This is a selection of recent popular blog articles from VancouverIAM where you will find the best blogs from Vancouver, British Columbia as well as video uploads, social networking, rumors, and blog authoring.

Deconstructing the VCC Fiasco
A post on Paying Attention, written by Paul Willcocks hammers the Campbell Government for its mismanagement of the Vancouver Convention Centre expansion. Drawing a parallel between the current VCC situation and the NDP’s fast ferries debacle, the post declares that the VCC expansion is an even bigger mess.   

Drawing from a report just released by Auditor General Errol Price, the post notes that very little was really in place before the launch of the Liberals’ VCC expansion megaproject: “There was no business plan or design; the only cost estimates were vague and from 2000. The $495-million figure was based on what the province hoped to spend, not what the centre would actually cost.”

Apparently, the Auditor General’s report also states that as costs began to soar, the public was kept in the dark. The post explains that “Tourism Minister Stan Hagen and Finance Minister Carole Taylor were told in April 2006 that the budget — which had already risen to $615 million — was inadequate to complete the planned building.
But they didn’t tell the public or reveal the problems when asked in the legislature.”

And finally, the very board itself, hand-picked by the Premier to manage the project, was noted in the report as lacking in “the required expertise in big project management”.

Funding for the centre will come from the province, the federal government and a Lower Mainland Hotel tax. And according to the post “the province agreed to take responsibility for all overruns. Provincial taxpayers’ promised $223-million contribution is now up to $576 million.”

The Importance of being Ernest: Regional Planning
North Vancouver Politics.com has posted a blog that explains the importance of thoughtful regional planning. With local governments in a position to choose either a high density growth plan for their region, or low density one, long term vision is essential in order to avoid disastrous outcomes.

The post cites examples of cities and municipalities that have opted for high density development, and reveals the consequences of these plans. In Surrey and Coquitlam the post reports that “large scale growth, has outstripped the capacity of the existing infrastructures.”  And in the case of the Lynn Valley core, densification “resulted in a $7 million net shortfall to pay for the needed infrastructure.”

Once overwhelmed, cities and municipalities find themselves stymied by lack of resources.  The reason for this, explains the post, is that “fiscal resources available to cities and municipalities are, in the main, limited to the property tax which is essentially regressive. It is the direct result of Canada’s outdated constitution which gives municipalities virtually no powers and makes them paupers.”

According to the post, the District of North Vancouver operates under a low density plan, but it was originally slated for high density that “would have seen the Maplewood Mudflats turned into a regional town center and the wooded mountain sides being denuded rather than wooded and green.”  Rather, reports the post, “the district is relatively livable.”

B.C. Municipal Elections lack Rules of Disclosure
 TheTyee.ca has posted a report written by Monte Paulson which says that Vancouver’s 2005 Municipal elections set a record for being the most costly election process ever recorded.  In the process of electing a mayor, city council and two part-time boards, the three competing political parties are said to have spent over $4 million. 

When put into context, the post finds that “a minimum of $30 [was] spent per vote cast. That figure is at least six times the amount spent per vote in the 2005 B.C. provincial election. And it's three times the amount per vote spent in the last U.S presidential election, widely criticized as a race skewed by special-interest money.”
Furthermore, the post says that due to antiquated campaign disclosure rules and poor regulation, “it's likely that as much as a million dollars in campaign donations have never been reported”.  As such, funding for these campaigns could essentially come from anywhere.  Patrick Smith, a political scientist at Simon Fraser University notes that “"It is entirely possible for offshore money to buy a municipal election in British Columbia. And it would be easy for the recipient of that money to hide it from public view.”  And indeed that’s just what happened. The post reveals that “in 2005 [Vision] took $170,000 from businessman John Lefebvre, who later pled guilty to money laundering charges in the U.S.”
The post notes that B.C. is an anomaly when it comes to campaign financing and the rules of disclosure, since in most other provinces, “the rules that apply to federal and provincial politics also apply to local politics.”

Translink and Google Collaborate
A post on Just a Gwai Lo is reporting that Translink and Google have collaborated to produce: Google Transit Vancouver (http://www.google.com/transit).  The application is now live.
According to the post, there is both good and bad to be found within this new online transit tool.  Apparently, the user will “get reasonably good routes” when two separate addresses are punched in, but notes that  “it [is] difficult to get directions from one place name (without an address, e.g. GM Place or the various combinations of "Brentwood Station", "Brentwood Mall", and "Brentwood Town Centre").
Google Transit Vancouver was also deemed problematic when looking for routes that include either SkyTrain or the SeaBus, so that one “really [has] to force” the application before such routes are made available.
The post did compliment the product for its common sense features noting that “there are nice touches, like little indications for walking” and offers suggestions for a greener functionality whereby the product could include “bike maps for those whose commute involves that mode of transportation”.

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