Sean Bickerton

Kicking over the traces with good friends Didi & Lil!

“Out with the Old and In with the New!” has never rung more true for me than it does with the advent of 2012!

It’s only been five years since I moved back to Vancouver after twenty years away in New York. It’s taken that long just to find good Mexican!

So it was a complete  accident when I got caught up in local politics during efforts to improve my building.

When Peter Ladner came over to ask me to run, I spent the first half hour pointing out to him how unsuited I was then to be a candidate, having just moved home, with so few connections, etc.

But I’m incapable of doing anything half-heartedly, especially when it comes to underdogs, and what should have been a brief political detour ended up consuming the next three years of my life.

Some have taken exception to my post-campaign public renunciation of local politics and the demands of public life, thinking it originates from pique or is just a bruised ego talking.

Bruised ego aside, something I readily own up to, this last campaign left me in debt and it’s out of necessity that I must turn my attention to the responsibility I owe first to my family, as well as to the cadre of internationally-celebrated, grammy-award-winning clients we serve through our business, ArtistManager.Net: Talented Websites For The Most Talented People In The World!

I have spent my entire life involved in the performing arts and entertainment and had the privilege of working at the top of that profession internationally, first as a VP with Columbia Artists Management and with my own agency IAG, and now producing state-of-the-art websites that renowned artists use to communicate with the world.

I love Vancouver and the hundreds of remarkable people we’ve had the pleasure of meeting through politics since moving back, and I’ve grown immensely through the experience.

But I believe after three years of intense service that I’ve more than discharged any obligation I ever had to the NPA – twice over in my own estimation.

Now I must – and am eager to – focus my energy and attention on the re-imagined, reinvented, next-generation incarnation of our business that we will be launching next month.

The importance of community remains one of my fundamental values though, as does the prime importance in life of the arts. So I continue as Strata Chair of my building – Paris Place – continuing efforts to improve quality of life for our residents and for my neighborhood, in cooperation with the Crosstown Residents Association and False Creek Residents Association.

I also remain Chair of a Strategic Task Force for the Langley Community Music School co-founded by my sister Linda, third-largest music school in BC and one of the largest in western Canada.

And I will continue to write and speak out on issues I believe are important to a Canadian way of life I see as increasingly threatened.

Tom and I end 2011 a little leaner but much greener and even keener than ever before to meet the challenges of trying to invent a small but excellent slice of the future, an adventure we’ve been involved in conducting together since we first met in 1986, my first year in New York.

To everyone chasing their dreams, I salute you and share your passion for what comes next!

Here’s to a fabulous 2012!

North East False Creek Development Sites

Last night, the City of Vancouver held public hearings on a proposal by Concord Pacific to develop Lot 5B West (see map to left).

The False Creek Residents Association brought out three dozen speakers from every neighbourhood in False Creek to speak to the amenity package proposed for that development. There were so many speakers that Council had to extend the hearing until 11pm, but still had to refer more than eighteen speakers to Monday night.

It was the position of the FCRA to reject the amenity package proposed for the development outright in favor of an amendment we submitted last night (see Amendment 4.6 below.)

9.06 acre Creekside Park promised to Vancouver in 1990

The amendment calls for immediate transfer of Creekside Park’s future home on Lot 9 from Concord to the province for $1, as will have to happen eventually; immediate greening of that site with a foot of soil covered with lawn; and relocation of all of Concord’s commercial activities (such as Cirque du Soleil, etc.) to their own commercially zoned 6c South.

My remarks to council follow, as does our suggested amendment. Please click here to view video of the hearing – my brief remarks begin at 3:08, and then questions from councillors continue until 3:32 pm.

Read more…

Vancouver City Council is considering a staff report today allowing the Vancouver Art Gallery to move to 2/3 of Larwill Park. This could be a wonderful development if they incorporate a concert hall on the other 1/3 of the land. As this has come up again, I’m reprising my original article about Larwill Park.

I’m also pleased to note that Michael Geller has recently come out in favour of my proposal to close Cambie Street between Dunsmuir and Georgia Streets, in order to provide restaurants and bars that can animate this area at night.

In its heyday, Larwill Park was a centre of life in the city, home to games of baseball, lacrosse, football and cricket; the site of political demonstrations, rallies, fairs and concerts; and a marshalling field and drill ground for troops. Parades, carnivals, Ferris wheels, sports and politics animated a site once dedicated to fun in a city not well known for it.

By contrast today it sits dark, covered in asphalt, used as a parking lot, and the blocks along Dunsmuir and Georgia Street east of Homer are dead at night, bereft of the street-level commercial activity that’s the life-blood of any urban setting.

Read more…

Following yesterday’s challenge, my letter to Michael Harcourt, the SFU Professors & Building Communities Society:

January 21, 2011

Dear Mr. Harcourt,

We first met at a debate you did in the Library 2 years ago. I was introduced to you as someone who ran unsuccessfully for council with the NPA. Your response was quite kind – don’t worry about that Sean, you said, that was an outgoing, rather than an incoming tide … “

It meant a lot to me at the time, and I was very impressed with your debate style.

Fast forward to today and we find ourselves on opposite sides of the HAHR report. Your organization and the SFU Profs have essentially stopped all forward motion out of a clear belief that what’s being proposed is wrong-headed.

I disagree with you, but I’m actually hoping you have an alternative to offer, so I’m challenging you, ABC and the SFU Profs to a public debate of these issues. You have all of the credentials and heavies on your side.

If you all truly have the courage of your convictions, and if it really matters so much, you will be willing to meet me in a public forum.

Who knows? We might even arrive at a solution.

Sincerely,
Sean Bickerton

This week the professional staff of our City, the experts we’ve hired to advise us, produced a thorough, thought-through plan after three years of consultations and revisions under the rubric of Historic Area Height Review.

Nonetheless, some of our city’s most educated and influential citizens felt it necessary to oppose this plan for new housing in the DTES, successfully defeating any further consideration of this report’s recommendations for the DTES during the rest of this council’s term.

I strongly disagree with their position on a strict policy basis favoring something over nothing and want to know why they’ve intervened to shut down any progress in this way.

That is why I’ve publicly challenged Michael Harcourt, the SFU Professors, and the Building Communities Society to sponsor a public forum where we can debate these issues.

Mr. Harcourt, Professors of SFU, and the Building Communities Society – are you up for a fair debate? I am. Name the time and place.

The Georgia Straight published the following article by Matthew Burrows on Thursday, August 12, 2001:

Former NPA candidate Sean Bickerton slams Critical Mass

A former Non-Partisan Association city council candidate is calling on Critical Mass riders to “declare victory” and reform the controversial month-end bicycle ride in light of recent gains.

“I saw the point of it when there wasn’t any dedicated bike infrastructure, when there were no protected or separated paths,” Sean Bickerton, an occasional cyclist, told the Straight by phone.

“But when we’ve got an integrated network of safe bike paths that are separated, I don’t understand how they can simultaneously insist on the right to take over the entire road infrastructure, tie up the traffic for an hour, endanger emergency vehicles, tie up needed police resources that are scarce, without any coordination, without a permit, without paying any of the policing costs that go with it.”

For these reasons, Bickerton feels, cyclists should “comply with city regulations and laws like everybody else using the roads has to do”.

Critical Mass sets off from the Vancouver Art Gallery at 6 p.m. on the last Friday of every month, with the number of participants varying according to the weather and time of year. The ride is often criticized because the route isn’t announced ahead of time, which would help motorists to avoid it, but is arrived at by consensus during the ride.

Brent Granby, president of the West End Residents Association and an avid cyclist, told the Straight, “A city is never just about the efficient transportation of goods and services; it’s also about celebrating the city itself and the values that we have.”

Granby, a regular at Critical Mass, disagrees with Bickerton.

“Fundamentally, I think he just misunderstands what Critical Mass is about,” Granby said. “Like in medieval cities, they would open up the town square and they would have celebrations, and they celebrate being together and they celebrate their values as a society, and that’s what Critical Mass is about as well.”

He added, “I don’t think it’s too much to ask on the last Friday of the month, and usually we’re only talking about four months in the summertime. It’s a great thing for the city. It’s tourism. It’s like the running of the bulls.”

Last year, Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson and police chief Jim Chu called for a predetermined route for the ride in a joint news release ahead of the July 31 event, but the idea was not implemented.

View from the NPA tent

First published on Citycaucus.com on Tuesday, August 3, 2010, reprinted here with additions:

The crowds were massive at Pride this year, circling half of the downtown, stretching from Robson and Jervis down Robson, Denman and all along Pacific and Beach to the Burrard Bridge.

I was proud to be part of the NPA outreach team for the event. Our booth was in a great spot up on the hill above Sunset Beach. We gave away nearly 600 NPA balloons that day until we had exhausted two tanks of helium, and have never had so many people come up to us to say how glad they were to see us. Pride organizers even helped us find additional ribbon for the balloons when we ran out.

People that signed the email sheets were getting more involved in local politics for the first time, and while we talked to people from every corner of the city, many of the first-timers were from the West End. Quite a few expressed regret after voting for Vision in the last election.

Bill McCreery and Sean Bickerton

We received a number of heated comments on the ad-hoc nature of the STIR program, the lack of meaningful consultation around development decisions and recent comments by the Mayor that many found shocking.

Others mentioned the spending priorities of this council, and were particularly incensed at what they saw as the lack of consultation and costs involved in transportation infrastructure taken away from vehicles and devoted to bikes, although many favored bike lanes that met those concerns.

I’m on record as supporting a network of linked and protected bike lanes and pedestrian pathways. But the process has not been inclusive, consultation was spotty at best and used to support preconceived notions.

Others in the team reported a number of conversations hoping the NPA will be more proactive in its opposition to Vision, more visible, more free of infighting, and eager to see fresh faces brought forward for office.

NPA tent at Pride 2010

Shortly after the last election, I met former Mayor and Premier Mike Harcourt for the first time. Having learned I had run and lost my race for Council, he said the kindest thing to me. He said:  ”Oh, don’t worry about that (loss), Sean. That was an outgoing tide, not an incoming tide …”

I now believe that tide has turned. The overarching feeling of the crowds attending the parade was one of welcome. Far more adults asked for NPA balloons at this event than at any events we’ve done over the past two years, and we had an exponentially higher number of people sign up for our email list than ever before.

It was a beautiful day, a great parade and a proud moment to be an out, gay member of the NPA. Kudos to the organizers for making it happen.

Dave Pasin gives an NPA balloon to a new supporter

The sad truth is that our public consultation process appears to be broken, leaving little trust on any side of the equation:

• Residents that dare express an opinion on new development in their neighbourhoods are regularly derided as NIMBY no-nothings …

• The developers that built the extraordinary city we see around us and provide the daycares, rec centres and libraries we need are regularly decried as barbarians intent on destroying every last vestige of everything held sacred …

• City planners are unfairly defamed as incompetent, uncaring or corrupt. and often in the breath …

• And the public’s overall opinion of politicians is unprintable …

We’re told the overarching concept for our city’s future is ‘Green Capital,’ yet eco-density has become so loaded with partisan invective it has become a stand-in for “I want to destroy your neighbourhood” on the one side and “I would rather die than see one new building in my community” on the other.

Unfortunately, the very solutions that might help – neighbourhood plans or visioning exercises – are reputed to be too expensive, time-consuming, complicated or beyond the city’s resources.

What to do?

I have a suggestion.

2011 is the 125th Birthday of the City of Vancouver. A much-belated and reluctant effort by the city to embrace a year-long celebration envisaged by the previous council has led to a tepid, half-hearted effort, and the community and arts groups charged with staging the celebration are left uncertain of funding.

Perhaps we should take advantage of the oversight to propose an entirely different kind of birthday present for our city. What if we celebrated this anniversary by engaging in a four-year planning process to lay out a broad neighbourhood-by-neighbourhood City Plan for the next 125?

In that four year period – the life of the next council – we could take the time to do the following:

1) Reinvent and reinvigorate the planning and consultation processes.
2) Prepare a thorough analysis of what assets each neighbourhood has, those it lacks and a vision or plan emphasizing its unique character.
3) From the neighbourhood study, prepare a comprehensive list of assets the city needs.
4) Develop a new CityPlan taking into account the individual plans and needs of each neighbourhood along with the needs and future growth of the entire City.
5) Implement broad-based zoning based on that plan.

I realize the best-laid plans can easily end in quagmire, but if we actively involved city planners, area residents, businesses, schools, social profit organizations and the developers in creating a meaningful consultation process, and if we allowed each community to participate in the horse-trading surrounding density and needed amenities in their community, we might find more commonality than is thought now to exist. False Creek North is a classic example I’ll write more babout later.

One final thought. I think transit-based density is the key. If we focus density where it already exists and along major transit arterials, and if our plans provide enough street-level commercial to animate streets and provide needed local services within walking distance of each community, we could manage the change coming to our city as we continue to add residents in the most environmentally responsible way possible.

One thing is certain. If we don’t take this opportunity to plan the future of our city for the next 125 years, that spot-rezoned future will plan itself.

But it won’t be pretty.

Who indeed, Mr. Mayor?

Sadly, the Mayor’s profanity-laced diatribe deriding petitioners before his government is not an isolated incident.

His comments are instead reminiscent of comments made by the Mayor and Councillor Jang about residents of False Creek North when they dared complain about the mayhem caused by No-Rules Shelters forced on that neighbourhood.

As Michael Smyth wrote in the Province at the time after reporting on the legitimate concerns expressed by those residents at a public meeting: “Even then, some of Robertson’s Vision Vancouver councillors opted to lecture and harangue residents rather than respond to their concerns. Instead, Jang suggested the residents simply don’t care about poor people.” At least that’s what they said in public …

“The Mayor’s use of profanity isn’t as bothersome as the disdain for dissenters expressed in its usage.” Gary Mason, Globe & Mail

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IDcmUQa0WM]

The most recent intemperate remarks by the Mayor are concerning not because they’re unusual or profane, but because they are part of a larger pattern of contempt for the citizens of the city he runs:

• Public consultation has become a laughing-stock.
• Neighbourhood associations are routinely ignored.
• Planning processes are ad hoc at best.
• Staff reports regularly delivered too late for councillors to review prior to votes.
• Independent commissions like the Board of Variance have been subverted.
• In-camera off-record meetings are so common now as to pass unremarked.
• Expert advisory committees like the Civic Theatres Advisory Board are regularly ignored while others are stacked with party stalwarts.
• Deals affecting public assets are made behind closed doors to reward those with good connections.
• Any staff that raise questions, such as the highly-respected City Electrician Ark Tsissereve, are summarily dismissed without cause.
• Committee assignments and commission seats are restricted solely to card-carrying members of the ruling party and its coalition partners.
• Back-room negotiations for STIR giveaways have replaced long-established standards such as the 2.75 acres of parkland for every 1000 residents in all new developments.

“Robertson reveals himself as ignorant, arrogant.” Michael Smyth, The Province

That same arrogance and contempt for public process is often on open display in council chambers. Attend any council meeting and it’s possible to observe first-hand the lack of respect accorded to anyone not wearing Vision’s bright green colours.  Andrea Reimer wielding the gavel in the Speaker’s chair is singularly dismissive and sarcastic to Councillor Woodworth and Councillor Anton to the point of derision. She forgets that while they aren’t important in and of themselves, they represent voters and points of view that the electorate wants heard.

“Vision is like a bully misbehaving.”  Dharm Makwana, 24 Hours

In short, the contempt exhibited by this administration for voters and long-established democratic processes has been apparent for all to see for some time.

His stay in the Provincial Parliament was relatively brief, but perhaps the Mayor and his crew spent a little too much time in Victoria even so, infected as they now appear to be with the same contempt exhibited towards the taxpayers of Vancouver by the bureaucrats and politicians in Victoria.

“Do what you’re told and say what we tell you to say seems to have replaced professionalism at city hall.” Gordon Clark, The Province

The people who appeared before the Mayor deserve his full respect, that of his Council and the entire government of The City of Vancouver. And contrary to the Mayor’s remarks, we know who they are. They are the people who make the city work, the volunteers who dedicate thousands of hours of their own time every week across the width and breadth of our city for no reward.

They are the people who apparently care more about our city, Mr. Mayor, than you do.

I believe it would be a terrible mistake to rename the country’s longest-standing, most successful political organization because of a loss at the ballot box we caused ourselves through a destructive leadership battle.

The Non-Partisan Association has elected eleven of the past seventeen mayors of Vancouver. The city we see around us was created largely by the NPA and a related TEAM government – green, full of parks, with a vibrant service and information-based economy, and a dense but livable urban core full of life.

Photo: Tom Hudock

The NPA were committed environmentalists long before Vision held its first organizing meeting, making Vancouver’s building standards the most environmentally advanced in North America – LEED Gold standard. And we always maintained a long-standing requirement of 2.75 acres of park space for every 1000 residents in all new developments, a standard that’s sadly gotten lost with this Mayor.

The NPA undertook more socially-assisted housing than any administration in the city’s history (including the current Vision administration), partnering with the province to build or refurbish fourteen residences and creating more than 2400 units of assisted living housing. I know because one of Sam Sullivan’s new socially-assisted homes for single mothers is going up right next to my home in Tinseltown.

Photo: Tom Hudock

It was the NPA that initiated the Four Pillars program to address addiction, for the first time adding Prevention, Treatment and Harm Reduction to the standard Enforcement employed by all past mayors. As a direct result of those efforts, the rate of new AIDS cases has dropped dramatically, saving hundreds of lives, and hundreds more have been connected to treatment services that help people transform their live.

The NPA also established the first Community Court in the city’s history to deal with first time offenders by connecting them to social services and treatment options and offering community service as an alternative to highly expensive jail time with its exposure to hardened criminals. It is universally praised as a major success.

They also instituted comp-stat policing, which focuses police resources where they are most needed. As a result of these and other NPA initiatives, crime rates dropped more than 20% during the NPA’s recent tenure.

In addition, the NPA has been a strong champion of the Arts, raising arts funding in every year but one of the last administration, initiating the city’s first Poet Laureate and undertaking a $60 million upgrade of the Orpheum and Queen Elizabeth Theatre complex. Under the last NPA administration $1.5 million was used to establish a Cultural Tourism Fund, the highly successful free Olympic Live Sites were established, and the Juno’s were brought to Vancouver for the very first time.

And all of this with balanced budgets and full delivery of services.

Photo: Tom Hudock

Vancouver is the one of the most beautiful and livable cities in the world in part because the NPA has always offered good, pragmatic, financially-responsible management of the city’s resources and enlightened programs to address the city’s challenges.

I’m not saying we’re without fault or haven’t made mistakes in the past. But the NPA should be proud of its heritage and the city we’ve helped build, and of the name that emphasizes our non-partisan nature and openness to the best solutions for the challenges we face.

Keep the Non-Partisan Association. That’s the banner I’ll be running under in November of  2011.