2022 Mayoral Candidates Debate …

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Hopefully, all five will show up!

Sign of the Times

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The view along Adanac Street has been greatly improved with some simple signage.

Are You Better Off?

Mayoral Debate in Grandview

A Mainstreeting Event for TEAM for a Livable Vancouver

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Colleen Hardwick’s TEAM campaign will be mainstreeting on Commercial Drive tomorrow (Thursday 18th).

They will be meeting at the Entre Nous Femmes housing complex on Adanac & Commercial at 4pm and then proceeding south on Commercial Drive until about 5:30pm.

Come down and meet the next (and first female) Mayor of Vancouver and her TEAM!

Barbecue With The NPA

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Want to talk politics? For those that may be interested the NPA campaign is holding a barbecue this coming Thursday (21st) at 2365 Kitchener (corner of Kitchener & Nanaimo) at 4:30 – 6:30pm.

Note that this notice is in no way an endorsement of the NPA campaign, just a PSA. I will be happy to post notices of any events from any other party if I am notified in advance.

Steamrolling The Drive By Stealth

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In a short while, if the small business human scale vibe that is Commercial Drive is erased in favour of a homogenized street from anywhere, these are the names you will be able to blame:

The so-called Streamlining Rental report that I have discussed here and here was approved in full last night by all Councillors other than Cllr. Hardwick. It makes a great deal of the Vancouver Plan meaningless by pre-zoning huge areas City-wide.

More immediately for those of us in Grandview — and nothing to do with “streamlining rentals” –, it plants yet another boot in the groin of the Grandview Woodland Community Plan by encouraging greater height and retail spaces more suited to chain stores than local owner-rent-payers. This goes entirely against the Plan’s insistence and promise that:

“Zoning will remain unchanged [on Commercial Drive] … Because of the area’s significance to the community and the strong desire to maintain its low-scale character and form, the plan will ensure that other City policies that may otherwise allow for additional height will not apply.” (p.40)

The Mayor and the nine Councillors who voted for this Motion have obviously decided that promises made to East Vancouver about development hold as much water as their broken promise to keep taxes below 5%. This doesn’t come as much of a surprise.

Let’s make sure we remember at the next election those who voted today to ignore and disrespect the long-considered opinions of the local residents.

What Better City?

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I just received a mailing from Ken Sim for Mayor: A Better City. I suspect this went to every household as his well-heeled 1% backers can afford to spread their money around.

It is a full page letter in both English and Chinese, and in that full page there is not one word — not even a passing reference — to any policy statement. Nothing about housing and homelessness, nothing about development, nothing about the opioid crisis, nothing about transportation or economic development or public safety, nothing about schools or parks or indeed anything else.

Why would anyone want to donate to a candidate for Mayor who is only interested in talking about himself?

Our city is far too valuable to be put in the hands of someone who just wants to play personality politics.

Larry Beasley Talks to TEAM

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TEAM for a Livable Vancouver, the new civic political party led by Clr. Colleen Hardwick, held a policy conference a couple of weekends ago during which the party’s key policy directions were being finalised.

It was a great meeting for policy wonks to thrash out details, but it also allowed the party to make a statement about where it stands in terms of values. And this was most forcefully addressed in the speech given by the keynote speaker, former Vancouver City Planner Larry Beasley:

Sandy James Planner at Viewpoint Vancouver has written a good article about Larry Beasley and in particular about this speech, which I recommend.

Some Thoughts On The TEAM Announcement

Earlier today I published the media release for the new TEAM party that is gearing up to fight the 2022 Vancouver civic election. Regular readers will be aware that Councillor Colleen Hardwick, the driving force behind the new party, has spent the last two years battling the entrenched interests at City Hall to improve the governance of our city which, many of us believe, has been failing the citizens in so many ways.

She worked tirelessly for months — and against bitter opposition from city staff — to get us an Auditor General, one of the keys to improving efficiency and delivery of services to us all. And she has continued to press staff to justify their housing policies which, it is now shown, they developed without adequate data and which appear to be aimed at grabbing CAC revenues rather than meeting the needs of the majority of Vancouver’s working population.

I declare an interest here: I have spent a few weeks working with the new TEAM to help develop the guidelines for their policies on community and neighbourhood representation. I very much like the transparent way in which they plan to develop policies (there will be a full-on policy development conference in the next few weeks), and I greatly respect the talents of the group that Hardwick has put together, many of whom I have worked with over the years and some who are new to me.

We can certainly do a lot better than the Vision 2.0 coalition we have on Council today (or even a revival, God forbid, of the former Vision). In the next short while a website will be available for those interested in joining TEAM, in helping develop the policies we need to solve the city’s problems and move us forward into the future. I encourage everyone to take a look and join in.

A New TEAM For Vancouver

This morning, Councillor Colleen Hardwick issued the following media release:

Vancouver, B.C. (September 29, 2021): Councillor Colleen Hardwick today announced that she has joined TEAM for a Livable Vancouver, a new citizen-based movement. Hardwick resigned from the NPA in May and has been sitting as an independent.

“Effective immediately I will be sitting on council as a member of TEAM for a Livable Vancouver,” said Hardwick. She said that like the original TEAM (The Electors’ Action Movement) founded by Art Phillips and her father Walter Hardwick in 1968, the new TEAM will put Vancouverites at the centre in tackling the key issues of our time. “The first TEAM united residents to defend their neighbourhoods from demolition, stopped plans to run freeways through downtown Vancouver, and created the award-winning False Creek South neighbourhood, an inspiring legacy worth fighting for,” Hardwick said.

“I look at city hall today and what I see is a city government that treats Vancouverites like ATMs while ignoring the issues that are most important to Vancouver’s families,” added Hardwick. “Too often residents are simply seen as a source of more and more revenue for a bloated city government that takes too long to get things done and sidelines the valuable opinions of citizens. Meanwhile, small businesses are buried in red tape, renters are stressed, neighbourhoods and parks are neglected.”

Hardwick said citizens are right to be feeling ignored, as there are fewer and fewer opportunities for real public input. “City advisory committees are deliberately stacked and filled with the ‘right’ people. Neighbourhood opinions are regularly dismissed. In fact, just recently the city canvassed Vancouverites on its new ‘climate emergency’ parking plan that imposed additional fees. When 19,000 people taking the survey overwhelmingly said no, the city hired a market research firm to get the answer it wanted.”

“TEAM then and now share a community-based approach, one that appeals to people of every political persuasion who are committed to putting Vancouver, its people and its neighbourhoods first,” said Hardwick. “Being focused on our citizens first and foremost is an approach that makes sense, and something that will always stand the test of time. In fact, as we head towards the next municipal election, I have just one question for every Vancouverite: Do you like what’s happening to your city?”

“Too many politicians have a knack for talking about the need for more affordability, then out of the other side of their mouth they’re jacking up city costs and taxes that make our city less affordable,” said Hardwick. “There is an incredible disconnect between city hall and Vancouver’s working families, and the
gap is only getting wider as the city ignores the fundamentals of running a city for people who live and work here. That’s what happens when politicians don’t listen and get caught up in their vanity projects, while ignoring the very people who live and operate businesses here …”

Besides Hardwick, the founding board of TEAM for a Livable Vancouver Association includes award-winning filmmaker David Fine, information technology consultant and SFU student Sean Nardi, retired educator Sal Robinson, and architect David Wong.

“This new party was created by people from different backgrounds, but we all have a common concern about our city’s current direction,” explained Fine. “Our goal is to offer our fellow citizens a better, progressive and forward-thinking option in the 2022 civic election.” Wong said “the group has been meeting for several months, looking for better ways of dealing with issues such as Vancouver’s deteriorating livability, the ongoing housing crisis, the ever-increasing cost of living, the increase in crime and growing concerns about public safety in many of the city’s neighbourhoods.” “TEAM is built around the belief that Vancouverites need to be heard, particularly when it comes to how our city is run and what its future should look like,” noted Robinson. “Vancouverites deserve a city council, school and park board with an agenda that puts citizens front and centre: people who listen to the residents that elected them.”

“Our policies are still being formulated and we consider our launch as an open invitation to our fellow citizens to join us in shaping them,” added Hardwick. “Our aim is to create a broad-based coalition of people with innovative ideas that will fix what’s broken in our city. Vancouver is rife with division and anger, and we need to respond better and address issues that people really care about: livability, fairness, safety, and a truly sustainable and affordable city.”