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Where your Metro Vancouver reps will be going around the globe to become better informed

June 19th, 2012 · 6 Comments

For those who care about such things, in the agenda for tomorrow’s Metro Vancouver intergovernmental committee meeting:

That the Board authorize the Chair to appoint Metro Vancouver Directors to participate in
the following 2012 international conferences in accordance with the approved 2012 budget
and current travel policy:
· ICLEI/Metropolis Thriving Neighbourhoods Conference
Melbourne, Australia, November 12-14, 2012
· United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) Meeting of the World Council
Dakar, Senegal, December 1-3 or December 9-11 (tbc)
· 2012 World Urban Forum
Naples, Italy, September 2-6, 2012
· INTA36 World Urban Development Congress
New York City, November 11-15, 2012

And this somewhat more modest trip

Recommendation:
That the Board authorize Director Gayle Martin’s attendance at the Future of Libraries and
Cities Conference being held October 2, 2012 in Langley, BC at the estimated costs outlined in
the report dated May 28, 2012 titled Attendance at the Future of Libraries and Cities
Conference, October 23, 2012.

 

 

Categories: Uncategorized

  • Bill Lee

    Ah, Melbourne. Often number one on that fake livability index that pushes dear old Greater Surrey (formerly Vancouver) out of the top.

    One of the cities that our dear Old Port of Montreal Corporation CEO Claude Benoit took her royal self for for information tours, supposedly with her “brownie” or other simple camera and didn’t talk to anyone.
    See old Harper scandals of March and April of this year.
    “Madame Benoit claimed she worked for 12 days of the 29-day trip, even though she did not meet any officials during that time. Instead, she visited port facilities and the large “Southern Star” ferris wheel in Melbourne to come up with a nine-page PowerPoint presentation for other senior managers of the Old Port corporation.”

    I am sure our gabby Metro Vancouver (GVRD) members won’t make the same mistake even as they wonder why the sun is in the wrong part of the sky. November in Oz is similar to May here but they are farther from the Antarctic, about the latitude of San Francisco.
    Do look at housing prices, granny cottages, and the rental crisis there. Mind the infamous Melbourne Hook turn on the 250 km (155.3 mi) of tram tracks to which Wikipedia devotes 4 detailed pages. VicRoads.vic.au may hand you a pamphlet.
    And see http://www.bicyclenetwork.com.au/general/bikes-and-riding/10429/ if you are on your bikes.

    And do visit Radio Australia beside The Mighty Yarra River (don’t fall in) booming across the Pacific every night to B.C. filling our minds with AFL, G’day and politics that is rougher than here. And ask why we don’t have such a radio service.

  • gman

    I wonder if ICLEI will have as much fun in Melbourne as they are having in Brazil right now? http://www.cfact.tv/2012/06/17/champagne-flows-as-eviros-demand-lower-living-standards/

  • Bill Lee

    @gman
    I wouldn’t worry much

    “Victorian wine is wine made in the Australian state of Victoria. With over 600 wineries, Victoria has more wine producers than any other Australian wine-producing state but ranks third in overall wine production due to the lack of a mass bulk wine-producing area like South Australia’s Riverland and New South Wales’s Riverina. Viticulture has existed in Victoria since the 19th century and experienced a high point in the 1890s when the region produced more than half of all wine produced in Australia.”
    Among wine climatic zones “The Port Phillip zone includes the five regions clustered around the Melbourne. The climate of this more closely resembles Bordeaux than in other Australia wine regions yet it is more thoroughly planted with Burgundy wine varieties like a Pinot noir and Chardonnay. Other areas are planted with Shiraz.”

  • gman

    @Bill Lee
    Good to know the wine will have a smaller carbon footprint..LOL.I wonder if they are going to have the same cool band?

  • Bill Lee

    Should we pity them that they did not go to Rio for Rio+20?

    Wednesday, June 20, 2012 – Page updated at 03:30 p.m.

    Amid Rio’s beauty, epic pollution greets visitors
    by JULIANA BARBASSA Associated Press

    The throngs streaming into Rio for a sustainable development conference may be dreaming of white-sand beaches and clear, blue waters, but what they are first likely to notice as they leave the airport is not the salty tang of ocean in the breeze, but the stench of raw sewage.
    That’s because the airport sits by a bay that absorbs about 320 million gallons (1.2 billion liters) of raw waste water a day: 480 Olympic swimming pools worth of filth.
    As they head into the city, they will note soda bottles bobbing on the water and the colorful detritus that wreathes the shore: discarded television sets, couches and broken toys snarled in plastic. They will likely get caught in a traffic jam, peering out at the acrid haze of diesel fumes and exhaust from the commercial port that lingers over the city. [ more — http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/text/2018478852.html
    ]

  • gman

    Maybe thats why they went to Belo Horizonte instead. http://www.cfact.tv/2012/06/16/a-k-from-the-trenches-day-4-iclei-world-congress-conference/