Very Best Wishes To All!
A Potemkin Olympics?
Artwork by Jesse Corcoran
NEWS UPDATE ADDED 12/21/09 2:01 pm
I’m pleased to report that VANOC has issued a formal apology to Maestro Bramwell Tovey and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra for “putting it in an ‘untenable’ position” according to today’s report from The Globe and Mail by David Ebner.
It is the least they can do.
Nonetheless, it remains deeply troubling that our own grammy-award winning orchestra and internationally celebrated Music Director Bramwell Tovey will not be featured during the Opening Ceremonies seen around the world.
We were told the Olympics would showcase our city and province to the entire planet. So why are they missing this opportunity to showcase one of our greatest cultural crown jewels, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra?
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(POSTSCRIPT ADDED BELOW ON 12/21/09 11:01 AM)
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE 12/19/09
Today The Globe and Mail published an article by Marsha Lederman and Rod Mickleburgh entitled The Day The Music Died, which begins:
As the Winter Olympics near, the Games are being hit by defections from the opening and closing ceremonies.
The Grammy-winning Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and its celebrated conductor Bramwell Tovey walked away from the opening ceremonies this week after being asked to prerecord music that would then be mimed by others during the live, lavish spectacle. Yesterday, Mr. Tovey called the plan fraudulent, likening it to Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson’s “faux gold medal” at the 1988 Summer Olympics. Mr. Johnson was stripped of his medal when he tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs. “In our field, for you to plagiarize somebody else’s recording – to mime it and pretend that it’s you – is absolutely on a par with Ben Johnson’s fraud. … It’s non-Olympian in spirit and VANOC really should have known better.”
Mr. Tovey, meanwhile, said VANOC’s plan to have an orchestral segment mimed during the opening ceremonies reminded him of the furor over lip-synching by a young girl at the 2008 Summer Olympics. “I said ‘no’ to VANOC, because I felt it was dishonest. I thought it was fraudulent. It’s promoted with public money, and I didn’t want anything to do with this kind of dishonest practice.” After the Beijing lip-synching controversy, B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell vowed there would be no lip-synching during Vancouver’s opening ceremonies.
But that was then. Now we learn that instead of setting a new low, the 2008 Olympics set a new Olympic standard for muzzling dissent and the Milli Vanilli-style faux-performance eagerly embraced by VANOC and the Australian corporate-events company VANOC hired to produce Vancouver’s opening ceremonies.
While common among second-rate rock promoters, this request for models and actors to substitute for great artists in front of the cameras is distasteful in the extreme when applied to our grammy-award winning orchestra and its brilliant Music Director. Maestro Tovey is regularly asked by the New York Philharmonic – one of the greatest orchestras in the world – to conduct their iconic summer concerts in Central Park and asked by the LA Philharmonic to conduct their celebrated concerts in the world-famous Hollywood Bowl. And they don’t ask him to hide backstage during concerts while a marionette apes his motions for the cameras.
Worse, these Olympic cretins have muzzled our very own Vancouver Youth Orchestra and forbidden them by contract from talking about the fact that mimers and mummers will perform on stage in their place. These are our city’s most gifted young musicians, full of idealism and dedication. They rehearse for months on end and play their heart out every time they are offered the opportunity to perform.
Their muzzling, and forced miming alongside ringers is despicable and so terribly cynical I’m seriously concerned about the sad lesson they’ll be learning on that stage as they perform a trick instead of a concert. What are we teaching them? What are the Olympic values they will learn on that stage?
I’m embarrassed for our city that this cheap, derivative, generic, faux-celebration is being substituted in place of a celebration of everything that makes us great and authentically different from every other place on this earth.
And I am disgusted with VANOC that they would foist such a sham on our youngest, most gifted talents while allowing our greatest, internationally-recognized artists to be treated with such disrespect.
Perhaps it is time to find a permanent home for what the Olympics is becoming. If these latest revelations are any indication of the values of the organizers, following on the extra-legal harrassment of citizens peacefully petitioning their own government, I can suggest a number of places they might feel right at home, Myanmar being front of the list.
Those responsible owe Maestro Tovey, the Grammy-winning Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the conductor and musicians of the Vancouver Youth Orchestra and all other participants in their Potemkin Opening Ceremonies an apology.
Shame on VANOC and shame on the IOC.
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UPDATE I (Dec 21, 2009
I feel compelled to add to this post that I am not at all reflexively anti-Olympics. To the contrary, the Olympics was one of the things we were greatly looking forward to on moving home to Vancouver. We have an Olympics license plate on our car, I have worn Olympic lapel pins to demonstrate support, served on an Olympic Legacies Now jury, and helped arrange and attend many meetings to try and anticipate problems and arrange smooth community relations.
So I find myself in the same column as the gentleman referred to in the article who was once so enthusiastic and now finds himself withdrawing from the opening ceremonies and dropping out of the parade, so to speak. So, I wanted to make clear that I speak from bitter disappointment that these things have not been better handled, not from an anti-Olympics stance.
As Tom keeps reminding me, all the world’s nations gathered together and competing peacefully is a wonderful tradition and one we would all like to enthusiastically support.
But not at any price.
Save The Date For A January 30 Arts Forum!
I’m very pleased to announce I’ll be hosting an arts and culture forum on January 30, 2010 at the Arts Club Revue Stage on Granville Island from 8:30 am to 12:30 pm. The event will be non-partisan, non-political, and open to the public. More details will be announced early in the New Year.
It’s one of several City Dialogues we’ll hold on the arts over the next year and I’m extremely grateful to Howard Jang, Executive Director of the Arts Club Theatre, David Lemon, Executive & Artistic Director, Health Arts Society, and Paul Sontz, Manager of Tickets Tonight for their support in helping to organize this event.
Vancouver 2050: A Creative City
Our goal with this series of discussions is to bring leaders from the arts and business communities together in order to fully imagine Vancouver as a 21st-century Creative City with a correspondingly vibrant creative economy.
This first City Dialogue will feature three distinguished arts leaders presenting their view of what Vancouver as a Creative Capital could look like in 2050, with a view to infrastructure, sustainability, and the kind of innovation and enrichment of activities that could energize broad community engagement.
Afterwards, a high-level panel will discuss the visions presented with the speakers, and then open the discussion to include invited arts, business & community leaders.
I am totally and completely a product of the arts institutions of this city and this Province. I grew up in very rural south Surrey in the 60s, but traveled each week into Vancouver by Greyhound bus for violin lessons and rehearsals of the Vancouver Youth Orchestra. Summers I spent up at Courtenay Youth Music Camp. These institutions saved me from much worse choices and enriched my life beyond measure.
Later as a young adult I also played violin in the Victoria Symphony, worked as a summer intern for the Vancouver Recital Society, worked in the Vancouver Symphony subscription sales room and managed both the Vancouver Youth Orchestra and Spectrum Dance Circus. Those positions gave me the broad arts experience that made it possible for me to go to New York and produce concert tours and special events across Europe, North America and Asia.
As a result, my commitment to these arts institutions and to the artists and artisans that make Vancouver such an engine of enlightenment is total, transcending politics and partisanship. I am eager to work with people from all backgrounds in order to ensure our arts sector has what it needs to thrive.
So please join us on Saturday, January 30, 2010 at 8:30 am in the Arts Club Revue Stage on Granville Island and help us envision a more vibrant future for the arts and everyone that lives, works and plays in our great city!
The Budget Debate and The Tax Transfer
I was quoted recently in an article in The Georgia Straight called “Vision Vancouver looks after businesses with tax shift” by Carlito Pablo. In regard to the property tax transfer from businesses to residences, I’m quoted as stating in an unfortunately rambling fashion:
“I think it’s a very hard thing for politicians to do this. And I believe that it’s a courageous thing they [Vision and NPA councillors] are doing. I praise them for doing it. I know that COPE is unhappy with them going ahead in doing that. But I personally salute their political courage in continuing. It’s not an easy one to support.
(But) to be a healthy economy, we need jobs. If businesses are paying higher taxes here than anyplace else in Canada, that works against creating jobs.”
Just to be clear, I’m in favour of everyone paying a fair share of their income towards taxes to support the very high standard of governance we benefit from in Vancouver and other Canadian cities. But we should do more to foster small-business entrepreneurialism. One way to help would be looking at local commercial retail property taxes and assessments. Another concern is that the HST is going to have a greater effect on our local restaurants, hair salons and other small service businesses just when the recovery seems to be taking hold.
Small businesses generate 60% of all new jobs yet will bear the brunt of the cost. Larger corporations, on the other hand, will save a great deal with HST implementation and they should be prepared to share the pain as well as the benefits with the many small businesses that are going to be hurt by the automatic 7% rise in their own prices and those of their suppliers.
Having stated all of the above, my conversation with the reporter lasted ten minutes and most of that was spent discussing ways the city could eliminate the projected deficit and preserve core programs. So it was great to see that the Straight also published my Letter to the Editor which covers some of those suggestions:
Sean Bickerton
Fri, 2009-12-04 10:15
Letter To The Editor, Georgia StraightI believe it is possible to continue with the transfer away from small businesses while still maintaining services by cutting the 100 new police officers Mayor Robertson has insisted on hiring at a cost of an extra $12,000,000 annually. As our police force spend 1/3 of their time dealing with mental health issues, why not hire ten social workers at a cost of less than $1 million to have a team on call 24/7 in direct support of the police, freeing them for more urgent priorities.
And, as Peter Ladner suggested, there are $30,000,000 in outstanding fines and bylaw violations, so why not ask the province to stop renewing drivers licenses until all fines are paid, which would eliminate the entire budget gap?
There clearly are other options to cutting our parks, rec centres and libraries, which means these choices are deliberate and I’m terribly disappointed in the choices made
City Budget Debate
On my way to hear Renee Fleming’s spectacular recital at the Orpheum Theatre last night, I stopped by the ThinkCity debate on the 2010 City Budget in order to deliver the NPA response, and to hear Paul Sullivan of the Fair Tax Coalition and Professor Douglas McArthur spar over the new budget.
It was highly educational, quite entertaining and there was a thorough and lively exchange of views between the two main proponents and the audience.
It was disappointing that Vision didn’t see fit to send a representative to the debate after the strong support they received from ThinkCity before the election. I felt the comments offered by the COPE representative and myself as the NPA representative added value to the discussion and addressed points not raised in the debate.
My own remarks follow:
My name is Sean Bickerton and I speak today as a member of the Board of Directors of the Non-Partisan Association, as a former candidate for City Council during the last civic election, a small business owner and resident of Vancouver.
We’re told that our city is facing a $60,000,000 budget shortfall, and that after identifying $30,000,000 in one-off savings, our Mayor is now looking to identify an additional $30,000,000 in savings through staff and program cuts. I feel it’s a shame we didn’t know about this shortfall before they started firing the stop non-political staff at City Hall, costing taxpayers millions in severance packages and new-hire incentives.
Nonetheless, while alarming, the budget crisis offers an unprecedented opportunity to bring the city together and re-examine our priorities and I commend ThinkCity for doing exactly that this evening. Working together and taking the best ideas offered, we could implement far-reaching, imaginative solutions that would avoid painful cuts to critical services while saving the city money in the long run, not just this budget cycle.
Unfortunately, though, consultation has been poor at best, and Mayor Robertson is resorting instead to short-term, short-sighted measures that don’t change the fundamentals, and could leave us in bad shape for years to come.
It is particularly painful to see hours at libraries, sports facilities and community centres being cut, and our beloved McMillan-Bloedel Conservatory axed when alternative financing is available. If we don’t invest in our youth and those facing challenges today, we will pay an even greater price for that neglect long into the future.
Where I agree with the Mayor is the need to keep any tax increase under 2% during hard times. I also agree with continuing the politically difficult tax shift from small businesses at least, which are currently taxed on their property at the highest rate in Canada. Small businesses generate 60% of all new jobs, and in a city with few head offices, we need to foster small business and entrepreneurship.
I’m also pleased to see Mayor Robertson’s administration restore its support for our embattled arts sector after cutting the arts budget 9% his first year in office. The arts are vital to Vancouver’s creative economy and need our support right now.
I’m so concerned about the state of the arts in Vancouver that I’m hosting a high-levl review on January 30 in the Revue Stage at the Arts Club Theatre on Granville Island. I encourage you to join a blue-ribbon panel of top leaders in the City’s Arts, Business and Funding communities for a review of the city’s inadequate arts infrastructure alongside a parallel effort to address the need for more sustainable funding models in these wrenching economic times. So I want to salute Council’s renewed arts support in this context.
But where I find myself in disagreement with the Mayor’s misplaced priorities is with his insistence on hiring 100 new police officers at a cost of $12,000,000 a year when we already have the highest number of police per capita in Canada and crime rates have droped 20% over the past four years.
There is a better solution. Our police spend 1/3 of their time dealing with mental-health-related issues. Why not hire ten social workers to ensure that two are on call 24/7 working in direct support of the police, freeing them for more urgent priorities? It would cost less than $1,000,000 / year instead of $12,000,000, and the net savings of $11,000,000 equals 1/3 of the total savings the Mayor is seeking.
Other savings opportunities abound. Peter Ladner reports in Business In Vancouver Magazine that there are $30,000,000 in unpaid fines and bylaw violations owing to the city, and suggests asking the the province to stop renewing drivers licenses until all city fines are paid. That would solve the problem in one stroke.
He also suggests asking all city managers to forego salary increases next year, which would produce $1.5 million in savings. If the unions would agree to do the same – in exchange for no staff layoffs – that would produce another $20,000,000 in savings.
For me, cutting libraries and parks while adding 100 additional police we don’t need makes absolutely no sense and may generate a self-fulfilling prophecy of a lost generation. I urge Mayor Robertson and Council to re-think these wrong-headed priorities and bring the city together instead of dividing us with short-sighted cuts to core services.
My thanks to ThinkCity for bringing us together this evening, and my thanks to you for your kind attention.
Thank you!
Concert of the Year!
I first heard Grammy Award-winning Soprano Renee Fleming singing Strauss’ Four Last Songs at Carnegie Hall as part of a fundraising concert for Classical Action: Performing Arts Against AIDS. I’ve never forgotten the beauty of her voice since. She is simply one of the greatest singers on the face of this earth.
Musical America’s Vocalist of the Year in 1997, Renee Fleming also received the inaugural 1996 Solti Prize from L’Academie du Disque Lyrique. Her recording of American arias, I Want Magic, recorded in New York with James Levine and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra was named “Record of the Month”, by Gramophone Magazine, naming her in the review as one of the all-time greats.
Repértoire Magazine reviewed the recording as “The most beautiful manifesto imaginable for the last fifty years of American operatic creation.” The New York Times wrote: “Ravishing melodies, ravishingly sung…Ms. Fleming convincingly gives lie to those who maintain that the golden age of singing is past.”
If you only go to one concert this year, make it this one. Even after being home for three years now, I still can’t get over the fact we are able to hear some of the greatest artists in the world right here in Vancouver. And I can’t think of a better way to celebrate that anniversary than listening to the spectacularly dulcet tones of Ms. Fleming’s voice in the grandeur, great acoustic and comfort of the newly refurbished Orpheum Theatre.Tickets are available from Ticketmaster and information about the program she will sing is available on the Vancouver Recital Society website.
Gala Fundraising Concert for Vancouver’s Brilliant Borealis String Quartet
Please join me tomorrow, on Saturday, November 21st @ 4pm, @ Green College UBC, as I host a gala fundraising celebration of the Borealis String Quartet featuring the launch of their new CD! This is the very first album the Borealis has recorded on priceless Italian instruments loaned to the quartet through the generosity of the CHIMEI Cultural Foundation.
I’ve had the pleasure of personally managing some of the world’s great quartets including the Takacs String Quartet, the Philharmonia Quartett Berlin and the Budapest Quartet, and the Borealis is the most exciting young quartet I’ve heard in more than twenty years in New York.
This unique celebration will feature special performances by the Borealis on their stunning instruments, special appearances by Andrew Dawes and Sam Sullivan, and the award of the first annual Borealis Chamber Music Award to a leading Vancouver champion of chamber music. In addition, a silent auction will offer you an opportunity to bid on many special prizes, including a private house concert and gourmet dinner for 8!
Donations at the door are in lieu of admission ($25 minimum suggested). Tax receipts will also be issued for all donations.
The Borealis Quartet is fresh back from their highly successful New York debut at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, part of an extensive North American tour, and will depart soon for a return tour of Asia with performances in Japan, China and Taiwan. You have the luxury of hearing them right here in Vancouver!
So please join us on Saturday, November 21 at 4:00 pm to help celebrate one of Norht America’s greatest young string quartets and help them launch their brand new CD. Admission by donation at the door includes great company, great music, great food and a cash bar.
ADDRESS TO VANCOUVER CITY COUNCIL
Madam Chairwoman, Mister Mayor, Councillors, Fellow Speakers and Honoured Guests:
My name is Sean Bickerton and I am speaking today in response to the North East False Creek High Level Review as a resident of Tinseltown, a member of my strata, a member of the Keefer Community Group and of the False Creek Residents Association.
I address you today with respect for the offices you hold, and appreciation for your public service and the personal sacrifice demanded of those who accept the burden of public office. You are often called on to make tough choices for the rest of us, and the choice before you today is one of those.
Twenty years ago, Concord Pacific won the privilege of building out the entire EXPO lands as one contiguous development, subject to delivery of a number of public amenities, including Creekside Park and a continuous 35′ wide seawall.
And they did an amazing job of most of that development, creating an award-winning community in the process.
But as we are looking at a new proposal from the same developers today, it’s worth remembering that their original plan for the EXPO lands would have created many separate enclaves of balkanized private lagoons cut off from the downtown and from each other. Thankfully, city planners intervened, and Yaletown, with all of its spectacular waterfront, has been fully integrated into the rest of the city, its pedestal-style buildings making Vancouver famous as a world leader in modern urban design.
Sadly, though, the original promises to the City of Vancouver have still not been kept and Creekside Park still isn’t built. To the contrary, it’s covered with asphalt leaching pollutants into False Creek. And the seawall is nothing more than a narrow strip of crumbling pavement, bordered on one side by a rusting junkyard of environmentally hazardous construction equipment, and on the other by rusting razor wire and chain link fence. It is, to put it kindly, an eyesore.The original concept for Creekside Park has long been approved by councils and park boards of all party affiliation after years of consultation with local residents and planners. It will be a splendid, gateway destination park welcoming nearby communities in the International Village, Chinatown, East Vancouver, Citygate and the Downtown Eastside. Families and visitors will also come from all over the city to relish the natural setting, see the spectacular open views of the water and skyline, and to take advantage of the many recreational opportunities this unique waterfront site offers.
Surprisingly, asked to try and speed up delivery of this long-delayed landmark park, Concord has instead proposed building a new row of condo towers right across the same land, literally cutting the park in half and stretching it out along the waterfront instead.
“What difference does the shape make if the overal amount of land is the same?” you might ask.
Please judge for yourselves. (At this point in the speech I employ a rectangular piece of cardboard, a piece of tape and a pair of scissors as visual aids).
If we start out with the original plan for our multipurpose waterfront oasis, (holding up the large rectangular piece of cardboard), cut it in half and tape the ends together like so, we still end up with a large block of land that could make a good park.
So far, so good. So what’s the problem?
First, we have to leave room all along the much longer waterfront section of the now sideways park for the 35′ seawall. So let’s just cut away a strip for the seawall, like so.
Now what the diagrams don’t show is that the Carrall Street Greenway will be extended south right to the water’s edge, dissecting the park in two. And Abbott Street will also be extended to the water, further slicing up the park into a series of narrow, lozenge-shaped strips. So what is the community left with after twenty years of asking politely, Madam Chair?
Unfortunately, scraps! That’s what the community is left with … scraps.
The people of the area deserve better and I know that we can do better. I urge you to reject this report, and to reject Concord’s attempt to “reshape” our park right out of existence. The community has been asking politely for twenty years now. That was more than enough time to remediate any soil, so the time for that excuse is long past. Please do what is necessary to ensure that Creekside Park gets built as planned and promised to the area’s residents for the past two decades.
Thank You.
Save Creekside Park!
Twenty years ago, Concord Pacific promised to build Creekside Park as a destination gateway park welcoming East Vancouver and the DTES to the False Creek waterfront in exchange for the rights to develop the old EXPO lands as one contiguous development. Later, they also gained the right to add another 2600 units to the development, with no other commitments than to fulfill the existing obligation to complete the seawall and build Creekside Park.
Today, they are trying to renege on that commitment, proposing instead to build a row of condo towers along the waterfront, with a narrow strip of three small lozenge-shaped parks in front so the new owners have a place to walk their dogs.
In writing about this subject, I feel obliged to disclose that Concord was one of the largest donors to my electoral campaign last year. Nonetheless, I sincerely hope they supported my candidacy because I am committed to doing everything possible to make this area a better place to live for everyone here. And for me, that means helping to ensure that Creekside Park gets built as promised.
As a member of the Steering Committee of the False Creek Residents Association (FCRA), as a resident of this area, and as someone who loves this city, I am diametrically opposed to this proposal.
If you, too, care about green space in this area, or Vancouver’s parks, please show up tonight at the Vancouver Park Board hearing at West Point Grey Community Centre, 4397 West 2nd Avenue, on Monday, October 19, 2009 at 7:00 pm.
And if you can’t make tonight’s meeting, please show up to City Council’s Planning and Environment hearing on the Northeast High Level Review on Thursday, Oct 22 at 2pm at City Hall. I’ll be speaking on Thursday, joined by many other members of our community intent on seeing Creekside Park completed in the next five years. Please join us!
Below is an open letter from the FCRA Co-chair that lays out a bit of the contentious history for this too-long delayed park:
An Open Letter To Mayor Robertson & City Council from the False Creek Residents Association from our co-Chair, Patsy McMillan:
I am imploring you to look at all of the facts, to take note of the HLR survey results that indicate an overall lack of support for this proposal and to make a decision based on those facts as well as the history and the future of what the residents want for the City of Vancouver.
To Mayor and Council/Park Board
re: HLR report for NEFC
Your Worship and City Councillors:
After having spent several hours at the consultative group meetings and having done considerable research into the report before you I would like to remind you of the numbers involved and the history of the situation. Numbers never lie and we can only learn about what is in the future by looking at what has happened in the past so that we can move forward in a way that best exemplifies the concept of Vancouver being one of the most livable cities in the world.
First, the ODP for North False Creek which was established in 1990 required the developer, Concord Pacific, to deliver 4 parks to the City of Vancouver ( David Lam Park, George Wainbourn Park, Cooper’s Park and Creekside Park) in exchange for development permits for 7,650 residential units. Over the past 20 years Concord Pacific has been given increased residential density to 10,000 units plus 100,000 sq. ft. without increasing the park per capita investment in the community so that they are now at a net loss of 6 acres of park space not including the undeveloped 9.06 acre Creekside Park. The developer has also at several stages asked for the complete dismissal of the unit cap number so that they can continue to build without providing any further amenities including those already contracted.
Further negotiations between the City, the Developer Concord and the Provincial Government ( Utility Design Agreement) allowed the developer to wait until the last of their land was developed so that the contaminated soils in Lot 6C could be moved to the future park site. If you calculate this remediation according to the George Wainbourn park remediation costs for “special waste” this would be somewhere in the neighbourhood of $33 – 66 million. Is the land, 6C, in it’s present commercially zoned tax rate equal to that expense or should the land be swapped for a more viable, less toxic city owned site that would provide Concord with a better return on their
investment, save the BC taxpayers the cost of the soil remediation and create a land base for a memorable waterfront park on the north shore of False Creek?
Second, the two surveys conducted by the planning department staff over the past several months at public open houses indicate that 68% – 75% of all the respondents are not in favour of the re- configuration of Creekside Park from a large square usable space to a long linear unusable and disconnected strip of land, half the depth of the original park space which would be cut through by the Carrall St. Greenway as well as Abbott St and the Georgia St. Walkway ( proposed) and the same number of respondents were not in favour of the increased density to 4 million sq ft. or 7200 more residents when we are already without commensurate amenities and services in NEFC. If you compile the density figures you will see that what is being proposed is a 9 FSR or nine times the land mass. In the dense and noisy West End it is only a 1.5 – 4 FSR and overall in NFC it is 4.5 FSR. So we are looking at double the amount of density that has already been allowed in NFC and at least triple the density in the West End over a much smaller area with no further amenities.
At what point in the increased densification of the downtown area of Vancouver do we become one of the world’s most unlivable cities? By changing the noise by-laws, changing the per capita green space target ratio and by possibly voiding the Mt. Seymour view corridor if the developer is allowed to build condo towers along Pacific Blvd. from Abbott St. to Quebec St. you will allow the livability of Vancouver to be seriously altered forever. This is a total betrayal of the existing residents of the area and the overall taxpayers of Vancouver who may or may not be aware of what is being proposed by this report. The report talks about the “ landowners” who are really the land developers. The land owners aka residents of the area are not in favour of this increased density and they have said so on numerous occasions as well as stipulating this in the HLR survey.
The HLR report before you speaks repeatedly about the “ re-shaping of Creekside Park”. As a member of the consultative group I can tell you that this only came up in the last couple of meetings as the planning dept. knows that the consultative group, to a member, was against this plan. Not one of the members polled was in favour of this change to the ODP. The Creekside Park size and shape was approved more than 20 years ago after extensive public consultation and input. Every City Council and every Park Board since has adhered to this plan.
In June and July on 1995 Concord Pacific tried to have the Unit Cap removed but the council and the park board of the day would not allow this to happen with the Park Board feeling so strongly about this that many of the Commissioners attended the City Council meeting to uphold their mission statement “ to provide, preserve and advocate for parks and recreation services to benefit people, communities and the environment”. The Park Board and its elected Commissioners will hopefully continue to speak out in favour of what is good for the City of Vancouver and not what is good for a specific developer whose only concern is how much money they can make and not the city that has enabled them to do so.
There has been extensive park design plans approved by both City Council and the Park Board after hours of public consultation and community input. The large acreage park between Carrall St and Quebec St. is what the community of Vancouver needs in order to bring the east side of Vancouver into False Creek and to provide an open public realm for the families and children who come to False Creek as their only option for a chance to experience this open water way. By allowing the re-shaping of Creekside Park from the large plot allocated now to a linear space running beside the seawall walkway, broken up by Carrall St and Abbott St., you will essentially deny the children, youth and families from the east side of Vancouver this important experience
and you will allow a developer to build condos along Pacific Boulevard which will possibly void the Seymour Mountain View Corridor to the remainder of Vancouver taxpayers not to mention the legal ramifications to those taxpayers if the purchasers of the Millennium Water project decide to sue the city real estate dept. for false representation if they had purchased a suite with a mountain view that no longer exists.
I am imploring you to look at all of the facts, to take note of the HLR survey results that indicate an overall lack of support for this proposal and to make a decision based on those facts as well as the history and the future of what the residents want for the City of Vancouver.
Patsy McMillan,
Chair, Citygate Intertower Community Group
Co-Chair, False Creek Residents Association
Member HLR Consultative Group
NPA AGM Tonight
The Non-Partisan Association is holding its Annual General Meeting tonight at the Vancouver Museum, 1100 Chestnut Street, Vancouver, B.C. (same building as Planetarium), bottom floors. Click here for a map.
Registration begins at 5:30 pm
Nominees to the Board of Directors have been acclaimed.
Members will be asked to vote on a motion to lower the NPA membership fee. Please see your official notice for details. Members current as of September 14 are eligible to vote.
