StallVille
The always well informed and extremely reasonable Picketboy offers a round-up on the apparent breakdown in talks between the City of Vancouver and the various Unions involved in the long running municipal strike.
One thing I find curious is why the City keeps trying to set the agenda with facilitators/mediators whose recommendations will not be binding.
Could it be that they just want more PR fodder for their now wheezing whirlitzer?
In other news, which on the face of it would appear to have nothing whatsoever to do with the G.S. Conspiracy, it looks like the City is losing planners, hand-over-fist, to developers with even more money than the ones here in Lotusland:
Francis Bula, Vancouver Sun, Sept 15, 2007
VANCOUVER - Vancouver has lost five planners to the Arab emirate of Abu Dhabi in recent weeks, including the senior planner who was in charge of the city's ambitious EcoDensity project.
That loss, prompted by Abu Dhabi's desire to become a city styled on Vancouver and because of the involvement of former Vancouver planning director Larry Beasley as a special adviser, is bad enough.
{snip}
NPA Coun. Suzanne Anton said the departure of planner Michael White, who headed the city's large inter-departmental EcoDensity team, is a "great loss."
"The work being done involved many departments and it was almost a piece of academic work on how to create a much greener city. Michael was the chief planner in charge."
But wait!
It turns out that, despite the involvement of Larry Beasley and really, really, big money from the Sultans of Swing, the real problem is actually the Unions here at home:
What is more worrying, said Anton -- echoing what others are saying* -- is the impact of the strike on council's wide-ranging agenda.
Shortly after Mayor Sam Sullivan and his Non-Partisan Association were elected, council introduced a raft of new initiatives along with EcoDensity, including Project Civil City, aimed at reducing homelessness and public disorder by half within three years.
Before the strike, those projects had staff working in overdrive to try to come up with plans and policies to make them a reality.
Anton said that staff resignations are one issue, but "what is far more significant is the loss of time from our extremely valuable and extremely professional staff."
Which has me wondering if this thing might have a silver lining that is worth having rotting chicken bones from our summer barbeques sitting in my garage.
After all, if Smilin' Sammy's 'wide ranging agenda' was to be stalled for just a wee while longer, it just might be possible that the travesty of massive reduction of affordable housing initiatives in the Southeast False Creek Development and the Little Mountain Redevelopment may whither on the vine before the next election.
Which just might be a very, very good thing indeed.
OK?
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*Wouldn't it have been nice if Ms. Bula had told us just who those 'others' who Ms. Anton was 'echoing' actually were? I mean, were they other city councillors - NPA? Vision? CUPE bosses? CUPE members? City Planners? Academics? People in the Street? Members of the Dobranos Cast and Crew? The good folks over on the Group W bench?
And are they all being held in a Chamber somewhere, or what?
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