Monday, October 10, 2011
Homelessness Action Week Oct. 10 -16, 2011
Last Monday night at the District regular council meeting there was a delegation from the North Shore Homelessness Task Force. The most recent homeless count on the North Shore was a minimum of 117 and that is actually down from the previous count of 123. According to SPARK, CCPA, and the Public Health Assoc. of B.C. a comprehensive poverty reduction and homelessness plan would cost British Columbians $3-4 billion per year. The cost of doing nothing to fix homelessness is at least $8 billion. Page 62 of the New DNV OCP promises to do a number of things to do with wrestling with poverty in the community such as working with senior members of levels of government.
Thursday, October 06, 2011
CNV and DNV Nomination Papers Available Online
If you want to see who is running in the City or the District Municipal Election on Nov. 19th. simply click on to one of the following links.
Tuesday, October 04, 2011
NVP.com enters competiton with Votermedia.org
There was a lone speaker for the public input segment at last night's regular DNV council meeting. Mark Latham is a semi-retired economist working on voter reform with his main focus on improving voter information systems. He's developed a system called Votermedia which lets voters allocate funding to competing media (mainly blogs). He announced they will sponsor Votermedia in 5 cities, including North Vancouver. They've been been testing it at UBC's student union for 5 years now, with promising results -- see the videos at votermedia.org.
Northvancouverpolitics.com has entered the competition. You can vote for us here on the main page. Click on the link vote for NVP.com at Votermedia.org
Northvancouverpolitics.com has entered the competition. You can vote for us here on the main page. Click on the link vote for NVP.com at Votermedia.org
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Lawyer to run in Seymour for NDP
By Benjamin Alldritt, North Shore News September 28, 2011
He won't get a chance to run for more than a year and a half, but Jim Hanson has still secured the B.C. NDP nomination in North Vancouver-Seymour.
"I believe we can do better," he said in an interview. "I have children in our school system. I'm the son of parents who are seniors on the North Shore and I have children who will be entering the labour market. I think we can do better."
Hanson, 50, is an Argyle secondary graduate and lives in the Blueridge neighbourhood
with his wife and two children. He holds law degrees from UBC and Oxford university in the U.K.
As the senior partner of Surrey's largest law firm, Hanson has represented the passengers of the doomed ferry Queen of the North, as well as suing the provincial lotteries corporation on behalf of gambling addicts.
"Jim always acts for individuals," his campaign release says, "and never for corporations. He has acted, and continues to act, for persons of all ages, races, religions, sexual orientations and occupations, and has had extensive contact with the province's less fortunate."
North Vancouver-Seymour's sitting MLA is B.C. Liberal Jane Thornthwaite.
The provincial election is scheduled for May 14, 2013.
© Copyright (c) North Shore News
Politicians feeding greedingly at the public trough
This from The Province newspaper today. Sue Cook on the front page. Sue used to be a regular commentor on this blog but, she has been strangely absent for some time unless of course she still comments as an 'Anonymous.'
Mayors and councillors from across the province seem to be having a grand old time in Vancouver this week for their annual Union of B.C. Municipalities convention. It's undoubtedly good for the downtown hotel and beverage trade.
But, given the worrying economy, I think they should have stayed home this year and held their meetings by teleconference, saving a ton of taxpayers' money.
This, of course, is not how outgoing UBCM president Barbara Steele sees it. The Surrey councillor told me Tuesday she didn't know what the convention budget was, but said the sessions have been jam-packed.
Steele added it was important for local politicians to network and share information: "What better place to do it once a year than face to face with everybody?"
I guess it all depends on whether you're paying taxes or spending them.
North Vancouver mom Sue Lakes Cook, for example, agrees with me that the real problem with B.C. municipal governments is they're living high off the hog, while many taxpayers are not. And I agree with her we need a municipal ombudsman to protect us from them.
Cook earns $13 hourly as a customer service rep. And she's appalled at the "insane" salaries enjoyed by employees of her local municipality, the City of North Vancouver, with many earning at least double those of the folks they're supposed to be serving.
Cook is also angry at the way city staff keep fobbing her off when she queries them about expenditures. She's now asked to go before Mayor Darrell Mussatto and council to get those questions answered. And Mussatto promised Tuesday to give her that chance.
Cook, in fact, would have been an ideal speaker at the UBCM convention — not simply because her dad was a longtime North Vancouver District councillor, but because she clearly knows the value of a dollar.
"I'm probably the only person in the whole world who actually gets the budget and goes through it page by page," Cook told me, noting city staff insisted on mailing her a copy this year, at a cost of $9. Indeed, on postage alone, the city spent almost $60,000 last year.
The City of North Vancouver is the smallest of the three North Shore municipalities. But Cook points out it has 480 employees, with 143 of them making $75,000 a year or more.
City manager Ken Tollstam made $254,000 last year. And Mussatto earned $119,000, $91,000 as mayor and $28,000 as a Metro Vancouver director.
Mussatto told me that city staff salaries were in line with those of the other Metro Vancouver municipalities. However, he said, the city had many long-serving staff, which "does push up the bill."
Cook said she's particularly concerned about the hefty salaries of the 66 employees in the fire department, given there were just 84 fires to fight last year. She knows of two young firefighters who made $90,000 and $93,000, respectively. Fire Chief Barrie Penman made $171,000.
But when she asked for the department's total wages and expenses, she was told the information "was not routinely or readily available."
"I guess the thing that annoys me the most is just the way they play with me with these answers," she said. "They have absolutely no respect at all . . . I know who the serf is, and it's not those folks at city hall."
I agree with most of what Cook has to say about city hall secrecy, arrogance and unsupportably high salaries, pensions and other benefits. They're shaping up to be major issues in the coming civic elections. And that's long overdue.
jferry@theprovince.com
© Copyright (c) The Province
Mayors and councillors from across the province seem to be having a grand old time in Vancouver this week for their annual Union of B.C. Municipalities convention. It's undoubtedly good for the downtown hotel and beverage trade.
But, given the worrying economy, I think they should have stayed home this year and held their meetings by teleconference, saving a ton of taxpayers' money.
This, of course, is not how outgoing UBCM president Barbara Steele sees it. The Surrey councillor told me Tuesday she didn't know what the convention budget was, but said the sessions have been jam-packed.
Steele added it was important for local politicians to network and share information: "What better place to do it once a year than face to face with everybody?"
I guess it all depends on whether you're paying taxes or spending them.
North Vancouver mom Sue Lakes Cook, for example, agrees with me that the real problem with B.C. municipal governments is they're living high off the hog, while many taxpayers are not. And I agree with her we need a municipal ombudsman to protect us from them.
Cook earns $13 hourly as a customer service rep. And she's appalled at the "insane" salaries enjoyed by employees of her local municipality, the City of North Vancouver, with many earning at least double those of the folks they're supposed to be serving.
Cook is also angry at the way city staff keep fobbing her off when she queries them about expenditures. She's now asked to go before Mayor Darrell Mussatto and council to get those questions answered. And Mussatto promised Tuesday to give her that chance.
Cook, in fact, would have been an ideal speaker at the UBCM convention — not simply because her dad was a longtime North Vancouver District councillor, but because she clearly knows the value of a dollar.
"I'm probably the only person in the whole world who actually gets the budget and goes through it page by page," Cook told me, noting city staff insisted on mailing her a copy this year, at a cost of $9. Indeed, on postage alone, the city spent almost $60,000 last year.
The City of North Vancouver is the smallest of the three North Shore municipalities. But Cook points out it has 480 employees, with 143 of them making $75,000 a year or more.
City manager Ken Tollstam made $254,000 last year. And Mussatto earned $119,000, $91,000 as mayor and $28,000 as a Metro Vancouver director.
Mussatto told me that city staff salaries were in line with those of the other Metro Vancouver municipalities. However, he said, the city had many long-serving staff, which "does push up the bill."
Cook said she's particularly concerned about the hefty salaries of the 66 employees in the fire department, given there were just 84 fires to fight last year. She knows of two young firefighters who made $90,000 and $93,000, respectively. Fire Chief Barrie Penman made $171,000.
But when she asked for the department's total wages and expenses, she was told the information "was not routinely or readily available."
"I guess the thing that annoys me the most is just the way they play with me with these answers," she said. "They have absolutely no respect at all . . . I know who the serf is, and it's not those folks at city hall."
I agree with most of what Cook has to say about city hall secrecy, arrogance and unsupportably high salaries, pensions and other benefits. They're shaping up to be major issues in the coming civic elections. And that's long overdue.
jferry@theprovince.com
© Copyright (c) The Province
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