Sean Bickerton

Even in the dog days of summer, when most Vancouverites are happily tuned out to politics and tuned into the beach, baseball and backyard BBQs, Mayor Robertson’s program to increase rental housing in the city has created such a stir he’s been forced to call a halt to the signature project of his STIR initiative – a new 22-story tower proposed for 1401 Comox in the West End.

Incredibly, what began with the Mayor’s unguarded, expletive-laced tirade against the city’s Non-Partisan Association has metastasized into a crisis of confidence in the legitimacy of the city’s planning and consultation processes.

In a recent interview with the Vancouver Sun, Mayor Robertson himself admitted “the city doesn’t have strong relations any more with many community groups” and that “many neighbourhoods are actually wary and distrustful of city hall.”

Even Vision’s communications guru, Marcella Munro, agreed last week during our discussion on CBC Radio that “the city’s public consultation process is flawed, is broken.” Our debate of the Mayor’s ill-fated STIR program was featured on the CBC’s Early Edition program on Wednesday, September 1, hosted by Gregor Craigie. To hear it in full, click on the play button below:

It didn’t have to turn out this way. During the election, the Mayor promised more transparency of decision-making, more consultation and more sensitivity to neighbourhood concerns.

What happened?

To put it succinctly, Mayor Robertson’s STIR program was misguided from the start, seeking to address a problem that didn’t exist with a solution that doesn’t help.

In response to cries for help from West End Seniors and low-income renters wishing to stay in place but facing large rent hikes, the Mayor, instead of addressing their very real and specific problem, adopted the simplistic bromide that we need more rental housing in Vancouver. This despite the fact that more than 900 apartments were listed for rent on Craiglist in just one day last month, while a recent CMHC report showed Vancouver’s vacancy rate has doubled to 2% in recent years.

Having misdiagnosed the problem, Robertson compounded his mistake by proposing a solution not designed to reduce rents or create affordable housing, but instead designed to create more expensive market-rental housing. A recent analysis of the developer’s pro-forma reveals the projected suites will rent for approximately $2.70 per square foot, nearly double the city’s current average rental rate of $1.50 – $2 per square foot.

Even if you accept the Mayor’s program as a worthy initiative in and of itself – “this city needs more rental housing” – the question has to be asked: “What is the benefit, and at what cost?” Each STIR project will cost the city millions of dollars in foregone tax revenues and amenities, yet the result is market-rental housing. What business is it of government to produce market-rate anything?

Presumably, the Mayor’s trickle-down housing project would also eventually provide relief to the by-now-evicted seniors the program was supposedly created to help, but it’s unclear exactly how that would happen.

Lastly, for decades, Vancouver has adhered to a strict formula for assessing the community amenities each developer is required to contribute in order to compensate the local community for increased density. This formula is 2.75 acres of park for each 1000 residents in every new development. When sufficient parkland wasn’t available, the difference was made up by a comparable contribution towards needed city amenities.

One of the first things this Mayor did was throw that time-tested standard out the window, replacing the level-playing field it provided with STIR’s ad-hoc, spot-rezoning approach that requires a separate, back-room negotiation for every project. Instead of a steady, predictable regulatory environment, developers now face an uncertain environment, eroding business confidence and the underlying pinnings of this city’s economy.

Given a policy so full of holes and internal contradictions, yet so costly to taxpayers, it was inevitable that questions and eventually objections would arise. But listening hasn’t proven to be one of Mr. Robertson’s strong suits.

Determined to be the first Mayor to deliver new West End rental housing in more than thirty years, Robertson brushed off all objections as political obstructionism and, incredibly, conflating his own supporters in the West End Neighbours Association with his nemesis, the NPA.

Having negated all outside voices, the echo room in the lock-step, me-too Vision caucus ensured that no one bothered to ask any of the tough questions that could have helped this neophyte mayor avoid being hoisted on the petard of his very own pet program.

The regrettable result is that the Mayor has been forced to call a halt to a year-long development process he initiated, leaving the developers and Qmunity to dangle in the breeze along with those seniors he forgot about as soon as he came up with the acronym.

If that were all, it would be bad enough. But this half-baked, ad-hoc policy has left the city’s planning process a shambles, faith in public consultation broken, the city’s management team demoralized, developers unable to create new housing, Qmunity without a home and renters no better off than they were before the Mayor decided to create this unnecessary STIR in the first 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.

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.

Madam Chair, Mr. Mayor, Councillors, Staff and Guests:

I speak to you today as the President of the Paris Place Strata Council and as a resident of the International Village on the proposed study to examine bringing down the Georgia Street and Dunsmuir Viaducts.

Forty years ago, a misguided government of the day built those viaducts in an attempt to remake Vancouver into Los Angeles, destroying Hogan’s Alley - Vancouver’s historic black community – in the process and walling off Chinatown from growth and from the rest of the city.

Today we’re finally contemplating the correction of that ancient mistake and in so doing see the possibility of re-integrating a long-neglected neighbourhood into the traffic grid and the downtown core of the city.

Photo: Tom Hudock

I pass under those viaducts almost every day on my way to walk on the seawall. The space underneath is dead, littered with needles and the broken glass of too many car break-ins to count. The vacant lots beneath the viaducts sit empty most of the time, used sporadically for temporary parking, junk storage, as public latrines and far worse.

Put very simply, dead streets are not safe streets.

Seattle’s tearing down their viaducts, as are cities across North America including Toronto, Montreal, Boston and San Francisco among others. And during the Olympics, we learned we could live without them too.

For all these reasons and more, back in January, I issued a New Year’s greeting to friends and supporters calling for the viaducts to come down and a 1000 parks to bloom in their place.

I received a number of unhappy calls as a result …

Hogan's Alley, Vancouver's historic Black village

But I’m here today to support this study as a resident of the area and on behalf of my strata because I believe it’s the right thing to do for my neighbourhood and our city.

To ensure that this works for everyone, though, care must be taken to ensure that Strathcona and the neighbourhoods along Pacific are not inundated with diverted traffic while Georgia Street traffic flows are accommodated. This study is crucial therefore to be sure this step can improve the quality of life for everyone in the areas affected.

But more than just a study of the viaducts in isolation, we need a comphrehensive, integrated plan that encompasses all of the changes and needs currently facing this dynamic area of the city.

First, this study should address solutions to deliver Creekside Park in the context of all the new development in Northeast False Creek. I find it greatly encouraging that the planned study will examine new technologies and scientific research on remediation, which may well solve the current impasse on remediating soils on Lot 6c – the challenge holding up delivery of Creekside Park on Lot 9.

Photo: Tom Hudock

We are facing an estimated increase in population around False Creek of nearly 25,000 new residents and need park space and recreational and cultural amenities commensurate with that increase.

Tom and I lived in Manhattan for twenty years and loved that dense, vibrant environment. One of the things that makes it possible to live there is the huge park easily accessible in the centre of the city – Central Park – and all of the large neighbourhood parks and pocket parks scattered across the city. As we grow, we will need the same.

Other issues need to be addressed.

The Dragonboat Festival needs a new home. The Sun Yat-Sen garden celebrates their 25th anniversary next year, yet they lost a crucial tour bus stop in the construction of the Carrall Street Greenway, and want to open the garden to the south. A massive and ugly casino is proposed that offers no amenities to the community and no funding to the arts. Why should anyone support that zoning change?

And many are concerned that the Great Wall of viaducts currently isolating Chinatown is not simply replaced with a Great Wall of towers that do the same thing. Development in proportion to new park and recreational opportunities is called for.

We have an opportunity to plan an entire community and I hope this viaduct study will lead to that more comprehensive neighbourhood plan with full public input and participation.

Thank you.

Mayor Robertson at UFC Press Conference Day Before Fight

The UFC came to Vancouver on Saturday, flooding the International Village with drunk fans most of that sunny afternoon and long into the night.

Their cries from the street were audible from our apartment from noon onward. Roving gangs of intoxicated young men menaced residents and created an atmosphere of drunken lawlessness in our streets.

I know of four separate incidents involving confrontations between drunk fans and residents of the area – people pushed off sidewalks, confronted, anger when someone refused a high-five, a mother and baby hassled, etc., in addition to the horrific gay-bashing of our good friends that night.

We’re used to the boisterous noise of passionate hockey fans and other sports, win and lose, and we’ve enjoyed and celebrated right along with them. And we’ve seen far larger crowds throughout the Olympics.

But the UFC atmosphere of drunken menace on our streets Saturday was clearly palpable and something very different.

Making matters worse, we didn’t have the visible police presence normal for large major sporting events, and that lack of visible uniforms on the street proved provocative to alcohol-addled, violence-prone males freely using our public streets as urinals and intent on trouble.

Glorifying UFC Violence In Front of Vancouver Art Gallery

That menace metastasized Saturday night into a violent, hate-filled gay-bashing against two residents of our community, who were left beaten, bruised, and suffering from concussions, one with staples in his skull to bind together the wounds he suffered.

This horrific attack occurred two blocks from the UFC event at 10:45 pm after a day of the same kinds of drunken behaviour, evidence enough of the violent atmosphere the UFC created in our neighbourhood.

Mayor Robertson lobbied very hard and publicly for this event, and attended the fight, yet unfortunately did not provide the necessary police presence or security for the residents of the area who warned of just this kind of violence in opposing the license.

According to The Province:

In Robertson, the UFC has an unlikely champion. And if you doubted that for a moment, you just had to listen to its president, Dana White, as he cheerfully lauded hizzoner for his work in securing Saturday’s card for GM Place.

“There were a lot of people who were instrumental in bringing this here,” said White, during a wildly entertaining presser at the Canucks’ home on Thursday.

“But there was one man who — when it came to the last minute and looked like it wasn’t going to happen — pulled the trigger, killed it and made it happen.”

Which, given the UFC’s image in some sectors, was an interesting choice of words. But even if Robertson might have expressed it differently, he wasn’t exactly trying to distance himself from White or his organization.

“My sense is they’re interested in doing more events in Vancouver,” Robertson said afterwards.

“We’re certainly interested in hosting more events. It’s likely we’re going to see more events in the next two years.”

Today on CKNW and in The Vancouver Sun,  our Mayor stated that the event went smoothly and incredibly stated he’s looking forward to the next fight. He also mentioned the fighting got a little rough, neglecting to mention it sent five fighers to the hospital – but he was glad it was in a safe environment and not on the streets …

But it did spill out onto the streets.

So the Mayor has a special responsibility to answer for the abdication of his prime responsibility to maintain public order after approving the most violent spectactor event in the city’s recent history.

The Mayor had plenty of security inside the stadium protecting him. We understand the place was flooded with plainclothed anti-gang officers. Yet where were the provisions to protect the residents forced to play host to the gangs of intoxicated “fans?”

Not making sure there was a strong, visible presence was a mistake. And because of that mistake, there will not be another UFC event in this neighbourhood again.

————

UPDATE I

I’m not casting any blame on the police, who did an extraordinary job under far harder circumstances throughout the Olympics and for the many other large events we’ve hosted over the past two years. Those that promoted this event had the responsibility for ensuring a safe environment not just for their guests but for their neighbours.

On Saturday, April 24, 2010,  we staged Vancouver 2050: Creative City, a forum called to envision the city of Vancouver as a creative city in the year 2050. Moderated by Max Wyman, the forum featured addresses by Maestro Bramwell Tovey, Music Director of theVancouver Symphony, Norman Armour, Artistic Director of the PUSH Festival, Amber Dawn, Director of the Queer Screen Film Festival and Hank Bull, Executive Director of Centre A.

A panel consisting of Miro Cernetig, columnist with the Vancouver Sun; Howard Jang, Executive Director, Arts Club Theatre; David Lemon, Executive & Artistic Director, Health Arts Society; Bernard Magnan, Chief Economist, Vancouver Board of Trade; and Vanessa Richards, Director of Community Engagement Through The Arts, Simon Fraser University; discussed those presentations with the speakers and then the floor was opened up to the audience for a lengthy debate of the ideas presented.

Our programme as downloadable PDF:  Vancouver_2050_Programme

The session lasted four hours and was well-attended by more than a hundred leaders of arts and culture from Greater Vancouver and the Lower Mainland. In the words of Impresario David YH Lui, the most important accomplishment of the event may be that it took place at all. According to Max Wyman, 1969 was the last time so many of the city’s arts leadership had gathered in one room for this kind of collaborative discussion. (A partial list of organizations attending appears at the bottom of this post.)

Opening Remarks to Moderator, Speakers, Panel & Audience. Photo: Tom Hudock

I’ll be writing more about the event later this week, but in the meantime, here are my introductory remarks at the opening of the meeting:

Good morning! It’s great to see so many friends in the theatre – it’s truly appreciated, especially at this ungodly hour. My name is Sean Bickerton and on behalf of the organizing committee it’s a pleasure to welcome you all to Vancouver 2050: Creative City.

I’m very much a product of the arts institutions gathered in this room. I played violin in the Vancouver Youth Orchestra, performed in joint concerts with the Vancouver Symphony, studied theory and piano at the Langley Community Music School, bused in with my drama class to plays at the Playhouse, competed in Friends of Chamber Music, went to my first Opera, Carmen, produced by the VOA at the QE, saw Rubinstein thanks to Hugh Pickett, the National Ballet thanks to David YH Lui, and Jesse Norman thanks to Leila Getz’ recital series among many other highlights.

It was that rich cultural background which made it possible for a kid from Cloverdale to end up in New York as a Vice President of Columbia Artists producing tours for great artists and ensembles. That experience in New York wouldn’t have been possible without the organizations represented in this room.

So I’m sold! I’m a total fan!

But what about the general public? What, to badly paraphrase one of our panelists, Vanessa Richards, would it take to transform the public perception of local arts and culture in the same way that people’s perceptions of BC wine and local produce have been transformed in recent years?

BCs wine industry, like every industry,  needed an infrastructure put in place before it could start to thrive. Do the arts in this city have the basic infrastructure they need?

In addition to considering infrastructure in 2050, we also asked the speakers to address the issue of sustainability and enrichment of programs if possible.

Some people have asked why the year 2050? Because it is far enough away to allow us to think past our day to day existential battles and imagine something better. And because the future we don’t plan is already planning us.

Before I go, many thanks to the Arts Club Theatre, which has generously provided this Theater, a very helpful Staff & the sound system for today’s forum; to Max Wyman, for agreeing so kindly to moderate today’s proceedings; to our four amazing speakers for sharing their visions; our distinguished panel for adding their insights; our audience for lending their keen minds; my great partners on the organizing committee for their hard work and generosity of spirit; the Borealis String Quartet for their poetic beauty; and my husband Tom, who’s busy photographing and videotaping the proceedings.

Thanks are also due to Tourism Vancouver for sponsoring the transcription of the proceedings; Kulture Shock Media for the website and printing of programmes; and Sean Farrell of NG Farrell Sports & Culture Marketing for helping out today.

Thanks to you all!

Today’s moderator needs no introduction, but deserves a good one. He is widely admired as a man of integrity and one of our country’s great cultural thinkers and commentators. It’s both an honour and personal pleasure to introduce as our Moderator, today … Max Wyman!

Organizations attending: Community Arts Council of Vancouver, Vancouver City Council, Diane Farris Gallery, Independent Times, Vancouver Symphony, Vancouver Su, Ballet BC, Langley Community Music School, Health Arts Society, UBC Arts Umbrella, Vancouver Pro Musica, Vancouver Board of Trade, Centre A, Arts Club Theatre, Alliance for the Arts, Vancouver Chamber Choir, Vancouver Queer Film Festival, Play Creative Design, Vancouver Symphony, SFU, UBC, City of Richmond, Neworld Theatre, 42nd Street, Tyee, Heritage Vancouver, City of North Vancouver, Roede House Museum, explorAsian, City Opera, Arts Advocacy BC, Eastide Culture Crawl, Writers Festival, Vancouver Cantata Singers, 2010 Legacies Now, Canadian Heritage, Vancouver Biennale, Bard on the Beach, PuSh Festival, Metro Vancouver, Knowledge TV Network, VanCity, International Centre of Arts for Social Change, Art Space Action, False Creek Residents Association, Music on Main, Out Film Festival, Electric Company, Vancouver Opera Association, Vancouver Playhouse.

Please join us tomorrow, Saturday, April 24 at the Arts Club Granville Island Stage at 8:30 am for Vancouver 2050: Creative City! – a public Arts & Culture Forum moderated by Max Wyman and featuring addresses by Maestro Bramwell Tovey, Music Director of the Vancouver Symphony, Norman Armour, Artistic Director of the PUSH Festival, Amber Dawn, Director of the Out On Screen Film Festival and Hank Bull, Executive Director of Centre A. Admission is free, although we’ll gratefully accept donations to cover basic costs.

Our four arts leaders will each present their vision of what Vancouver as a Creative Capital would look like in 2050, with a view to infrastructure, sustainability and the kind of innovation and enrichment of activities that could energize broader community engagement.

After those presentations, a high-level panel drawn from the arts, business and social profit sectors will discuss with the speakers the concepts they’ve presented, and then open the discussion up to include invited arts, business & community leaders and members of the public.

Our goal with this discussion 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.

I am totally and completely a product of the arts institutions of this city and Province. I grew up in rural south Surrey in the 60s and traveled into Vancouver every week by Greyhound bus for violin lessons and rehearsals of the Vancouver Youth Orchestra. Every month my high school drama class attended plays at the Vancouver Playhouse Theatre and I spent summers up at the Courtenay Youth Music Camp.

Later I 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 the Vancouver Youth Orchestra and Courtenay Music Camp I’d attended as a boy.

It was that broad-based arts experience that made it possible for me to go to work for Columbia Artists in New York, first as an Assistant and eventually as Vice President, managing careers and producing tours for dance companies, orchestras, choirs and chamber ensembles in 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, and I want to help ensure the same opportunities are here for the next extraordinary generation of talent our city is now producing.

Many thanks to David Lemon, Executive & Artistic Director, Health Arts Society, Howard Jang, Executive Director, Arts Club Theatre and Paul Sontz, Director of Business Development for Tourism Vancouver and Tickets Tonight, for serving with me as the organizing committee for this event.

Please join us on Saturday, April 24, 2010 at 8:30 am in the Arts Club Revue Stage for a glimpse of Vancouver 2050: Creative City!

My mother grew up in New Westminster. Her father, Bert Kellington, was an Alderman and much-loved hotelier in the city. He was a great big bear of a man, but unfailingly kind to people down on their luck, Mom says. During the Depression he always provided a meal to anyone in need and often a room as well.

He was killed in a tragic logging accident at a relatively young age so I never had the chance to meet him, but I’ve heard many stories. Newspaper reports say his funeral was the largest in the city’s history.

Before he died, Mom’s family spent summers at Boundary Bay. Every year they moved their entire household out to the camp, including their chickens, which rode along with them in crates attached to the running boards on each side of the car.

New Pattullo Bridge

The Pattullo Bridge was extremely narrow then and the car was too wide to get across with chicken crates strapped to the running boards on both sides, so they had to make two trips to get across. First they had to stop on the near side of the bridge and unload the chicken crates from one side of the car, then drive across the bridge and unload the other set, then drive back and pick up the crates left behind, and then reassemble once they’d got everything to the far side. They were city folk and lived well when Bert was alive, so the fact they went to so much trouble to ensure they had fresh eggs made a big impression on me.

Myself, I grew up in rural south Surrey, up on a hill just two and a half miles north of the border. We didn’t have a farm, but I happily raised chickens in our backyard for a number of years. We ate both the eggs, which were unfortunately rare, and eventually, the organically-raised birds themselves. They were delicious!

More recently, I spent twenty years living on the Upper East side of Manhattan. It was there we first got interested in cooking, and started searching out organic produce and locally-produced food at farmer’s markets. It was also there we first saw an Errol Morris-like documentary “The Natural History of The Chicken“, one of the best I’ve ever seen.

The vignettes are fascinating, heartwarming, funny and horrifying in turn. It literally changed our lives and our relationship to the food we eat, and we’ve always chosen free-range chickens and eggs when possible ever since.

125th St @ 2nd Avenue, Manhattan

And now, like me it seems, the chickens have come home to roost, so to speak, right here in downtown Vancouver. And why not I ask, when even in Manhattan, people are raising chickens …?

Humans have been raising chickens for more than 8,000 years now. They produce a perfect food, eat insects and keep pastures or lawn aerated and healthy.

It would be sheer insanity to build a homeless shelter for chickens that should provide food for the hungry, but allowing people to raise chickens and grow their own eggs creates a local, sustainable, food supply, teaches children responsibility by caring for their animals, and provides an inexpensive, healthy breakfast to families on stretched budgets.

Urban agriculture is much more about the future than the past, in other words. With our mild climate, there is every reason that Vancouver should be at the forefront of that trend.

But I do have other issues with the city’s current administration. Not least is the fact they are building the same temporary shelters for homeless humans as they’re proposing to build for chickens, as if that solves anything.

By contrast, the last NPA administration helped create the largest housing initiative in the city’s history, securing financing for somewhere between 2400 – 3200 units of socially assisted housing.

So far, Mayor Robertson, who campaigned on a program to end homelessness by 2015, has moved quickly to take credit for housing initiated by the NPA, and caused millions to be spent on temporary shelters for humans (and now chickens, apparently), but done little to build the housing needed to actually end homelessness as promised.

Millions of dollars wasted on temporary shelters isn’t chicken-feed, whether its for chickens or humans.

We now know the City’s plan to house chickens in Vancouver. Where’s the Mayor’s detailed plan to house our homeless humans?

On the night of the last civic election, in which I lost my own bid for office, I was approached by several directors to join the NPA Board.

I had received such overwhelming and open-hearted support from the organization and its membership during my last-minute run for council that I agreed, hoping to help in the rebuilding effort necessary to re-establish the party after that summer’s divisive leadership battle and subsequent rout at the polls.

The challenges we faced are too numerous to catalogue here and some remain. Modernizing the organization and bringing it up to date with 21st century communications and systems has been a major challenge for an all-volunteer organization.

But there is no question we are further ahead now than the bleak prospect we faced just one year ago. On the positive side, we have built up a strong support system for our elected officials, creating highly-effective policy advisory committees and media support. In addition, we have worked hard and successfully to help bridge the divide resulting from the leadership battle.

We have also been active in the community, championing local causes and communities around the city and helping roll back abuses and overreach of the current administration where possible.

And perhaps most importantly, unlike the party that vanquished us during the last election which is facing a campaign debt of $250,000, we have a balanced budget, money in the bank and prospects that brighten by the day as the city’s voters get to know the incumbents and their priorities better.

While I was elected to a three-year term, receiving more votes than any other candidate for the Board, I am resigning early, prior to our next AGM, in order to avoid even an appearance of involvement in the rules that will select the next slate of candidates. And I am doing so with the full agreement and endorsement of the Executive and Board of Directors, having coordinated the timing of my resignation with them.

I believe passionately in our democratic processes and believe this city now more than ever needs an effective opposition to hold city hall accountable and offer an alternative direction for a city about to undergo unprecedented development. While my own plans for the next election remain to be determined, I plan to remain fully engaged in the great civic debates that face us.

My letter of resignation from the NPA Board of Directors follows:

To The President & Board of Directors of the NPA

Dear Michael:

As discussed, I am writing to confirm my resignation from the Board of Directors of the NPA effective April 13, 2010, prior to the NPAs next Annual General Meeting. As we’ve discussed, the reason for my resignation is that I wish to maintain the option of running as a candidate in the next election, and feel that the conflict inherent in that wish and my role as a Board member becomes untenable the closer we get to  planning that election effort.

I have greatly enjoyed the opportunity of working with you and the other members of the Board over the past year and a half, and truly welcomed the chance to be part of a great team of talented and passionately committed board members.

While acknowledging I haven’t accomplished everything I set out to, I hope I’ve helped play some constructive role in maintaining the organization through a challenging period while providing support to our elected officials and hammering our opponents when appropriate.

I would like to thank you for your leadership during a very difficult time for the NPA, and for your personal courage in stepping up to the plate and taking on an impossibly daunting challenge. In the process, you’ve helped rebuild the organization after the leadership battle and election rout of ’08 – no small accomplishment.

The elected caucus, the Executive, Board of Directors and membership of the NPA owe you a true debt of gratitude for your difficult service, and I want you to know it is deeply appreciated by everyone who understands the challenges. I would like to add that, in what were sometimes grueling circumstances, I’ve grown to trust and admire your leadership and would gladly work with you on anything in the future.

I will help the NPA any way I can over the next 19 months, and look forward to greatly expanding our representation on the Park Board, School Board and Vancouver City Council in November, 2011. Please don’t hesitate to call on me if I can be of any assistance in the meantime.

Sincerely,
Sean Bickerton