Here’s my update – thanks to several phone calls — on the situation with FOI at Vancouver city hall and the future employment of departing FOI officer Paul Hancock.
As many others are, I’m sad to see him leave. Paul was incredibly patient with what is becoming an increasingly demanding job. As I note, FOI requests have almost doubled (260 to 400 + a year) and challenges to the B.C. Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner have soared.
We’ll see if the re-org at city hall results in faster responses
14 responses so far ↓
1 Brenton // Nov 2, 2010 at 7:07 pm
Interesting. Are you sure it’s not Penny Ballem and Gregor driving people out of city hall? I’m pretty sure, despite the evidence, that that is the case.
2 Roger Kemble // Nov 3, 2010 at 7:09 am
Wow only one post so far . . .
I guess the saddle sniffers are otherwise occupied!
Please Brenton don’t take yourself so seriously . . .
Reading the retiree list on CityCaucus I do not recognize all the names but when I see Rhonda Howard and Cameron Gray all of a sudden, it struck me, those guys are still there!
Having worked from the outside with the city, mostly the planning department, I do not share Frances’, or indeed, many of her conversationalists, enthusiasm for their contribution.
My first encounter with the behemoth was the Percy Norman, neé Riley Park, swimming pool: 1958: my last, Mountain View Village, 1984, was particularly distasteful. It may be of comfort for other Metro protagonists to know they are not the worst. Surrey, in my experience was the best. I wont go into details.
Let it be said, since Sutton-Brown, 1951, and likely before, the billions expended, the citizens of this city have not, by any means, received their money’s worth: to wit, the boondoggles FCN
http://www.theyorkshirelad.ca/6urbandesign/2010.pdf
Marine Gateway, that renowned Vancouver architect Jim Hancock‘s latest thingie, . . . being among the many, many of brutalism’s tragedies: and all the phony public participation meetings and other set-ups to boot.
Don’t blame VV, it is just having to deal with ancient ingrown habituals and left-over debris.
That ongoing list of retirements is probably an indication of relief: escaping the horror of a wasted life and at least retrieve some vestige of personal and professional integrity before the leaves begin to fall.
For those remaining sentient city residents of the city the whole charade of the civic bureaucracy is a mockery.
3 Roger Kemble // Nov 3, 2010 at 8:17 am
FALSE CREEK NORTH
4 Roger Kemble // Nov 3, 2010 at 8:19 am
Ummmmm. jpegs work for Frances . . .
Not for Roger!
5 Paul // Nov 3, 2010 at 2:54 pm
Ha!
Pretty classic managerial denial: increased workload (not our fault) was too much (for employee to handle).
Great spin.
Hook, line, sinker.
6 Mark Allerton // Nov 3, 2010 at 3:22 pm
I have to confess when I read of this, my first thought was of the UK’s “climategate” scandal – one factor in which was the scientists’ frustration at having to spend time dealing with FOI requests from people they believed (quite rightly in many cases) were trying to obstruct their work.
I’m a longtime advocate of FOI legislation, but an accidental side effect of this has been to create a perfect tool for the conspiracy theorist, where almost any outcome can be turned into a story – and leaving their targets deluged with requests.
(The scientists were largely cleared of wrongdoing, by the way: http://www.economist.com/node/15826384)
7 Roger Kemble // Nov 3, 2010 at 4:22 pm
Well Mark #6, you have it quite wrong.
East Anglia’s CRU was exposed by a whistle blower who leaked scores of inter-office secret e-mails showing scientists manipulating the data.
Michael Mann’s hockey stick left out the mediaeval warm period and Copenhagen deflated like a lead balloon.
As for exoneration . . . it’s called cronyism in sophisticated circles.
Ummmmmmm . . . you always seem to be buttering up to the wrong side . . . nice try . . . but . . .
8 Mark Allerton // Nov 3, 2010 at 5:10 pm
The prosecution rests, m’lud.
9 spartikus // Nov 3, 2010 at 5:29 pm
The prosecution rests, m’lud.
LOL
10 MB // Nov 4, 2010 at 2:46 pm
Careful, Roger. W-a-a-a-y off topic.
The folks below host more appropriate forums for discussions on climate change, and are most able to respond in detail to the well-funded denial machine’s highly questionable methods and assertions.
Please don’t drag us into its gears here.
http://www.realclimate.org/
http://climateprogress.org/
http://www.desmogblog.com/
11 Roger Kemble // Nov 4, 2010 at 5:52 pm
Errrrrrrr . . . what is that you wrote MB #10? “Careful, Roger. W-a-a-a-y off topic.”
Careful indeed! Who the hell are you?
Are you some kind of deviated control freak?
Piss all over Mark #6 not me! He’s the one who said . . . quite out of context . . . “I have to confess when I read of this, my first thought was of the UK’s “climategate” scandal.”
Some of you guys need be brought into line . . .
I merely put the little man out of his misery . . .
12 Roger Kemble // Nov 4, 2010 at 6:17 pm
PS . . . oh BTW Mr. Mind-your-own-business-MB . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPUcfQS-slo&feature=player_embedded#!
and note . . . the new US congress is setting up a committee to look into this whole CO² AGW scam.
Now go to bed, pull the blankets over you nose and be a good little boy . . . thanqu!
13 Roger Kemble // Nov 5, 2010 at 7:48 am
Thanqu MB . . . I have waded thru all your stuff in your posted three links.
Are we taking science or fear mongering?
I know not your pedigree but clearly you are interested in semantics. With the exception of the Prentice escape to his natural habitat your references are loquacious, convoluted, inconclusive and evasive.
We know the earth’s climate changes.
We know CRU scientists were manipulating the data. We know Copenhagen was unsuccessful. Many of us are still convinced CRU scientists’ are culpable despite their official exoneration.
And we now know the new US congress is about to investigate the value of its carbon tax policy: perhaps BC’s, also, is premature.
As far as this is relevant to this FOI conversation, in view of the difficulties OV is experiencing IMO yes it is.
The whole OV edifice is predicated on green and sustainable which, as it is turning out, is becoming a liability and I am sorry for, again IMO, it is otherwise a distinctive addition to our housing stock.
An in depth FOI into the complete civic green and sustainable obsession is surely, by now, appropriate.
I will fervently acknowledge the tar sands are very, very destructive and if we persists the outfall will come back to haunt us with devastating effect: to say nothing of the impact on the residents of the Athabasca Basin. Check for an FOI search!
I also acknowledge we are playing environmental roulette allowing supertankers passage thru Second narrows . . . etc., etc. Another potent FOI search.
Mexico City, has for decades, been measuring the lethal cocktail of it air borne gases and trace solids:
http://www.sma.df.gob.mx/simat2/ingles.php
It has greatly improved from my time.
Perhaps we should, therefore, concentrate on that instead of trying to blind little people like me with word games and prolix science to keep a strangle hold on the specialists’ piece of the action with word games.
God bless . . . QED.
14 MB // Nov 5, 2010 at 8:39 am
Sorry, Urbie. Will not engage. I’m off to bed to pull my nice thick HBC blanket over my my nose.
Have a great weekend.
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