Sunday, Sunday, Sunday! (& Monday update)

Three items, for your reading pleasure on Daytona 500 Sunday. 

First, the battle for control of Vancouver’s community centres continues. 

City manager Penny Ballem quashed Green Party Coun. Adriane Carr’s motion on notice for the Feb. 12 city council meeting. Carr wanted city hall to slow-down and think twice about seizing control from the 23 community associations and centralizing power with the Board of Parks and Recreation.  

Carr called the actions of the unelected Ballem undemocratic and “bullying.” Vision Vancouver Coun. Geoff Meggs claimed Carr violated the code of conduct section that prohibits councillors from making public statements attacking staff or invoking staff matters for political purposes. The complaint was withdrawn after a meeting with Mayor Gregor Robertson. 

NPA Parks Board commissioner Melissa de Genova is asking Parks Board to conduct public meetings on the proposal. Her motion is on the agenda for the Feb. 25 meeting. 

At the Feb. 25 meeting, the new president of the Kensington Community Centre Association is registered to speak. But will he be allowed?  

Milan Kljajic, a parks board outside worker, member of CUPE Local 1004 and a disaffected Vancouver-Kingsway B.C. Conservative who endorsed NDP's Adrian Dix, replaced the resigned Stephen Elliott-Buckley. 

Kljajic claims he was called Feb. 22 by Parks Board Human Resources Consultant Vicki Gannon and advised not to speak at the meeting because he would violate the code of conduct. 

Kljajic refused to do an interview, but told me via email: 

“I feel that my rights have been violated and my employee future at COV has been threatened. I am a volunteer community leader that was elected President of Kensington to serve the best interest of the grassroots of my community. I am planning on finishing my term and reaching a fair joint operating agreement that I can bring to the membership.”

Section 5 allows staff members to be politically active, to support parties and candidates and even seek public office. 

“An employee may engage in any Political Activity so long as it does not impair, or is not perceived as impairing, the employee’s ability to perform his or her duties in a politically impartial manner. This precludes employees from displaying slogans or symbols supporting a particular party or candidate while at work where their duties may reasonably require them to interact in person with the public or where their duties require them to supervise, schedule or assign work to others.”

The Parks Board also falls under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which includes Section 2(b) that upholds freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression. 

Why -- if centralizing community centre operations is really a wise move, for the sake of efficiency -- doesn’t the ruling Vision Vancouver just submit to public hearings in the affected communities? These are, after all, public assets. As for that Feb. 4 "emergency" meeting that ended in a 5-2 vote for the centralization of power, that was really a box-ticking exercise. The board approved a vague "city-wide consultation," but that is not to be confused with public hearings. Informal public information meetings, where minutes are not kept, are the favoured tool for governments that want to impose a program or policy.    

UPDATE (Feb. 25): Kljajic did not speak to Parks Board, but Kensington's past-president Mary Sutherland delivered his remarks:

Good evening. I’m here tonight to speak on behalf of our current President Milan Kljajic. Milan sends his regrets as he is dealing with some issues with the City of Vancouver.  His statement is as follows: 

Our Association fully supports this motion. It is time for the Commissioners to take control of this situation and listen to the public. 

Commissioners, we are extremely disappointed by the continued lack of leadership you have demonstrated and the apparent lack of respect for public opinion. Until recently, our association had agreed to continue participating in ongoing JOA negotiations with the Park Board. As a centre that serves many people with lower incomes, we have always fully support programs that will allow greater access to community centres. 

Unfortunately, through your recent actions, it became clear that the Park Board is intent on implementing its plans and that negotiations will neither be transparent nor appropriate to the magnitude of the issue. It is for that reason that our board of directors met last week and decided that we could no longer participate in what we feel is a disrespectful process that doesn’t address the real issues. 

Despite modest revenues and years of financial and administrative neglect by the Park Board, our association has been able to retain a modest amount of revenue. We’ve been flexible with our money over the years, funding popular community programs and services and even investing $600,000 towards the capital cost of constructing the most recent addition to the Kensington Community Centre, which now houses a seniors’ lounge, dance studio and administrative space. That investment was nowhere to be seen on the report from staff that you accepted in the wee hours on February 5. As a ‘have not’ – or more appropriately Park Board neglected – centre, we did not ask for such radical changes to the financial arrangement between the CCAs and Park Board. 

We do not feel that the funding scheme that you support will benefit anything more than Park Board’s general revenues, which is a matter that commissioners should be taking up with the City Manager, Mayor and City Councilors. What is more distressing is that there has been no commitment by the Park Board to truly solicit public input on the matter. Your current approach is to make the decision and then attempt to bring the public onside when they do not have any say in the matter. 

As a result, you do not have the support of the people who voted for you. Public opposition to your current plan outweighs support 2:1. What is even more telling is that residents of the west and east sides of Vancouver have the same opinion. The public does not support your attempt to make radical, ill-informed changes without any public consultation. This is a matter of public policy and is your responsibility. It should not be delegated to staff. 

Commissioners, I strongly encourage you to step up and demonstrate leadership and support this motion. Introduce true public consultation into the process and re-instill faith in those people who you will be calling on to vote for you in the coming months. Thank you.

Meanwhile, from B.C.'s "second city," item number two. An update about Surrey Shirts' and its Chief Shirt Disturber, Don Pitcairn.

Business in Vancouver was first to tell you that the City of Surrey was threatening Pitcairn with a trademark violation lawsuit. City hall sent a cease and desist letter over the shirts that parody Surrey’s logo and slogan. Pitcairn was using his freedom of speech to comment on Surrey’s gangs and guns problem. In 2012, the federal Conservatives amended the Canada Copyright Act to protect parody in the Fair Dealing section. 

Pitcairn said he met Feb. 19 with city manager Murray Dinwoodie and city lawyer Craig MacFarlane for a "cordial" meeting.

“I informed them that Surrey Shirts had made changes to five of our shirt designs to further distance them from City of Surrey trademark logos, including removing the City Signature design completely from our anti-gun violence 'Better Safe Than Surrey' shirt that was never printed or released in its original form,” Pitcairn said.

Pitcairn, who flogs the shirts online, said Phat Fixx in Surrey Central City Mall pulled stock from the racks after only 10 days. Phat Fixx outfits the mixed martial arts and hip-hip crowds.

"We are hoping to locate a store where the landlord or management supports clothing tailored to the proud residents of Surrey and who will not be intimidated by those who appear to be more worried about Surrey's image on a simple T-shirt that doing something about the real problems that are giving the City of Surrey a bad reputation across Canada," Pitcairn said via email. 

Within the announcement on the Surrey Shirts website, Pitcairn gives a nod to the Feb. 27 Pink Shirt Day anti-bullying campaign. As for the lightning-bolt letter S font in the Surrey Shirts logo, Pitcairn denies he's a sympathizer of the Nazis' evil SchutzStaffel. 

“It’s a rock and roll kinda website. I do like KISS and most people that see it, get it right away,” Pitcairn said after the original story broke. “We won’t be selling Nazi paraphernalia on the Surrey Shirts website.”

Someone who knows Surrey very well, but lives many postal codes and tax brackets to the west, is the subject of item number three: Patrick Kinsella. 

Progressive Group lobbyist Kinsella is the province’s best-known political power broker. Nobody else comes close. His influence was felt in the headquarters of BC Rail, BC Hydro and VANOC. He was a key architect of Gordon Campbell’s hat-trick election victories and Christy Clark’s leadership win. (Kinsella's "midas touch" didn't work for Rita Johnston, Kim Campbell or Belinda Stronach.)

He was among Clark's guests in the deluxe B.C. Place Suite when B.C. Place Stadium reopened on Sept. 30, 2011 and he was registered as a lobbyist for Exel, the company that wanted to privatize liquor distribution. 

Since July 2011, he has sought to sell his Shaughnessy mansion. 

First listed for $7.28 million via Rennie Realty, the price for Kinsella's mansion at 3839 Selkirk in Vancouver was slashed to $6.75 million. 

Last fall, Kinsella switched to Macdonald Realty and the property was listed at $6.198 million. Still no takers. It was pulled from the market. 

Kinsella's real estate agent Monique Badun is trying again, with a lower asking price: $5.998 million.

Kinsella turns 72 on May 26. He has consistently declined my requests for interviews about his house, horse racing, his lobbying business and provincial politics.

Thoughts on Penny

Who really is running Vancouver city hall?

The twice-elected Mayor is Gregor Robertson, the tuba-playing, bike-riding, organic-farming former NDP MLA who finally sold his holdings in Happy Planet Juice Co. in late 2012. Skeptics wonder if one of his lieutenants, Coun. Geoff Meggs, is really shifting the gears on the 10-speed behind the scenes. 

Penny Ballem: unelected and uncompromising?

City manager Penny Ballem is the top-paid civic employee, at $334,002 for 2011. She was hired, without competition, to replace the fired Judy Rogers in December 2008. Rogers got a $572,000 golden parachute, because the Vision Vancouver administration felt she was an NPA-loyalist. 

It wasn’t the first time Ballem got a no-bid gig. She did 78 hours work for $30,000 from eHealth Ontario. 

Ballem’s claim to fame was as deputy minister of health for five years under then-Premier Gordon Campbell. Health is the biggest and most complex ministry in government. She quit in 2006, calling Campbell’s plans for the ministry “unsound.”

Not only did Ballem replace Rogers in the city manager’s office, but she also took her seat on the  board of directors for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics organizing committee, better known as VANOC.

Ballem was involved in city hall's $2.3 million purchase of used furniture and computers from VANOC. VANOC also got free rent in the city-owned 3585 Graveley Street “Campus 2010” after the Games. Ballem also signed-off on the transfer of VANOC files to the City Archives, mandating they be kept secret from the public until 15 years after the Games! The International Olympic Committee required the City Archives take it over, as per the host city agreement. But I couldn’t find anything from the IOC requiring the documents be kept secret until 2025. But that’s what Ballem agreed to do. So none of us who paid for the Olympics can see the financial and legal records or board correspondence, reports, agendas and minutes until after the Sochi 2014, PyeongChang 2018 and 2022 Winter Games have come and gone. 

In February 2011, Ballem excused Olympic Village developer Millennium from its mortgage, which once was worth $1 billion. She later admitted city taxpayers would lose $48 million on the Village, but downplayed the claims of those who said the loss was in the range of $200 million. 

Ballem has a reputation as an uncompromising micromanager and her influence has reached into every department at city hall. Those who have disagreed with her have retired, resigned or been fired. Ballem gagged city hall bureaucrats from talking to the media; they once were accessible and pleased to talk to reporters about the important work they do for citizens. Under her watch, it has become harder to receive records under Freedom of Information. 

Now comes the struggle over control of the city's community centres. Ballem is leading the charge to centralize control with the Park Board. The volunteer Vancouver Community Centre Associations are fighting back. Non-Partisan Association and Green Party politicians are opposed to the plan by the majority Vision Vancouver. 

Green Coun. Adriane Carr wanted to ask fellow councillors at the Feb. 12 city council meeting to order a staff report on the costs of centralizing the 23 community centres. As the Vancouver Courier’s Sandra Thomas reported, Ballem thwarted Carr’s motion. Now Carr has hired a lawyer.  

How can a public employee, no matter how senior, tell an elected official what can and cannot be debated in a democratic setting?

A source provided me a copy of the Feb. 5, 2013, 7:14 p.m. email by Ballem to Carr (copied to city clerk Janice MacKenzie and city lawyer Francie Connell), which said: 

"I apologize that I haven't had a chance to talk to you today about your motion - I just signed off the Council Agenda at about 6pm. Your motion presents a significant issue and given our last conversation about a motion which was a problem I thought I would send you a note. First, the GM of Park Board reports to the Park Board - if you wish to have a report to Council it should be directed to me to bring back.   

"The more important issue is that the Park Board instructed their GM to continue negotiations on a new contract with the CCAs. It would put both the Park Board and the City at risk if there was an airing of these issues in regard to impact  publicly. To reassure you there is work underway to ensure that the PB staff appropriately manage any risk in these negotiations. However for this reason the motion is out of order and I will not be allowing it to go out with the agenda. I have reviewed this with the City Solicitor and the Clerk. Please give me a call any time tonight if you get a break or first thing in the am. I am happy to discuss. Thanks so much pb"

Will it be 'independents night' in Vancouver?

One of the most vicious election campaigns in recent memory ends Nov. 19.

The Scotsman who wore a kilt to his 2008 swearing-in isn't taking the high road. Mayor Gregor Robertson originally pledged that Vision Vancouver would stay positive, but the party switched its strategy in the middle of the final week when the Non-Partisan Association closed the gap to within the margin of error according to some polling.

This is remarkable, because Vision Vancouver's own in-house polling claimed Robertson had 78 percent approval of Vancouverites at mid-term and he looked unbeatable. In Robertson's corner is Joel Solomon, the left-wing bagman from Tennessee whose intricate finances were deftly deconstructed by Vivian Krause. She calls her blog Fair Questions and reasonably wonders if the Vision Vancouver funding via various U.S. charitable foundations is legal. I discovered that the juice company Robertson co-founded moved out of Vancouver, therefore questioning the credibility of his spin that Vision Vancouver has attracted investment.

The NPA went straight for the Juice Man's jugular from the beginning, highlighting his party's backyard chickens, front-yard wheatfields, $500,000 Occupy Vancouver campsite, the million-dollar Stanley Cup riot, empty bike lanes… Let's just say Robertson provided his opponents a bounty of low-hanging fruit from which to make juice. The NPA's campaign chairman is Peter Armstrong, the Rocky Mountaineer tourist railway boss. His company got headlines for the wrong reason when replacement workers were hired because of a strike.

Vision Vancouver focussed on NPA candidate Jason Lamarche and his "Date Matrix" from his college days early in the campaign. COPE took aim at wannabe Mayor Suzanne Anton's unauthorized campaign pamphlet photograph with two Filipino-Canadian children late in the campaign. Anton quickly said sorry.

Robertson did more damage to his own cause by not acting decisively to strike a balance between the rights of Occupy Vancouver to protest with the bylaws that reasonably regulate public space. The three-day B.C. Supreme Court hearing on the city's application to tear down the Occupy Vancouver protest camp ended Nov. 18 with the city getting the court order it wanted (but didn't really need). Occupy Vancouver's pro bono lawyers Michael McCubbin and Jason Gratl scored some key points against city hall. Robertson's pet project is solving homelessness, but the court heard that the city's homeless shelters are both scarce and dangerous!

Robertson was mayor during the 2011 Stanley Cup riot. Now he faces the real possibility of a Grey Cup-week riot if Occupy Vancouver squatters resist the 2 p.m. Nov. 21 deadline to remove tents and structures from the Vancouver Art Gallery's north plaza.

Occupy Vancouver protested both NPA and Vision Vancouver campaign offices on the afternoon of Nov. 18, after calling into question the two parties' finances. Neither came clean on who's paying their bills by Occupy Vancouver's Nov. 17 deadline. They aren't required to during the campaign, but they really should. It comes down to the old maxim that he (or she) who pays the piper, calls the tune. Voters should have been able to know who the tune callers are of the two big parties before they go to the ballot box.

In 2008, Vision Vancouver spent $2,502,566 and its ally COPE $346,730. NPA spent $2,1101,229.

You'll have to wait to find out what the NPA and Vision Vancouver spent for their 2011 campaigns. But Neighbourhoods for a Sustainable Vancouver disclosed $37,965 in donations.

NSV, led by mayoral candidate and West End Neighbours' present Randy Helten, endorsed COPE's R.J. Aquino, Tim Louis and Ellen Woodsworth, Green's Adriane Carr, independent Sandy Garossino and NPA's Bill McCreery for council along with its own slate of Nicole Benson, Marie Kerchum, Terry Martin and Elizabeth Murphy.

Helten got fed up with Vision Vancouver's pandering to developers and ignorance of neighbourhood issues, so he formed his own party. If it's as close as many believe, Helten could be the spoiler if he can draw 1,500 or more votes. I'll be watching Carr and Garossino's numbers closely. Carr is the veteran candidate of provincial and federal battles for the Greens. Garossino rose to prominence as the leader of the Vancouver Not Vegas coalition that defeated the Paragon Gaming/B.C. Pavilion Corporation bid to build Western Canada's biggest casino connected to B.C. Place Stadium.

A city council with Carr and Garossino would certainly keep Vision Vancouver and the NPA honest for the next three years. Helten would be more valuable as a councillor, but he seems to have a vision to grown NSV into the city's third party and his name on the top of the NSV slate is an attention-getter.

Speaking of Occupy Vancouver, that's where you can often find mayoral candidate Darrell "Saxmaniac" Zimmerman and council candidates Lauren (Rent is Crazy High) Gill and Chris Shaw of De-Growth. While John Furlong was boosting the Olympics for the better part of a decade, Shaw was the well-researched critic and the media's go-to-guy who a VANOC reality-check who risked his own privacy -- police spied on him -- to exercise his right to dissent.

It takes all kinds to run for office. Gerry McGuire of Vancouver Citizens Voice. Gölök Zoltan Buday has the most umlauts of any candidate and is running for the fifth time. He's "lusting" for power, that is Liberty, Unity, Sature and Trust. Dubgee is a fab rapper with the most creative mayoral campaign.

The moral of the story is that you don't need to vote for a candidate from one of the big parties. You have a choice. Whatever you do, get out and vote. It's your right.

Here's all you need to know about the City of Vancouver election.

By the way, if you notice any voting irregularities (broken machines, people voting twice, campaign signs too close to polling stations), report to 3-1-1 and then email me.

Elsewhere…

I'm watching out for Alexa Loo in Richmond and Larry Anschell in White Rock.

Loo is the Olympic snowboarder, running for Richmond city council. Mayoral candidate Anschell is an accomplished recording producer and engineer who has worked with Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Nickelback and Sarah McLachlan.

And, in the Olympic resort municipality of Whistler, will Ken Melamed win re-election or will the Olympic Village asphalt scandal bring him down? Will Whistlerites tell the incumbent to hit the asphalt? Under Melamed, Whistler was ranked second worst in municipal spending in B.C. by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.

Election day in British Columbia. Get out and vote. Then getcha popcorn ready!