I know it’s hard for some people to accept, but our outgoing mayor does have some friends out there, so presumably they’ll all be showing up for this shindig to honour him. They could actually turn this into a money-maker, since I’m sure there’s more than one person who’d be willing to pay top dollar […]
A tribute to Mayor Sam Sullivan in the works
November 21st, 2008 · 5 Comments
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Mayors defend Olympic Village
November 11th, 2008 · 15 Comments
The media circus continues; Ex-mayors Philip Owen and Larry Campbell are going to hold a news conference at 4 p.m. to defend the current Olympic village loan. And this news release just came out from Mayor Sam Sullivan’s office. Open Letter from Mayor Sam Sullivan Southeast False Creek planning a decade in the making – […]
Tags: 2008 Vancouver Civic Election
Philip Owen wades into the election campaign
November 10th, 2008 · 9 Comments
In 2005, the turning point of the election came when the ex-mayors started entering the fray. Philip Owen and Larry Campbell appeared side by side in the Vancouver Sun three years ago this week, each blasting the opposing camp and endorsing their candidate. You’ll remember whose candidate won. (And you’ll remember Philip Owen’s effect on […]
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Robertson posts his developer-free donor list
November 10th, 2008 · 3 Comments
In the battle for full disclosure of campaign contributions, Vision Vancouver has now posted how much Gregor Robertson got in financial contributions for his mayoral campaign. At $180,382.50, it’s about $20,000 more than the Non-Partisan Association’s Peter Ladner got for his race. But if you break it down by how much they spent per voter, […]
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Vancouver advance polls show signs of high turnout — the Obama effect?
November 6th, 2008 · 3 Comments
Everyone’s been predicting possible record low turnouts in the B.C. civic elections, with speculation that voters will be just too tired from the recent batches of voting to mark another X. But that doesn’t appear to be the case. I dropped by three of the four advance polls today where everyone was reporting higher turnout […]
Tags: 2008 Vancouver Civic Election
Peter Ladner: Strong on crime-fighting or not?
October 19th, 2008 · 6 Comments
When Peter Ladner and the Non-Partisan Association launched the party platform last week, they also kicked off a round of commentary about Ladner’s supposed new emphasis on dealing with crime and boosting police and other security measures. Some saw it as a surprise. I didn’t. I said in a story I wrote in the first […]
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Ladner: “This is not a slam-dunk election. They smell blood.”
October 8th, 2008 · 6 Comments
It was the Non-Partisan Association’s annual fundraising dinner tonight, even though that fact went unrecorded by all media but me as far as I can tell. Time was it was a routine item for coverage. (Remember three years ago when Sam Sullivan apologized to the banquet crowd for his misjudgment in letting a drug user […]
Tags: 2008 Vancouver Civic Election
The first civic election debate: Experience versus leadership
October 2nd, 2008 · 17 Comments
It’s hard to believe some people chose to go to a hockey game tonight when they could have been sitting with all of us at the Vancouver Public Library talking about municipal policy. A loss for them of 90 minutes of action-packed excitement, but fun for the 300 or so of us there. Okay, kidding […]
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Electric cars to come to Vancouver streets soon
September 28th, 2008 · 3 Comments
For those of you who missed Saturday’s Globe and Mail, here’s the link to the story I wrote about the city’s plan to allow the current small neighbourhood electric cars to be driven on city streets. Although I didn’t put it in the print story, this is an example of the kind of initiative that […]
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Vancouverites “short-sighted” about EcoDensity
September 24th, 2008 · 1 Comment
While the party of ousted mayor Sam Sullivan wonders how much to bring up the term EcoDensity in the civic election campaign, the title and concept does have its defenders out there. This article, by local architect Alan Boniface in Canadian Architect, highlights what the defenders like about it — and what their view is […]
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