New Media

Got this one in just under the wire. Been a busy work day. Happy B-Day to the greatest city in the world. H/T to Miss604.

“If as the saying goes, all politics is local, then how come there is so little attention paid to the importance of our urban centres?” That’s the angle of CityCaucus.com, the new politics blog hoping to bring some much-deserved attention to municipal politics across Canada (although the first few days of the site going live appear to make it pretty Vancouver-centric).

Looks like an ambitious plan, and my hat’s off to the lot of them. Vancouver media maven Michael Klassen has an interesting write-up correlating Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertons’s thoughts (as advertised on Twitter) in the wake of the shake-up at city hall and the contentious firing of Vancouver city manager Judy Rogers, whose career spanned 20 years. Not sure I agree with Michael on this one, since quoting Twitter tweets may very well be the ultimate taken “out-of-context” medium, but the idea is pretty novel.

I love Vancouver’s vibrant political scene (although I’ll confess the partisan nature of it confused the heck out of me after moving here from the relatively sleepy city of Winnipeg). Frankly, this city is dealing with the big issues of the day, from homelessness and social sustainability to green urban planning and the big issues of how to host the Olympics, to name just a few. As a blogger with his pulse on the city scene, I’m happy to see such a promising new site that focuses on local politics. Looking forward to seeing what you’ve got, CityCaucus.

Ecodensity is happening. it’s real. Some argue that it has already made Vancouver the greenest and most sustainable city in North America.

The average Vancouverite will still see change happening very gradually. But the charter’s new LEED Silver green building standard for all new private developments in rezoned areas (retroactive to March 2008), changing to LEED Gold by 2010, gives Vancouver the greenest standards in our continent, says Vancouver city planner Brent Toderian…

For the full story, check out my latest CityView column in Granville Magazine.

Eighty-eight days after the Vancouver strike started, we’ve finally reached a settlement.

Garbage workers will start clearing the streets of a surprisingly small pile of garbage tomorrow (most Vancouverites without private garbage collection have been throwing their trash into Burnaby’s fully-functioning dumpsters for months). The fruit flies that bugged us during Thanksgiving dinners have been given their eviction notices.

The question now is whether Vancouver City Hall will be refunding residents for three months worth of lost services. Not paying 5,000 workers for that long must have resulted in some cost savings.

A tax refund just in time for a little holiday shopping would be awfully nice.

The garbage men are still on strike in Vancouver.

Odd, since the inside-workers have abandoned labor strife in favor of a settlement. So much for a united front.

Even the parks board workers who are still on strike are only still sticking to their guns on a technicality (Globe & Mail). Almost 60 per cent of those workers actually voted to end their strike. They needed a two-thirds majority to accept a new contract (a unique situation amongst all unions in Canada).

Bottom line: Vancouver can look forward to sharing accommodations with increasingly pesky swarms of fruit flies (The cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving dinner was a definite draw for our little bacterial vector friends).

Just to check, if both sides get to vote on the latest deal, what was the point of bringing in a presumably-objective arbitrator?