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Vancouver council expenses: Mandarin lessons, trips to Iqaluit and more shockers

March 31st, 2011 · 36 Comments

Investigative reporting it ain’t, but we in the paid media like to alert you tax-paying peons to the report on council expenses every year so that you can be duly outraged that someone somewhere in government  is spending money.

Reporting for duty on this story, here is the link to this year’s Vancouver council expenses report. The highlights:

Mayor Gregor spent $2,258 on Mandarin lessons before he went to China in September. It’s $2,258 more than previous mayor Sam Sullivan paid to learn Chinese, as far as I know. Sam taught himself all of his languages. But the current mayor’s lessons lessons paid off. He spoke some Mandarin at council recently and I, a temporary resident of China for three months at one time, was impressed with his accent;

*** CORRECTION. I’ve now been told that actually Sam Sullivan spent $3,125 on his Chinese lessons. No bills forwarded to me yet for Punjabi, Tagalog or Italian.

The mayor also got a $7,000 transportation allowance — a surprise to those who thought he’d only need about $150 a year for spare pedals on his bike. Apparently he does get in a car from time to time. The last mayor to get a travel allowance was Philip Owen. Both Larry Campbell and Sam Sullivan used vehicles supplied by the city; Sullivan’s van had quite an expensive upgrade to make it easier for him to get in and out.

Tim Stevenson got the most in travel money — about $13,000

Raymond Louie got the next most, around $10,000, with more than $4,000 for the Federation of Canadian Municipalities trip to Iqaluit

David Cadman, a favoured punching bag for various critics, spent only $484.

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  • Max

    However sympolic for Mayor Robertson to learn Mandarin afer his $120k+ trip (taxpayer funded) to China,is, I am still truly curious to what else came of that trip.

    Surrey’s Mayor Watts had a similar junket to India. The hopeful outcomes were well pronounced before the trip and the acutals were publically given after.

    As for the China trip by Robertson (and aside the photo op with a possible lost realtion…) little else was disclosed. So? Where were our dollars spent and how were they spent?????

  • Tiktaalik

    That’s funny about the rather high transportation allowance. I’ve spotted him riding the Canada Line before.

  • Gerald

    Ae we to understand that an expense report takes the place of the annual report? Vision hasn’t produced an annual report since taking over from the last council. the last annual report was 2007. What gives there?

  • Frances Bula

    @Gerald. I’m not sure what you mean by an annual report. I don’t know of the city or any political party issuing annual reports, except as political campaign stunts, when opposition parties issue an “annual report” on the ruling party to point out all their failings. Can you clarify? Maybe there’s something you’re thinking of that I’ve forgotten about.

  • Max

    @Gerald:

    It is funny.

    If you Google it, there are on-line PDF’s of the Annual Reports for 2005, 2006 and 2007.

    Nothing since then.

    But, for whatever reason, I though they did finally issue one, after a lenghty delay (almost 500 days or so) back in 2009….

  • Max

    @ Frances:

    Did Sam Sullivan pay for his lessons or did the city budget cover it?

    Sullivan has openly stated he did not pay for any lessons and the monies reported as spent were for translation services of articles etc. over a period of time.

  • Max

    An amendment to my #5.

    I meant ‘2010’ not 2009.

  • Frances Bula

    @ Max. The annual reports for what?

  • spartikus

    I think Max is referring to the 2002-2007 CoV Annual Reports listed here

  • Max

    Add this to the list: As posted on Alex Tsakumi’s blog:

    …’I can confirm that three lucky gents at City Hall are about to go on a ONE MONTH vacation, er, excuse me, work-related trip, to Christchurch, New Zealand, and all on your dime.

    Leaving in a few days are:

    Daniel Stevens from Emergency Management

    Jim Young from Vancouver Fire and Rescue

    Peter Navratil from Engineering

    The City is sending these three to Christchurch to evaluate, firsthand, their experiences with earthquake aftermath issues. One whole month! Add it up: Airfare, accommodation, per diems, salaries, acting pay for those expected to cover them, lost productivity, and so on and so forth. Ah, to be one of the chosen. The engineer alone makes about 12k a month, closer to 16k when benefits are factored in. Plus the salaries of the other two…. think about it! This is the City of Vancouver that have been cutting and slashing to accommodate their hurtful, radical agenda against any of you that drive cars. This is the same CoV that is paying that dizzy harridan well into the six figures to be City Manager and cover-up artist.’

    ***

    Ahhh, the Vancouver taxpayer, the gift that keeps on giving!

  • spartikus

    Remember today’s date when reading Max’s outrage over sending engineers and rescue personnel to study earthquake preparedness in the shadow of 2 incredibly devastating earthquakes.

  • Max

    @spartikus #11

    I enjoy the fact that you believe I am alone in this thought, especially when the city is laying off employees and cutting or no longer funding services.

    Perhaps head over to AG’s blog and read some of the comments.

  • spartikus

    No need Max! I’ll take you at your word that the commentators at AGT’s blog are frothing at the mouth over the CoV sending the people who would be in charge of the CoV’s earthquake recovery effort to study a city’s recovery effort from, you know, an actual earthquake. (I mean come on! Can’t they just read the Wikipedia entry!?)

    I am quite sure too that AGT’s commentariat are convinced they represent the opinion of the people of Vancouver.

  • George

    spartikus# 11

    Max is not alone, I’d rather the money be spent investigating the Pandora Street fire… before the election…

    we can’t stop the earthquake, and all the planing in the world is just hypothetical…

    spend the taxpayers money on preparedness kits, have the gentleman go door to door educating us, and if you have faith… pray.

  • Chris Keam

    Given that the average hospital stay for an injury costs roughly $10,000:

    http://www.healthzone.ca/health/article/347297

    it seems to me that the knowledge gained from this trip would quickly pay for itself even if it only keeps a hundred people from requiring some form of medical treatment in the aftermath of an earthquake. If it prevented something serious like spinal injuries or other long-term disabilities, then there’s no doubt in my mind it’s money well-spent, both from an economic, and humanitarian standpoint.

  • MB

    @ George #14: “we can’t stop the earthquake, and all the planing in the world is just hypothetica l… spend the taxpayers money on preparedness kits, have the gentleman go door to door educating us, and if you have faith… pray.”

    ***

    The CoV has a billion dollar annual budget, more than any other city in the Metro. I have no problem with the city using a small slice of it to send engineers to Christchurch to study the aftereffects of a serious earthquake. They will learn a lot about how a city, as the agency of first response, can best prepare.

    Rinky dink preparedness kits for individuals don’t address how to best repair broken large diameter water mains under the streets, or help identify and correct flaws in existing large-scale emergency response plans.

    My quibble is twofold. Why haven’t the federal and provincial governments addressed our own rather pitiful preparedness where millions of their own constituents are threatened by inevitable siesmic activity just as powerful as NZ’s and Japan’s? Pennypinching now may lead to larger scale human tragedy later.

    Perhaps Vancouver could have teamed up with other cities in the Metro and the continental West Coast to charter a plane and send officials and professionals to participate in large studies of the NZ and Japanese quakes.

    Max’s and George’s bleating about nickels and dimes is merely the roaring of an Origami tiger, the creation of a straw man to make cheap political points on.

    I would not place any credence in them to address the sheer necessity of West Coast communities to study seismic engineering issues, or to understand how a city works.

  • spartikus

    Max’s and George’s bleating about nickels and dimes is merely the roaring of an Origami tiger, the creation of a straw man to make cheap political points on.

    Don’t forget the astounding hypocrisy of condemning the City’s action on earthquake preparedness while simultaneously condemning the City’s lack of action on the Pandora St. fire.

  • Max

    @spartikus:

    Do you really want to open the door of hypocrisy on what transpired both before and after the Pandora Street fire. A situation that could have been stopped dead in its tracks before those three men died, needlesly.

    The lies that were put out after the fact in order to try to remove the city from any responsibility, and now, to add insult to injury for the families, let’s have the Corner’s inquest after the next election in order to not tie up any city hall staffers that may be needed during the election.

    Wow.

  • George

    Spartikus

    sorry you didn’t recognize sarcasm about the kits…

    yes I do condemn the city specifically the Mayor for inaction on Pandora Street, and no I feel the trip to Christchurch is a huge waste of resources…my opinion ….

  • Bill McCreery

    @ Max 5.

    Gerald may be referring to the City’s annual budget as well as the annual reports. The 2007 Annual report is 36 pages and the 2008 Budget is 249 pages compared to 6 1/2 pages for the 2011 budget. The 6 1/2 pager is of course more “open and transparent” than the 249 page 2008 Budget.

    The City for some reason is also slicing all their various budgeting efforts into particular bits such as:

    1) 2011 Operating Budget,
    2) 2011 Capital Budget,
    3) 2010 Council Expenses Report,

    as well as no doubt others.

    By the way, where are Councillors’ other income and expenses for Metro and other City related business? Shouldn’t taxpayers have a complete picture of all income and expenses paid to Councillors so they don’t have to spend hours trying to put it all together? Maybe Penny is fine tuning another report on this, or maybe she isn’t.

  • spartikus

    Max #18

    I haven’t got a clue which point of mine you’re responding too. Per usual.

    George: Your opinion is, in my opinion, utterly misguided. But since NPA candidate Bill seems to be about, let’s ask his opinion.

    Is the trip to Christchurch a waste of money, Bill? I tend to think you, or any sane person, would not think so but let’s just play along for a moment.

  • Jason King

    Spartikus,

    I think that you’re right, and that this trip is probably more than justified and that the city staff will benefit from the trip.

    I do, however, feel that the “questioning” of this trip may be the result of people’s anger towards politicians who they do feel go on boondoggles with no clearly defined goals or objectives.

    One could also argue that this is what happens when you start to politicize the bureaucracy to the point where people don’t distinguish between the politicians and the city employees.

  • Michael Geller

    I know you didn’t ask me……and I’m not speaking for the NPA, but I agree that it is worthwhile for Vancouver officials to go to Christchurch to see first hand what lessons might be learned from their earthquake. But I do question why they need to stay there for an entire month.

    I would have recommended that they stay in the two storey penthouse suite I enjoyed in the Grand Chancellor Hotel, one of Christchurch’s tallest buildings during my visit in 2007, but sadly the hotel was severly damaged in the quake. (It was built in 1995.)

    I would recommend that they visit Te Papa, the national museum in Wellington. There they will find an exhibit that simulates what it is like to be in an earthquake and how to prepare. It was a very realistic and convincing experience….you are sitting in a living room watching TV when the entire room starts to shake…The show is interupted by a special news broadcast and you witness live footage of the damage occuring in the city. The New Zealand equivalent of Peter Mansbridge reports on what is happening outside. Did I say it was incredibly realistic?

    As I left the exhibit I wanted to rush back to Vancouver and rearrange the furniture in our house.

    I think a similar exhibit in Vancouver would do more for earthquake preparedness than anything else we might watch on TV.

    For those of you who want to know more about Christchurch, here’s my 2007 blog post http://gellersworldtravel.blogspot.com/2007/02/christchurch-garden-city.html

  • George

    Spartikus,
    in a democracy my opinion has just as much validity as Bill’s opinion….

  • spartikus

    Sorry George, but if Bill is elected his opinion will be worth more. We live in a representitive democracy, not a direct one.

    I’ll admit I sometimes ask Bill questions to pin him down, but this is a pure lobbed softball.

    @Michael Geller:

    But I do question why they need to stay there for an entire month.

    What’s an appropriate length of time?

  • Sean Bickerton

    Frances, I believe you’ve been misled.

    Mayor Sullivan didn’t charge the city for any language lessons – he paid for those himself. The only the thing the city paid for were translations of documents and official speeches, something all administrations require.

    I think it’s proved a surprise to everyone, but what Mr. Robertson has given Vancouver is an imperial Mayoralty, where taxpayers are asked to pay for his private language lessons, a large new suite of private offices, double for car transport than others, a lavish $80K inauguration, and $1 billion in Olympic Village financing without holding a referendum, a violation of the Vancouver City Charter.

  • Bill McCreery

    @ Sparks 25.

    In order to answer your question more information would be necessary. At this point I have a number of questions:

    1) Should the City be doing this on it’s own? Earthquakes won’t stop at boundary Road. Why not share the cost with other Metro Cities? Should this be a Metro initiative? Will Vancouver recoup some of their costs by sharing what’s learned with other Cities?

    2) Should we be sending anyone down at all? Will these staff members get information by doing so which will not be available from other sources more cheaply? Why these staff members? Why for a month? Can this be done in a week? Two weeks? Why now? Could more be learned later? What are the Christchurch earthquake similarities and differences as compared to Vancouver? Would we be better served going to Japan? Should we be going there as well?

    3) How does this junket fit into the City’s emergency preparedness system? What improvements are expected as a result of this trip? What will be accomplished?

    Etc.

    These are questions Vancouver voters like George, you and I need to be asking and asking our elected representatives to answer. As an elected Councillor these are questions I would put to staff before deciding this venture was worthwhile or not. In other words, decisions are made from a well thought through decision-making process.

    So far Vision has not demonstrated that they are capable of being able to utilize such a rational process. They prefer the superimposition of ideology instead. Examples include: the heavily subsidized, misguided STIR programme, ‘temporary’ bike lane ‘trials’, the mismanagement of the still empty Olympic Village. On what basis will Vision decide on the casino issue? So far the alternative argument information which has been presented has come from 3rd party sources. None has been generated by the City itself. This in itself is telling.

    So far the public only knows 3 staff are going to Christchurch for a month. The above questions are not answered. Based on past performance it is right to ask if they have been asked, and what the answers are. Wouldn’t that be “open and transparent” government?

  • Glissando Remmy

    善唱 Thought 新年 善唱 Evening

    ” 忘不了的您 畫家陳叔善唱 何日君再來”

    Gregor,
    Your Mandarin immersion quickie, should allow you to read the above ‘Thought of The Evening’. Enjoy!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcnkvKGmkxs

    What I like about this mandarin song is its message:

    Par example @ 1.33 to 1.47 min, it says:

    “Blossoms of Hollyhock,
    Ready to pi-pi-pi-pi-pi-ck,
    They are just baby leafs,
    Visions with a tiny di-di-di-di-di-ck!”

    We 大团圆/ 龙头 Vancouver 大队贺新年/新年快樂/恭喜 busy.

  • Frances Bula

    @Sean. I am awaiting copies of invoices, but I understand there are bills for many hours of “practicing Mandarin” or “practicing speech in Chinese.” I know that Sam learned his Chinese at home, from tapes, in the early days, but it sounds as though there was some payment for coaching and accent improvement and so on. I guess you could argue whether these were “lessons” or not, but I think most people would define tutoring or coaching — even for someone who already has some language skills — as a form of lessons.

  • Sean Bickerton

    Understood Frances – I’ve received similar information now. Other points stand.
    sean

  • spartikus

    Bill,

    1) How do you know this trip isn’t part of a Metro initative? All we have is the the extremely truncated information posted on AGT’s website.

    2) You probably could get information another way. But it wouldn’t be as good (note my Wikipedia crack). You wouldn’t get it as quickly. Being able to discuss things face-to-face with your opposite number can be invaluable. Given what is being discussed, I have no problems with spending the money and I think the vast majority of Vancouverites would too. Why NZ and not Japan? There are many Japanese who speak English – Vancouver being a famous destination for Japansese students to learn English. But it’s the native tongue of NZ. Documents and reports will be in English. We want to plan for a disaster under our building code which [probably] more resembles Christchurch’s than Tokyo’s.

    3) See MB’s comment.

    Of course all of this is very easy to clarify for the genuinely concerned:

    It’s been my experience that respectfully written emails get responses from many different levels of government and crown corporations.

    Those that think the appropriate response to hearing about this trip is sneering outrage at a time when bodies are still be pulled from the rubble in Japan are…not politically astute.

  • Chris Keam

    “Would we be better served going to Japan? Should we be going there as well?”

    Perhaps the Japanese authorities are a bit too busy these days, what with the whole national disaster thing to deal with, whereas many of the same lessons can be learned in Christchurch without having to pull people away from the rather more important job of rebuilding huge chunks of coastline, housing hundreds of thousands of displaced people, and trying to bury thousands more victims?

  • Higgins

    Wow, Sean and Bill are in an “appropriate and well thought” election year mood. Mainly moving air in style. I’ll still vote for Glissy in a Vancouver second. He is what this city needs. Someone to wake up the bureaucrats and the rest of the politicians from their lethargic hibernation. I’m starting to like Mike Geller more and more. I would like to hear Frances’ opinion as well, so…?

  • Max

    @spartikus:

    This trip would have been easier to take if it were not ‘uncovered’ by yet another blogger but rather the city letting the citizens know it was taking place.

    Have you seen this show up in the MSM anywhere?

    Nothing, crickets.

    The city has a bad habit of hiding their actions.

    Open and transparent government was promised and has not been delivered.

  • Bill McCreery

    Agree Max, and my questions about cooperative efforts, etc. need answers.

    Chris, may I respectfully suggest the New Zealand authorities might be a tad occupied at present as well. Perhaps you know more than I about earthquakes, but 1 of the reasons for that question was: how do the geological conditions in NZ and Japan related to our own?

    1) I don’t know Sparks, but don’t you think it would be nice if the City, and presumably Metro or others involved would inform the public?

    2) I am simply posing the questions which need answered before public funds are spent.

    I hope you are not connecting me with your suggestion that “Those that think the appropriate response to hearing about this trip is sneering outrage at a time when bodies are still be pulled from the rubble in Japan are…not politically astute.” group. I have simply responded to your question @ 25.

    My short answer is that once the questions are answered one can responsibly decide whether or not to go, when and what to accomplish. That IMO is not only politically astute, but responsible as well. From what Max has said, in the absence of information one cannot assume anything.

  • George

    Bill McCreery

    These are questions Vancouver voters like George, you and I..

    Thank you for respecting my right to be included in the discussion..