discussions with friends, Colleen made the difficult decision not to make a bid for elected office in 2014, under the ABC banner.

All that changed,  however, in 2018, when Peter Armstrong approached and pleaded with Colleen to run for Vancouver civic office under the Non-Partisan Association (NPA) banner — about which she had significant misgivings, not the least of which was the lack of a nomination process.

Having run with the NPA in the 2005 Vancouver municipal election, where she placed 14th after a hard fought campaign, Colleen decided to take Peter up on his offer to fund her civic election campaign, as he all but assured Colleen of her election to Vancouver civic office on October 20.

In fact, Colleen placed a very respectable fifth place in the hard fought 2018 Vancouver civic election, where she would sit as one of five Non-Partisan Association City Councillors — all women —  the others: second term Councillor Melissa De Genova, Lisa Dominato, Rebecca Bligh, and barely squeaking onto Council, former Vancouver Park Board Chairperson, Sarah Kirby-Yung.


Vancouver City Councillor Colleen Hardwick looks askance at a Council colleague

In the five weeks following her election as a City Councillor, then City Manager Sadhu Johnson arranged an orientation for the newly-elected Councillors, during which time the Councillors became intimately familiar with how the city works, with visits to each of the City’s departments, from Planning to Engineering, and Transportation, and beyond, including instruction on City “processes”. During the orientation, the Councillors got to know one another well.

At the Council table, to Colleen’s right sat Christine Boyle, and to her left, Pete Fry. Colleen already knew Pete, but apart from what I had written about Christine during the course of the 2018 Vancouver civic election, was not all that familiar with Ms. Boyle, and what she “brought to the table.” From the outset, Christine let it be known that each and every one of us is living on the stolen lands of the Coast Salish peoples, raising issues of indigenous relations with novice Vancouver City Councillor, Colleen Hardwick.

Quite an education it proved for Ms. Hardwick, who came to like, respect and admire her principled, younger, distaff Council colleague.

As it happens, there was to be no “mutual admiration society” extant between the two nascent Vancouver City Councillors. Christine Boyle implicitly and explicitly let it be known — with a viciousness that Colleen found both perplexing and unsettling — that she despised Colleen and all that she “stood for”, that she would not work with her, had no interest in developing any kind of working relationship with her more mature Council colleague, that she considered Colleen to be a “right winger” and would set about to make Colleen’s life on Council “a living hell.”

And thus the Christine Boyle-created narrative of Colleen Hardwick as a morbid, unredeemable and entirely loathsome “right winger” was born.

As proved to be the case over the next two years, Vancouver City Council’s chief  dissembler — Christine Boyle — was more than true to her word.

Even more, when other of Colleen’s City Council seatmates saw how vicious was the treatment Colleen was being afforded by Christine Boyle, the three men on Council (Mayor Kennedy Stewart, and Green Councillors, Pete Fry and Michael Wiebe) — or as I like to refer to them, the Three Misogynist Musketeers — were only too happy to pile on the train of hate throwing rotten fruit at Colleen, with Christine Boyle handing them the fetid, putrid projectiles.

On two occasions in December 2019, at the end of our regular Sunday church service, Colleen threw herself into my arms, crying and inconsolable, that when I was able to settle her down was told by her that sitting on Council had become too much. The hateful treatment she was afforded at every Council meeting, most particularly by Christine Boyle, but also by Mayor Kennedy Stewart and Councillors Pete Fry and Michael Wiebe, was more than she could bear, it was unrelenting.

Never had she been so miserable, at any point in her life, she cried out.

As it happens, I attended the OneCity Vancouver AGM later in the month of that December, making contact with Christine, telling her how much Colleen had admired her in their early days on Council, how much she had learned from Christine, how grateful Colleen was for the humanity Christine brought to the issue of our relations and collective obligation to our Indigenous peoples.

While staring daggers at me as I made my exclamatory statement, Christine harrumphed, spitting out “I’m not interested,” then briskly walked away.

And this was at a pre-Christmas / Hannukah celebration by a whole passel of OneCity Vancouver members — just about the kindest, most welcoming, generous and socially conscious, as well as activist people you’d ever want to meet.

In March 2020, when a decision was to be made — arising from the demands of the just declared pandemic — Council decided that until further notice that Council meetings would be held virtually through WebEx. Both Councillors Boyle & Fry posted bitter tweets deriding Ms. Hardwick, with Pete tweeting, “At least I don’t have to sit next to that whack job anymore,” referring to Colleen.

A tamped down Pete Fry tweet deriding Councillor Colleen Hardwick

That original tweet has since been deleted. The sentiment and ill-regard remains.

Later, when Christine Boyle — the Chairperson of Council’s Selection Committee — insisted that independent Councillors Melissa De Genova and Sarah Kirby-Yung resign their positions on Council Advisory Committees (which they did … to this day it befuddles me as to why Melissa, by far the toughest person on Council, puts up with Christine’s hateful nonsense, with nary a response to Ms. Boyle’s myriad provocations), and when Ms. Kirby-Yung, Ms. De Genova and Ms. Dominato recommended Councillor Hardwick for a position on the expanded Selection Committee, Christine Boyle cried long and loud that she would not sit on a Selection Committee with … well, let’s not record what the Councillor actually said, but it weren’t pretty, it weren’t kind, and it certainly wasn’t collegial, nor professional.

The Mayor finally had to intervene in response to Councillor Boyle’s childish tantrum, and appointed Councillor Hardwick to the Selection Committee.

All of the above is by way of saying that I’ve had it up to here with the ill treatment Colleen has been afforded on City Council — enough’s enough!

And, no, this is not Raymond Tomlin riding in on his white steed to rescue the damsel in distress. On her most emotionally fraught day, Councillor Colleen Hardwick is 100x tougher than I am, have ever been, or will ever be. Colleen hardly needs my “help” — my friendship and loyalty, maybe, but just that.


Colleen Hardwick and her daughter,  at the 1984 Liberal Party leadership convention 

Let me state for the record: Colleen Hardwick is not a right-winger — as a lifelong member of the Liberal party, and as a multi-term member of the Vancouver Centre Liberal riding executive, Colleen has always been a left-of-centre Liberal, from the time she fought for child care, when in 1984 she attended the Liberal leadership convention, when child care was hardly on anyone’s agenda, but it was on hers, Colleen has always remained a progressive, yet reasonable and centrist Liberal, very much in the mold of former Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, a political leader she has greatly admired all of her adult life.