Vancouver City Hall A Mess: Penny Ballem Managing Disaster–7/11 Floors EMPTY!
The now well-covered piece by the Sun’s Jeff Lee was what I was referring to a couple of weeks ago when I wrote that a major piece was coming, by a major reporter from Vancouver.
I wasn’t sure why it was delayed but I didn’t much care. The bottom line here is that seven out of eleven floors of City Hall remain empty. Bad deals were not only cut by former Manager Judy Rogers, but Penny Ballem, the woman who promised to sheriff the madness that her political whip-masters in the Mayor’s Office demanded she clean up, has exponentially added to the problem(s).
What a mess.
An engineering move from last year alone cost you 40+ million. And the separation of so many departments is sure to cause little fiefdoms to sprout up everywhere. It’s truly astounding that Dr. Bedlam has allowed for such a dog’s breakfast.
Remember how she said she wanted to clean things up? Remember how Vision Vancouver and their puppet du jour, the Mayor, would “change City Hall to a more open and transparent” place? Recall, if you will, Clr. Geoff Meggs’ now famous line from the campaign, ‘Well, improving on Sam Sullivan won’t be tough.”
Neither, Geoffy, is it apparently difficult for you and your cohorts to exceed any of Sam’s incompetence.
I find it amazing that all this is happening under the nose of the public and instead of full disclosure and honesty in the execution of protecting the taxpayer, you have quite the reverse going on. Any old thing goes so long as it benefits Vision Vancouver and specifically Mayor Moonbeam and who cares about what it’s costing you!
It’s incredible to me how these people think they are going to get away with it.
Anyway, I’m not going to belabor the point: Vision Vancouver are COMPLETELY BEATABLE next year but the NPA has to play flawless ball between now and then.
Here is Jeff Lee’s exceptional piece of investigative reporting. Enjoy. I’ll be back tomorrow with more on Vision and with a review of an interesting interview on CBC this morning that featured Mike Klassen of citycaucus.com being mauled by Vision Vancouver barracuda Marcella Munro.
What was terribly interesting was that Ms. Munro, a principal (whatever pomposity that delineates nowadays) at Earnscliffe Strategies Group and a Vision hierarch, and , also, wife to former Vision campaign general and all round super nice guy Brad Zubyk, actually lied on-air about Klassen’s billings while doing communications work for Sam Sullivan when Sammy was Mayor. Why Mike didn’t hammer her is beyond me–I think Mike’s just too nice frankly.
But tomorrow, I’ll help Mike a little, since ‘nice’, ain’t part of my repertoire and I’ve known Marcella for a long time. She’s had a nice free ride in the media thus far.
Well, not anymore.
Get ready…that plus more…
A dining room, because they have no room to eat. Don’t they each have their own private offices? The term ‘Dining Room’ implies food service. Is that the case, and if so do they keep cooks & staff on overtime? The White Spot is half a block away, a food court in the mall across the street, with all manner of restauants well within walking (or cycling) distance on Broadway. Next excuse will be that Broadway doesn’t have a dedicated Bicycle Lane.
And they see nothing wrong with this.
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NOTE TO READERS: REQUIRED READING ON THIS ISSUE. SUPERB COMMENT.
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Agree 100%. There’s the Sheraton Plaza across the street (good for those proverbial lunch time meetings) , plus the
food court in the building directly across Cambie Street. There’s also the The Jolly Taxpayer Pub nearby too. Lots of options available.
I’d say if they want to have something in city hall, go to the cafeteria
where the city staff eats.
Are these people too lazy to waddle out of the City Hall building for lunch? If their excuse is that they have to eat within City Hall because they are busy, what kind of an excuse is that?
and yes they ahve their own private offices (which one wonders about).
Can’t wait for them to say 12th Avenue doesn’t have a dedicated bike lane.
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Figmint across the street is excellent food, as is Stella’s up the way a little. There’s a wonderful Malaysian restaurant just down from that. On the other (north) side, there’s Kalamata Greek (which is really quite excellent), Original joe’s and further down, the Cactus Club where you can have a huge bowl of wonton soup (loaded with veg and lean pork) for ten bucks–and out the door!
These people are ridiculous. IF Raymond Louie wants us to believe this was all Sam’s doing, then why didn’t they stop the renos on Gregor’s office at least?
Incredibly, VISION ADDED TO THEM!!!
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Speaking of Raymond Louie, he still has a frown showing around town.
He looks like he’s perpetually mad about something.
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You know, Seymour my dear friend, I just can’t put my finger on it: Why Raymond Louie is godamned miserable. The guy looks constantly upset. I just don’t get it. He married to the nicest political spouse I’ve ever met–just a lovely woman. his health is good for all I know, his kids are fine…haven’t the foggiest clue what his problem is. It’s just bizarre.
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“Vision Vancouver are COMPLETELY BEATABLE next year but the NPA has to play flawless ball between now and then.”
….
Even if VV was running a smooth ship, I always expected the NPA to garner 3 (perhaps 4) council seats in 2011 as the pendulum swung too far in VV’s favour in 2008 for a myriad of reasons back then.
I guess the first inklings of VV “weirdness” arose with the vegetable garden on city hall’s lawn. Then the beehive bit on city hall’s roof. It’s a bit nutty and reminds me of COPE when they were engaged in council debates on ideological stuff like the US weaponization of outer space and their anti-Walmart crusades. Those goofy tirades sunk COPE’s ship in the eyes of the electorate.
The segregated bike lanes imposed upon major downtown thorughfares imposed by VV by fiat also has a bad smell to it. Mayor Moonbeam’s outburst caught on audio showing his arrogance seems to have sealed the deal/fate for VV – or is the turning point.
And now the new city hall bunker digs for Mayor Moonbeam – the mayor further kept in his bubble and hidden away. These cumulative effects have painted and stigmatized VV and it will be difficult for them to undo that damage.
Frankly, for the NPA to grab 5 council seats and the mayor’s chair in 2011 is now within the realm of possibility. The NPA’s mayoral nominee will also be key.
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Yes, complete agreement. You should attend the NPA pub night tomorrow night and support them!
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Alex,
It seems to me that the emptying of the City Hall building reveals the abject bankruptcy of the media. All of newspapers and the bloggers spend their time picking pepper from fly-poop and don’t discover until now that no one is home at City Hall? This is a triumph of investigative reporting? Some triumph! Some reporting!
It can’t be that some of the councilors were unaware as they claim. And the defense of the expansion of the Mayor’s office and the new cafeteria reeks of Orwell’s “Animal Farm”. (“The revolutionary Pigs are starting to walk on their hind legs like men.”)
There is a perfectly fine cafeteria in the basement of City Hall. The Councilors seem to feel that they should not have to feed at the same trough as City Staff.
These idiots are finished.
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I don’t disagree. In my own defense, I think I’ve broken enough stories on City Hall to last three years not just one. However, I’ve got more coming.
Yes, I agree that these jokers are finished. It’s all really turned quiet badly on them.
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I had this ‘vision’ of the next election where in the new ‘bunker’ in the basement, Herr Bedlam and Herr Moonbeam are moving pieces of non existent armies of vision bots across a large tableau counter acting the real forces of their doom. We all know how it ends…
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I was thinking more along the lines of this…
I think I’ll call and old friend and see if I can offer my old belt…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMqDF-v6Imw
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Dr. Kerry Jang, who has been carrying the disingenuous ball on the private restaurant.
What can you possiblt say about this man?.
Except: What a sad, sad excuse for a councillor.
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Complete agreement.
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Bottom line. They don’t care about anyone except themselves. Still don’t see how NPA would be any better as they started some of this BS and vision just keeps it going.
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Well, their pub night last night was a huge success and they seem to finally rowing in the right direction.
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Who’s direction the parties and the insiders or what the people of Vancouver want and deserve. If Susan is part of the group can’t see any degree of better government just more of the same with an old NPA agenda.
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Truthfully, after I posted this I recd an almost immediate phone call from a high-ranking NPAer who happened to get on at the same time. And I told her the same thing I’m telling you: Suzanne Anton cannot be the Mayoral candidate and will have a very difficult time explaining her IDIOTIC support of Vision policies, particularly the $25 million for useless and unnecessary bike infrastructure over the next two years. She has no moral high-ground to say a peep for the rest of her term. On major issues, she folded like a cheap lawn chair.
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The Engineering Department moved out of the Hall a year ago this month I was advised today. Although the move may have started under the NPA with, I gather, concurence of the Visionistas of the day [that's why they're trying not to make to much of this], today’s big picture relevant question is: why has nothing happened to the re & re of these floors in 1 year? and, what is going in there & when? How much is this costing? What’s being achieved?
It may be the ‘media’ did not pick up on the empty 7 floors for a year, but Jeff Lee did 1 month into his new posting. Some media, including AGT, may not have used the 4th floor media room lately, so would not have had reason to go up there.
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Vision Vancouver voted in favour of those renos. If they didn’t like them they had ample time to make changes. not only they didn’t make changes, but they added to the bill. THAT’S why this story is huge.
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