Blindness

I will cringe through every minute of the federal leaders' debate this evening in advance of casting my ballot on May 2nd, even though I agree with Elizabeth May that the broadcast consortium's vexation over competition from NHL hockey is rather rich in light of their cavalier banning of her from the proceedings. After the federal election (the predicted outcome of which I truly fear), I will look wearily ahead to this summer's provincial referendum on the HST (five whole weeks, apparently, to tick off YES or NO to that one). Depending on those results, we may soon be heading to the polls in BC, though Christy Clark had better win a byelection first (she's just confirmed she'll seek Campbell's Point Grey seat, but not when).

But it's this November's municipal elections that I'm already most preoccupied with. Who to vote for now that it seems Mayor Robertson and Vision Vancouver have definitively lost their way, bowing at every level, it would seem, to unseen elites rather than truly representing the citizens who elected them in the first place? I cite as evidence the following:

1. The Olympic Village Boondoggle: According to Gary Mason, in today's Globe, the $40-50 million Vancouver taxpayers are now predicted to be on the hook for re Millennium's default on its loan from the city (and which last week City Hall claimed was down sharply from the predicted $150 million plus we were potentially looking at before the complex went into receivership and a rebranding campaign was launched to sell the remaining condos) is actually more like $230 million once the additional $180 million Millennium has failed to pay back for the land is factored into the equation. I realize the previous administration got us into this mess, but I agree with Mason (of whom I am not normally a fan, and who in general has been a rabid Olympics boosterer) that being less than fiscally honest with residents is repugnant.

All of this raises the question of why Olympic host cities are required to build such facilities in the first place--most always the biggest single expense, and generally leaving a morass of debt and recrimination after the event. Can't the athletes be put up in hotels, or billeted with families? Or erect temporary structures--tents, anyone?--that can be easily removed or converted into container-type social housing after the fact. Surely there has to be a better solution than burdening cities around the world with similar problem buildings on redeveloped land that will be difficult to flog in any market, let alone one following a global recession.

2. The Right to Protest: Word in today's paper that Robertson has asked that a proposed bylaw banning the erection of temporary structures as part of civic protests be revisited and reworked does little to reassure one that this administration hasn't in fact been taking direction from the Chinese government--and specifically on the matter of the Falun Gong protesters whose daily vigil outside the Chinese consulate on Granville Street the proposed bylaw seems expressly designed to target. What a spectacular abrogation of the basic principles of civic democracy! It's enough to make one want to reconsider CSIS Director Robert Fadden's remarks last year regarding Chinese influence over Canadian municipal elected officials.

3. Casinos: I am also not sanguine about today's announcement from Paragon, the BC Place developer that wants to build a major new casino adjacent the sports complex, that it has found a partner in Marriott for the hotel that is also to be part of the project. This is just the sort of 5-star endorsement that makes this Council start seeing dollar signs. Despite the overwhelming community--and police--opposition to the development, I predict that a negative vote next Tuesday is far from assured.

Instead of bread and circuses, why not think more creatively about arts and culture? After tentatively endorsing the Vancouver Art Gallery's move to Larwill Park, Council has been deafeningly silent on Bing Thom's inspired proposal for a new recital hall and performing arts complex at the VAG's current site.

4. Fireworks: More bread and circuses. A final item that caught my attention in today's press was word that the infernal Celebration of Light, the annual fireworks competition held very summer off English Bay, has been given new financial legs, thanks in part to money and in-kind sponsorships from the City. Why? Most West End residents hate the event; it provides license to homophobic louts from the suburbs to get drunk and go looking to bash some fags; and as far as I can see it's largely an empty and pointless spectacle.

Much like the past three years at City Hall.

P.

Of Parks and Musical Recreation

The best recent satire of municipal politics and competing Vancouver lifestyles is playing through to October 17 at Langara College's Studio 58, and best of all, you can hum along.

The Park is an original musical by Benjamin Elliott, Hannah Johnson, and Anton Lipovetsky about Vancouver's oasis of green in the West End, Stanley Park. It began life as a one-act collection of songs that premiered last spring, and has since evolved into a classic two-act musical comedy that weds the signature elements of the genre (including a central boy-girl romance and its impediments) to a bit of local colour. Add a firecracker cast having goofy fun with every outsized stereotype they're asked to incarnate and punchy lyrics dripping with irony, and you have a recipe for a hit. Can a summer run at Malkin Bowl be far behind? The setting would be appropriate.

The story pits tree-hugging environmentalist Geena (Amy Hall-Cummings) against the dastardly Gabriel Fines (Dustin Feeland), a developer who, in the words of Joni Mitchell, wants "to pave paradise and put up a parking lot." Caught in the middle is the hapless John Bristle (Joel Ballard), a Parks Board employee who pines for Geena from afar and who, in a fit of pique after receiving a pink slip from the city, is tricked into signing a petition supporting Gabriel's plans. When Geena starts a rival petition to save the park, John joins her fight in an attempt to woo her. But things go south in parkland when Geena learn that John's name is the first one on Gabriel's petition. That's the one that ends up receiving the blessing of the city's "President," a yoga-addicted, bicycle-driving, juice-swilling pretty boy who plays both sides of the development/environmental divide with equal charm, and who will have you doing double-takes about some of Mayor Robertson's kookier ideas. (Suffice to say that Geena's Chicken Waltz number will have you rolling in the aisles.)

As does the current administration occupying City Hall, and the musical deus ex machina ending--which sees Gabriel's former radical environmental activist parents talking their son out of his plans by offering him a job at their sustainable forestry business--is an apt allegory for a city that wants its cake green, but to eat it too.

Again, the entire cast is top-notch, but kudos must especially go to the male leads, Ballard and Freeman, who play off each other perfectly. Musically, the score mixes classic show tunes with rap and hip hop, and even barbershop, all to great effect. Elliott on keyboards and Lipovetsky on guitar, together with Specer Schoening on drums, make a crackerjack three-piece orchestra.

I can't wait for this creative team's next offering. Might I suggest something around the Olympics and the whole Athletes' Village debacle? With Millennium only yesterday defaulting on their loan, the provincial government rejecting all three social housing bids, and the City now scrambling to rescue the whole project, what could be more timely or topical?

P.

Schadenfreude

Yesterday's headline from the Vancouver Sun: "City eyes incentives to lure buyers to Olympic village."

Today's in the BC edition of the Globe and Mail: "Vancouver taxpayers could get snowed under with losses on Olympic athletes' village."

One hesitates to say I told you so...

P.

A Post-Olympic Ghost Town

First we learn that more than 65% of market housing units in the False Creek South Athletes' Village development now known as Millennium Water remain unsold.

Now we're told that the 252 city-owned rental units earmarked for social housing sit empty as well, with various non-profits who otherwise might tender bids to operate one or more of the three available buildings stymied by City Council's unusual demands--including the handing over of any surplus revenue generated.

The cost overruns on the controversial development are admittedly severe, a situation the current Vision Vancouver-led municipal government inherited from its predecessor. However, this isn't the way to go about remedying things. Even folks at BC Housing remain perplexed.

Empty luxury condos, vacant produce aisles at Urban Fare, and rows of gleaming new exercise equipment waiting to be used at the city's newest--and most under-accessed--community centre are one thing. To abet the shortage of affordable housing in the city through such shenanigans is just plain scandalous.

P.