The aftermath in Vancouver

Divisions that developed on the last council and poor campaign financing led to a mayoral victory for Sam Sullivan, a split council and the implosion of Vancouver’s ruling party, says COPE’s sole remaining councillor.

Sam Sullivan, with 61,543 votes, beat Vision Vancouver’s Jim Green by 3747 ballots in the tightly contested race for the mayor’s seat and will head a council split evenly between the Non-Partisan Association and the left of centre parties Vision Vancouver and the Coalition of Progressive Electors.

As a victorious Sam Sullivan wheeled his way through a crowd of cheering NPA supporters packed into the Hotel Vancouver’s Columbia ballroom, a clearly dejected David Cadman lingered with his party’s campaign manager and a friend in the foyer outside the hall.

COPE’s surviving councillor said the overwhelming losses by his party were due in part to the split between Vision and COPE as well as poor campaign financing.

“Anything you do united is better than divided,” Cadman said. He said he was happy to be returning to council alongside the four Vision Vancouver councillors and said together with the addition of new NPA faces council would work together to the benefit of Vancouver.

Cadman was incredulous that none of Vancouver’s major media outlets covered the ruling-party’s nomination meeting. He said the media covered it as a mayoral election, largely ignoring COPE in the process and leading to the party’s drubbing at the polls.

COPE incumbents Fred Bass, Tim Louis, Anne Roberts and Ellen Woodsworth all lost their seats. Raymond Louie and Tim Stevenson, both incumbents, will return to council together with their Vision colleagues George Chow and Heather Deal.

Money was another factor in the party’s poor performance, Cadman said. He said many thought COPE, heavily in debt following Vision’s breaking away from the party earlier in the year, would have a hard time running a campaign.

“We’re in an era where money makes a difference in politics,” he said, noting that COPE had money for the last election and won.

The NPA’s Peter Ladner credited his party’s success, in part, to the political infighting on council that lead to the split between Vision and COPE, and said it hurt COPE the most.

“I think they’ve killed themselves,” Ladner said.

He said the results show the popularity of Larry Campbell and Jim Green clearly wasn’t as strong as Vision Vancouver thought it was. Beyond the political infighting, he said there was a sense that Vancouver voters were generally dissatisfied with the direction the city was heading.

Ladner said the race was too close to call throughout the entire campaign and though he had been hoping for an NPA majority on council he was satisfied with the split.

“[Council’s] going to be a lot more fun than the last three years,” Ladner said. Suzanne Anton, Elizabeth Ball, Kim Capri, and B.C. Lee were the other NPA candidates elected to council.

How the COPE/Vision split factored into the overall results would have to be analyzed, said Vision's Raymond Louie. But, he said going forward he hopes partisan issues won't get in the way of council making the right decisions for the people of Vancouver and that future planning on the part of Vision could include overtures to reintegrating COPE, but that it was too early to speculate on.

Municipal election report: District of North Vancouver

Following is a rambling collection of thoughts and observations on the municipal election race for the District of North Vancouver (DNV). It will begin with an examination of the key issues that the campaign has focused on, followed by an overview of the five candidates for mayor. For the sake of brevity, council and school-board-trustee candidates will be largely ignored.

At the forefront of discussion by both council-candidates and mayoral-candidates are issues around fiscal responsibility, and development and land-use. Both issues are related to the other and it is difficult at times to draw distinctions between where one begins and the other ends. Within each issue there are specific examples where candidates and residents alike agree there needs to be change. It is the approach to change that varies, for the most part, between the different candidates.

The Lynn Valley Library and Town Centre (LVLTC), the delivery of services, and residential and commercial taxes are the three central themes that have sparked the most discussion at all-candidates meetings and in newspaper reports.

The Lynn Valley Plan, a policy document drafted in 1998 eventually led to the 2001 decision by the previous council to create the LVLTC, a civic centre in Lynn Valley. The cost to district ratepayers has since risen from a projected $6 million to $28.5 million.

The original concept of a district owned library, an open square and five floors of retail and commercial space including a restaurant, has been scaled back considerably. As it stands all the district has to show for the development is a large empty pit that is slowly filling with water.

In January 2006 the next council will receive a report that will likely see the project cost to have risen to $31.5 million and will have to make tough decisions on how best to address these cost overruns.

Currently, the DNV and the City of North Vancouver share some services, such as recreation centres, however a number of candidates are looking to the rationalization of more services as a simple way to save money. Some even suggest amalgamation of all five North Shore municipalities would best serve the region, especially in its relations with the GVRD and TransLink.

However, despite amalgamation’s frequency of discussion, it lurks as the giant elephant in the room - a number of council candidates referred to it at a Nov. 8 all-candidates meeting as the “big A”, finger quotes and all – and there is a feeling among many that amalgamation will have to wait and sharing services with the city will have to do for now.

Residential taxes account for 72 per cent of tax revenues generated by the DNV and the commercial tax rate is one of the highest in the GVRD. District residents enjoy a high quality of life based largely on the delivery of services, and that they live in a clean, livable city. Residents have said they want to maintain the level of services they enjoy however they are not willing to pay higher taxes. The challenge then, is to encourage businesses to locate in the district, while maintaining population densities and commercial/industrial zoning at a level acceptable to residents.

As mentioned earlier, it is difficult at times to draw a distinction between development/land-use issues and that of fiscal responsibility because the two are intrinsically linked. Increased economic activity through zoning by-law amendments may lead to increased revenues from new business, thus easing the burden on residential ratepayers. However, new business requires a work-force that in turn requires space to live, potentially leading to increased residential density. For every development there will be a consequence and the need for another solution. It will be up to those sitting on the next council to wisely balance the varied interests at work.

Which leads to who will find seats at the table come November 20. It is guaranteed the district will have a new mayor, as incumbent Janice Harris has chosen not to run again this year and is instead seeking a return to council where she sat prior to a 2004 mayoral by-election.

Vying for the coveted centre seat are Dave Sadler and David Dixon as well as three sitting councillors, Jim Cuthbert, Richard Walton and Maureen McKeon Holmes. The decision on the part of these latter three to run for mayor, and the decision by councillor Ernie Crist not to run again, therefore ensures there will be at least four new district councillors.

Walton’s credentials as a chartered accountant and experience on council will certainly serve him well in following through on the main plank of his platform, to bring tight fiscal restraint to the district, should he win. Cuthbert and McKeon Holmes each have the benefit of incumbency as well and both have extensive experience in the public sector.

Thirty years of work with various levels of government in parks planning and a masters degree in applied ecology will help Cuthbert, who served as a district councillor from 1991 to 1996, work toward his goal of making the district the most sustainable city in the world, should he take the mayor’s seat.

McKeon Holmes has degrees in communications and health service planning and administration, and served for a time on the North Shore Regional Health Board. She hopes these skills, beneficial to consensus building and fiscal responsibility, will draw votes to her.

This is Dixon’s second run for mayor and Sadler’s third. Sadler has operated a food distribution company for 30 years and Dixon, an engineer, has worked around the world with Bombardier, building mass transit systems. Both candidates are campaigning on the issue of fiscal responsibility and infrastructure development. However, with each focusing on particular projects, Dixon wants rapid transit on the North Shore similar to the West Coast express and Sadler wants the Lions Gate water treatment facility upgraded, they tend to come across as one-trick ponies.

It’s difficult to say who will be the winner on November 19. The incumbents seem to have an edge because of the obvious advantage of being known to residents of the district. However, there is a sense, from speaking with residents who turned out at recent all-candidate meetings, that there is an underlying desire for change. The question is will voters take the risk of choosing as a mayor either Dixon or Sadler who are relatively unknown and who have little experience in government.

This brings it down to the incumbents and the safe bet seems to be on Richard Walton. He knows the issues and though at times he comes across as a bit of a policy wonk with a tendency to over-use jargon, he speaks knowledgeably about solutions. Tight in second place will come either McKeon Holmes or Cuthbert.

Voter turnout in 2002, when Don Bell won his third term as mayor, was 36 per cent. Considering there is no clear favorite going into this year's election I predict turnout will be higher, at around 42 per cent.

just a thought

I went to this page to see the "huge loss" incurred by Ford Motor co., thinking the losses must be "huge" and dismissed it upon seeing that it lost only $284 million. On further consideration it seems large numbers no longer seem to have a huge amount of significance anymore. Really, what's a loss of a quarter of a billion dollars?

Good grief where have I been?

August 27, "better get at it." Didn't get at it.

The world affords plenty of opportunity for the undisciplined mind to not get at it. The undisciplined mind, in this case of course, is my own mind. There have been plenty of distractions between my last post and now that have weaseled their way in front of me.

Many of those distractions have been superficial in nature, such as the limitless territory of a world wide web filled with curiosities of little significance blended with dolops of insight (someone should develop a banal filter for web-browsers,) and others of a more pressing issue, like merely surviving the rigours of an intense school schedule (made more intense by possessing an undisciplined mind.)

A survival mechanism ought to kick in at some point and shut down access to the internet. With its elimination, productivity on my part would no doubt double. School is the priority and this is where my energy should be concentrated.

However, that mechanism has yet to kick in and it is left to a willful act on my part, which has yet to materialize, to shut the system down. It is time, to cut out the clutter, avoid the information overload and get down to the business at hand: survival.

Fight or flight, the most basic equation of survival is universal in all animals. It is possible to do both at the same time. Consider a Zebra trapped between a hyena and a lion. At the same time the Zebra runs from the lion it can fight the hyena, and don't underestimate the power of a zebra's hoof thrashing into the chest or skull of a hyena.

For me, the internet is the lion and school is the hyena. Although school (publishing a newspaper, writing hard news stories, cutting and editing hard news stories on video and a range of other academic elements that seem to conspire against allowing one time to breath and raising the level of anxiety to hitherto unknown levels) has an intense pressure to it, the internet is by far the more dangerous of beasts when allowed to roam the plains unchecked for it has an ability to suck you in for hours at a time then spit you out with generally no noticible benefit from the experience.

Now I just have to start kicking.

better get at it

I just visited The weird and cumbersome trip through life and noticed that Jon has a link to my blog there. Got me thinking that I've only written two entries through most of the summer and by all accounts look pretty lazy. In fact I am lazy, but that's beside the point. I just have to get at it, I guess.

GT along the Howe Sound Crest trail

Self-fulfilling prophecy

The following quote is compliments of the LA Times website.

"Some may disagree with my decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power, but all of us can agree that the world's terrorists have now made Iraq a central front in the war on terror," (Bush) said. "This mission isn't easy, and it will not be accomplished overnight."

Didn't the US invasion of Iraq make Iraq the central front in the war on terror?

Warm Springs, Oregon, June 5, 2005. 

Off to the RAO

yehaa.

watch

I'm not entirely happy with some of the editing in this film - some of the footage is repeated - but watching was worth the 18 minutes of my life. Scroll up for Realplayer and Windows Media Player links.

bush says

Recently reported in the Globe and Mail is the response by George W. Bush to "unauthorized" release of pictures of Saddam Hussein in his knickers:

"I don't think a photo inspires murderers. I think they're inspired by an ideology that is so barbaric and backwards that it's hard for many in the Western world to comprehend how they think."

If comprehension within the West of radical Islamists is so lacking then it stands to reason that there would be a similar lack of understanding travelling in the other direction and in fact we in the West likely appear barbaric and backwards to those fighting Americans in the Middle-east.

It strikes me that there is likely a lack of imagination on the part of the Bush administration when it comes to dealing with many of the myriad problems faced by the U.S. abroad. If they are unable to comprehend the backward, barbaric thinking if Islamic radicals then there is likely no solution to the impasse. America will fight on in a misguided attemp to impose order on a chaotic world.

It would be nice if all the nasties in the world could be hauled together in one place and kept an eye on. Australia was settled by the British essentially as a penal colony. The criminal element seems still to be alive and well in the land down under, as is made apparent by that country's participation in the war on Iraq. So, start repopulating the land with all the bad-asses from around the globe. With a little luck the kangaroos will kick some decency into them.

time is all he has

with too much time on his hands, Mike Powell digs up a nugget from CPAC.

backup plan

Images.

I spent part of the afternoon backing up images. Folder after folder burned to cd. An hour or so of my time was taken in the process.

I've been lucky so far with the computer. Although it may behave oddly by times I have never lost data to it. An article I read today in Photolife magazine (a fine Canadian publication) mentions two types of computer owners, those who have lost data and those who eventually will lose data. I would prefer to have something to recover.

Software for organizing my images would be handy. This comes to mind as I filter through folders to see what to burn with what. I can't keep track of all my images. Windows explorer has little to offer in the way of helping me organize my images. There must be something available for cataloguing, archiving and backing up my images. There must be an easier way to manage my files. It would be nice to know next time I do a backup what files haven't been touched since the last backup. Why back up everything, everytime?

In OS X for macintosh computers folders can be colour coded. I used to colour code my copy at school. Red labels were works in progress, badly needing work; green labels were works ready for submission; if the label had no colour, the folder contents usually weren't of pressing need. I wish I could do the same with windows, even if only to keep track of age and relevance.

We have an extra hard drive to use. I keep mentioning starting over with the computer. Reformat the hard drive, or switch to the 80 gig drive, or use both, reload windows with the update, reload our software and reload our data. The idea in the end would be to have a system set up that works and an extra external hard drive to do our backing up on. As it stands now, we can't get the computer to recognize that the external hard drive is hooked up. I have the same problem with my camera, the computer doesn't see it. Starting from scratch, though a drastic measure, seems the appropriate step to take.

Burning CDs is an economical way to backup information, but it isn't particularly sensitive to the environment, considering the CDs will eventually get tossed. And there is the process of burning CDs which is slow, tedious work. Having a hard drive to copy to makes a load of sense. Once a week.

It might even make sense to eventually get a seperate internal hard drive to keep my images on.

Ouch

It's been too long. The title and the sentiment have likely appeared sometime in the past in my writings here or at little bits of me. Perhaps in a written journal, somewhere there are words to this effect.

I feel reluctance to write. I don't want to write. I want to write.

It is the effort required to do the latter, well, that gives rise to the former. The idea in the middle is a rationalization meant to buttress my reluctance to take action. I do want to write, practice makes perfect, but I am lazy.

Making a marble mosaic mesh. I spent part of the afternoon and all of this evening slicing 30 centimetre by 30 centimetre Bianco Carrara marble tiles into three-cm-wide strips. Ash-white stone cut with smudged charcoal viens, the marble yielded nicely, for the most part, to the spinning of the blade.

It took about 10 tiles to get my rhythm going, to get a feel for the saw's vibrations and sounds. The whining of the cutting-wheel deepens as the blade slows from being pulled too quickly through the marble. Some pieces cut like butter and others bite back at the stone, threatening to yank it from my hands. The trick is to recognize the sound it makes just before it jams up in mid-cut.

The repetitive motion is tiring and my left hand was sore by the time I had reduced 5 square metres into strips. There are another 2.5 sq. m to be cut, but they will have to wait for another day.

The 30 cm strips will then be cut down to six cm bricks and meshed together with a black marble in a basketweave mosaic. The meshing process brings the tediousness of the task to a whole new level, but in the end, somewhere in the city, someone will have a remarkable bathroom floor.

picture of the day?

yeah. okay.

Tiles 

Tulips - photo by Meaghan 

North Shore sunset

This is the first photo posted to my blog. I hesitate to call it a photo of the day, but...

Self publishing is this miracle outcome of technology. However, for every freedom to publish I gain, so do others gain and in the rush of many me's to the www I am lost as just another me.

I will continue to publish anyway. I believe I have crossed the hump at school. Although with just two weeks left in the term I could have used passing it earlier. Good grief the past month has been tight. I want it all to end, to relieve myself of the pressure, but worry that any such easing will lull me into the ways of a lazy man. I must defend myself against such an outcome.

If it means a picture a day, so be it. I could probably do a story or two a week as well. I should head down to the North Shore News with a portfolio of my photography and writing. WTF.

the voice

April 11 and the end of the term won't come a day too soon. I don't know how much more stress I can take with this. This latest copy of the voice has an opinion piece in it that I just wish my name wasn't attached to.

In a comparison of the copy I handed in with that of the final edition some ma argue there was an improvement. Obviously this is the case since changes were made. I don't agree and this rant is to rid myself of the demons that are keeping me awake tonight.

My copy editor was an idiot. Copy gets handed off on letter size paper in a 12 point font. The editor I had wanted me to fill the spaces at the end of the paragraphs. She didn't like to see wasted space. Makes sense, in a really stretching it kind of way, if the final copy is printedin the same format.

The Voice uses a 9.5 point font and the columns are an inch and a bit wide. How the fuck is she going to know from my copy that I'm wasting, "space that could be filled with words." I stopped listening to her after that.

She asked me to reduce four paragraphs to one or two sentences saying the subject didn't need to be explained because an article elsewhere in the paper had an explanation in it. I disagreed and shortened the paragraphs and simplified the language.

Well what the fuck, the final copy took my simplification and then added a paragraph of explanation which she said wasn't necessary in the first place.

Make up your mind.

Now I understand this notion that some copy editors want to make a mark on everything they touch.

If you want to read the article, link to it through the voice link to the right and head to page four. I'm not going to make it any easier to find. The more I think about it the more I wish I had pushed harder to have the changes taken out or the whole piece removed.

Anger.

nothing new here

As far as the Voice goes, nothing to report on this week. We're taking a brief holiday, but will return in a week.

As far as the rest of the world goes, just a bunch more of the usual nonsense. Where do I start?

Paul Martin is a fool. He spent a long time waiting to be PM and now that he's at the pinnacle of Canadian politics he seems to have forgotten what the point was. I have a hint for you Paul: vision. You gotta have vision.

Martin has spent so much time waffling that no one in the country - and I would suggest this includes Martin himself - has a clue what he stands for or what he is working towards. He sits on the fence for so long, on so many issues, that he probably has a picket wedged...well it wouldn't be polite to finish that comment, but you probably get the point. Hopefully he does. And what is the deal with missile defence?

George Bush is a fool, but for completely different reasons. Where Martin arrived at his foolishness by breathing the noxious fumes of Jean Chretien for too many years, Bush arrived at his foolishness through, well, he was just born a fool. And apparently half of all Americans are fools as well.

Gordon Campbell is a fool. The margarita swilling premier is using taxpayer money to push a liberal agenda. Government advertisements (propaganda) telling British Columbians how great the government has managed their affairs (creative accounting) are so patently partisan that you might think an election is coming up. Oh shit, one is. What a surprise.

It's too bad that judge in Ontario ruled the courts weren't able to hold politicians accountable to their campaign promises. Then again, it gives the electorate another kick at the can. Elections seem to be a mechanism of self-flagelation for the body-politic. People boot one man out to give another man a chance and then boot the new guy out to give another guy a chance. It's like going back to the spoiled milk day after day to see if the sour is gone.

The sour never goes away.

Fools.

volume 37. No. 14

picture of the week, an opinion on page 4, two pieces on page 8 and two pics on page 12.

Despite the lack of sleep I'm having a good time. Shooting the basketball games was a blast. It helped having a digital. I shot more than 200 pics and ended up with some really good shots. I'll be doing more sports shooting, but I definitely need a faster lens. That'll come.

I took some pics this morning of a fine arts student doing a chalk study in the quad. It's amazing how people react to having their picture taken. SHe was more than happy to have me shoot away. She seemed as curious about me as I was about her.

Some people really enjoy being in front of the camera. Ego is sometimes a motivator, but I think most people just like to be in pictures. It's one route to immortality.

On the other hand, I had a hard time getting anyone to pose for my food review. Even the owner of the restaurant wouldn't stand for me. I lucked out with the girl who made it in to the photo's. She was a bit of a ham.

So, more photography. Netfreak wonders about making money from taking pics. It is my intention to do exactly that. I think if netfreak applied his mighty brain to figuring out an angle on the photo thing he could make it work.

I have updated my photographer's cafe gallery.

Extra, extra

No more chest thumping. I'm actually kind of embarassed. My peers are going to begin to resent me for hogging the home page.

I'm also not really happy with my story as published. I think the story, as written, was a good story that could have stayed on the second page and kept some of its original length. I'm sure Kumal would have appreciated the company (when my story was moved- getting smaller in the process - her story had to get bigger to fill some of the space). She was shooting daggers yesterday afternoon. Atleast she made it to the web as well.

I will have to see the rest of the paper, but surely to god there must be something that was more deserving of the webpage than my story.

fuck

The title is 'fuck'.

Why?

Because I can make the title 'fuck' if I want to.

I could continue, and cut and paste that dirty, delicious four-letter word to create a single, long, agonizing sentence. That would be gratuitous though, so I won't. I will leave things at a simple 'fuck', because I can.

It's all down hill from here.

What exactly does that mean?

Sorry I have been gone so long. It has been a month, the past two weeks of which have been border-line hell. I got through it though and feel a whole lot better for the experience.

Writing is brutal. Writing as a journalist is brutaler - 'cause you can't say things like brutaler and every, stinking thing you write has to be accurate.

Fuck, it's tough on the brain.

This is the final product for this week and I have to say, I'm damn proud. I took the pic with my new digital rebel.

I hope I'll get to breath again someday.