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Robertson criticized for not taking stronger stand on police crackdown

February 17th, 2009 · 8 Comments

Allen Garr at the Courier is always the first person to spot the soft underbelly of new mayors, in my experience.

He was the first to write a column back in the early days of COPE’s term noting that Larry Campbell appeared to have undergone a transformation, shortly after being elected, from crusading coroner to celebrity chef.

Now he’s assessed new mayor Gregor Robertson’s handling of a tough issue — the new police plan with goals for more ticketing and street checks in the Downtown Eastside — and not been impressed. You can read it here.

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  • hohoho

    Okay…wait for it…wait for it….

    Brenda/Geoff: “It’s all the NPA’s fault!”

  • JCobb

    It’s becoming increasingly apparent that Comrade Caption Gregor has become the Sarah Palin of Vancouver; not, obviously in terms of political stripe, but in the inability to react to questions with a coherent statement. It’s clear that someone with Comrade Gregor’s intellectual range requires a well rehearsed, response, vetted by the Vision Politburo prior to media release. Any spontaneous response is by Gregor is clearly a crap shoot on the coherence scale.

    Pity. Vancouver deserves better.

  • spartikus

    but in the inability to react to questions with a coherent statement.

    Huh? You got that from the Garr piece? Could you, perhaps, cite some of Mayor Robertson’s statements that you find “incoherent”?

    It’s difficult to your statement seriously otherwise.

    There may be legitimate criticism. Or not. But the “coherence” angle doesn’t seem to be, well, coherent.

  • Denis

    The Mayor seemed pretty lucid to me on two TV articles this evening. Methinks some folks are not yet over the fact that the NPA got turfed out of office, a new group came in and are now finding out about some pretty expensive challenges sorting things out.

  • A. G. Tsakumis

    Allen Garr is a friend and someone I respect immensely, but we will disagree on this…

    If Geoff has identified that the DTES has been targeted by the police, good. That’s a fact, and that’s exactly what should be happening.

    It has nothing to do with the Olympics. It has everything to do with the fact that for too long we have given criminals a free ride on the DTES because they are “poor” or “downtrodden”.

    If there are people who are marginalized that have been treated poorly, fair enough. That’s wrong and should be rectified. But how do you expect cops to react when they see someone break the law?

    As for the Mayor, I agree with Denis and spartikus: Gregor may have some occasional moments of challenge at being extemporaneous, but his crime messaging tonight on both CTV and Global was exceptional and crisp. We’re a long way away from the pregnant pauses of the election.

    As for the issue raised in Allen’s piece, I think some of his supporters, like Eby and Pivot and others, expect some sort of quid pro quo, and the fact that Gregor isn’t providing it means that he understands that he is Mayor of all of Vancouver, and not just Mayor of manipulative left-wing asskissers that expect Gregor to formulate policy on a wink, like Sam used to do.

  • Urb Anwriter

    A. G. T.

    Oooh. The proof that the DTES hasn’t been targeted by the donut squad is standing, speaking, well, not English lets say, and dealing drugs. The jay-walking ticket protest has, in my opinion, a couple of valid points: the police are ticketing people with no money, no ‘coherence,’ and no real reason to care. But I notice, doing some low-level, and not very scientific, social science research, that the VPD seems invisible with respect to j-walking (and related major crimes) in Dunbar – sit in the coffee shop beside Dunbar Cycles, or the *bucks – and watch the number of people who j-walk and never seem the least bit furtive about it. Hmmm.

    And, if Dunbar isn’t your cup of tea, try the *bucks at Yew and 41, as a place to sit and study the pedestrian behaviours. Again, in an hour of watching numerous individuals, as well as parents dragging kids, not one member of Vancouver’s finest could be seen writing anyone a ticket.

    And you ask “how do you expect cops to react when someone breaks the law,” without, apparently, any consideration of economic or social class whatever.

    What I expect is equal enforcement, per capita. I expect to see police not do illegal u-turns so they can get a prime (coffee time) parking spot. Or not see, as the case may be. I expect cops to issue as many tickets, relative to the number of offenders, in Vancouver’s ‘creme de la crème’ neighbourhoods as they do in the DES.

    I expect to see the cops issue tickets to cyclists on the sidewalk. And, imagine this, I expect to see them issue tickets to the rent-a-cop wannabe security crowd when they ride on the sidewalk.

    And, if you doubt the veracity of the claims, belly up to the bar. I’ll give you your choice of good coffee shops in which to sit, so as to reflect on my observations. I’ll even point out the drug dealers that have been standing on Hastings for eight years (yes, 8) that Constable Plod seems unable to discourage… except when some Important Personage comes to town, then everyone disappears while the sidewalks get hosed down… only to re-appear when the personage has left again

    And dear Gregor doesn’t seem any more capable of standing up to the VPD than any other mayor.

  • Urb Anwriter

    why did the Arabic number for VIII (ya, I know, that’s Roman) get turned into a smiley? And it’s missing an end bracket.

  • fbula

    That is a mystery. I’ve noticed that happens on facebook if you combine certain symbols — turns them into smiley/frowny faces