Archive for the 'coquitlam' Category

Port Mann Bridge Tolls

Published on August 27, 2010 in british columbia, coquitlam and translink.

If you drive down High­way 1 between Lan­g­ley and Van­cou­ver, you will see the phe­nom­e­nal upgrades that will open up the Fraser Val­ley and Sub­ur­ban Metro Van­cou­ver to the Asia-Pacific Gate­way and poten­tially save time and money for res­i­dences liv­ing in the area.

PGC_Port_Mann_archive260.jpg

The 10-lane high­way is expected to be com­pleted in 2013, but will open 8 of the 10 fin­ish lanes to traf­fic in 2012, for a whole year. The Min­is­ter of Trans­porta­tion said “there will be four lanes instead of the exist­ing two lanes, so peo­ple will start see­ing the ben­e­fits right away and they’ll start pay­ing the tolls right away.”

The cost of the bridge will be: Con­tinue read­ing ‘Port Mann Bridge Tolls’

Bear and Garbage Fines in Coquitlam

Published on July 17, 2010 in coquitlam and council.

Do you live in Coquit­lam? If so, you may face an increase in fines if you are irre­spon­si­ble with how you dis­pose of your garbage!

Con­tinue read­ing ‘Bear and Garbage Fines in Coquitlam’

Rabbit Sales in Coquitlam

Published on June 4, 2010 in coquitlam and council.

On May 17, 2010, Coun­cil­lor Reid and Coun­cil­lor Robin­son (Sec­on­der) pre­sented a motion “that staff be directed to draft an amend­ment to the City’s Busi­ness Licens­ing Bylaw to pro­hibit the sale of rab­bits in Coquitlam.”

“We’ve got them every­where,” Reid told The Tri-City News. “Peo­ple buy the bun­nies and when they don’t want them any­more, they take them and let them go at the park. Loads of peo­ple are drop­ping them off at Mundy Park.”

Reid ref­er­ences to the Uni­ver­sity of Vic­to­ria where there is an explo­sion in the rab­bit population. “Right now, UVic is basi­cally hav­ing to kill hun­dreds and hun­dreds of rab­bits,” she said. “There is no need for this.”

What do you think of this motion in the City of Coquitam? How do you think coun­cil­lors should vote on this motion? Please leave your thoughts in the comments!

SFU Senate By-Elections Info

Published on June 2, 2010 in election, senate and sfu.

Ear­lier this year, we had nom­i­na­tions and elec­tions for SFU Sen­ate Stu­dent Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. We are hav­ing a by-election for Fac­ulty of Applied Sci­ence, Fac­ulty of Sci­ence, and Fac­ulty of Envi­ron­ment. On June 7 to June 9, stu­dents of the fac­ul­ties of Applied Sci­ence and Sci­ence will be head­ing to the polls to vote for their rep­re­sen­ta­tive. No nom­i­na­tions were received for the Fac­ulty of Envi­ron­ment so they will remain vacant.

Con­tinue read­ing ‘SFU Sen­ate By-Elections Info’

Business Votes in BC Municipal Elections

Published on May 31, 2010 in british columbia, coquitlam and politics.

In Octo­ber 2009, Gor­don Camp­bell assem­bled a Local Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions Task Force con­sist­ing of mem­bers of the Leg­isla­tive Assem­bly and the Union of British Colum­bia Munic­i­pal­i­ties (UBCM). The mem­bers are UBCM Pres­i­dent Harry Nyce, MLA Bill Ben­nett, Sur­rey Coun­cil­lor Bar­bara Steele, Ques­nel Mayor Mary Sjos­torm, MLA Donna Bar­nett and MLA Dou­glas Horne. The pur­pose of the task force is to review the cur­rent munic­i­pal elec­tion process and rec­om­mend nec­es­sary reforms to the provin­cial government.

The task force are to review cam­paign financ­ing, enforce­ment processes and out­comes, role of the Chief Elec­toral Offi­cer in local gov­ern­ment elec­tions, the elec­tion cycle, the avail­abil­ity of cor­po­rate vote and other mat­ters that will be raised.

One of the minor top­ics that were dis­cussed dur­ing the Coquit­lam Munic­i­pal By-Elections were the avail­abil­ity of a cor­po­rate vote. Coun­cil­lor Linda Reimer is the only coun­cil­lor from Coquit­lam City Coun­cil who have came for­ward and expressed her sup­port for cor­po­rate votes. There are four other coun­cil­lors and four other may­ors in British Colum­bia who have sup­ported this cause.

The Tri-City News inter­viewed SFU Polit­i­cal Sci­ence Pro­fes­sor Patrick Smith. Through­out the inter­view, the mes­sage that Dr. Smith was try­ing to por­tray was clear — busi­nesses are well rep­re­sented and should not have a busi­ness vote.

Cur­rently, cor­po­ra­tions and small busi­ness can finance munic­i­pal elec­tion cam­paigns by donat­ing to the cam­paign. They are not able to vote for the can­di­date unless they own a house in the city.

I believe that hav­ing a busi­ness vote on a munic­i­pal level for small busi­ness own­ers who live out­side the city is legit­i­mate. In Coquit­lam, the taxes that a small busi­ness owner pays is 3–4 times higher than the taxes of a res­i­den­tial owner. Through­out my munic­i­pal cam­paign, busi­ness own­ers in Coquit­lam have com­plained about how much taxes have increased for their busi­nesses — but they do not get more ser­vices out of the taxes that they pay.

Busi­ness votes were legal in British Colum­bia prior to 1993. They were stopped by the Har­court New Demo­c­rat gov­ern­ment. The rea­sons for dis­con­tin­u­ing the cor­po­rate vote was because

  • Desire to apply ‘one per­son, one vote’ principle
  • Cri­te­ria for eli­gi­bil­ity for a busi­ness vote was com­plex and at times dif­fi­cult for local gov­ern­ments to verify
  • Poten­tial for abuse of the pro­vi­sions led to fair­ness con­cerns – e.g. cor­po­ra­tions were able to rent a park­ing space or stor­age locker and be eli­gi­ble for a vote; ten­ant in occu­pa­tion pro­vi­sions (applic­a­ble to both cor­po­ra­tions and indi­vid­u­als) allowed lessees of small frac­tions of prop­erty to vote (in one case, about 500 peo­ple reg­is­tered to vote in rela­tion to one par­cel of land)
  • Not many busi­nesses were eli­gi­ble to vote — the effec­tive­ness of the vote on address­ing busi­ness con­cerns was arguably minimal
  • UBCM sup­ported removal of the cor­po­rate vote

The respon­si­bil­i­ties of the munic­i­pal gov­ern­ment are not writ­ten into our Cana­dian Con­sti­tu­tion. The munic­i­pal gov­ern­ment is viewed as an exten­sion of the provin­cial gov­ern­ment. Munic­i­pal gov­ern­ments have the power to cre­ate by-laws (ie smok­ing ban), con­tract garbage pickup, residential/commercial zon­ing and others.

What is your opin­ion on cor­po­rate and small busi­ness votes in munic­i­pal elections?

Blind Journalism in Municipal Elections

Published on May 13, 2010 in coquitlam and elections.

On Sat­ur­day, the vot­ers of Coquit­lam will be head­ing towards the polls. One of the can­di­dates, Terry O’Neill, is so des­per­ate about win­ning the elec­tion that he is attack­ing his oppo­nents in every sin­gle way.

Terry O’Neill attacked every sin­gle can­di­date in his recent blog post on Tues­day sim­i­lar to what Car­ole James did to Gor­don Camp­bell in the 2009 elections.

On Neal Nicholson:

Ter­rys Claim: “My lead­ing rival, Neal Nichol­son, appar­ently thinks TheV3H.com is impor­tant enough to adver­tise on it, but not impor­tant enough to give it (and the vot­ers of Coquit­lam) the cour­tesy of answer­ing its questions.”

On Brian Babcock:

Ter­rys Claim: “Brian Bab­cock did not attend a sin­gle all-candidates meet­ing, and didn’t answer ques­tions for V3H. His excuse for miss­ing the meet­ings? He was out of town on a sport-fishing trip.”

On Mas­simo:

Ter­rys Claim: “Mas­simo ‘the mys­tery man’ Man­darino has also been a com­plete no-show, with no expla­na­tion, and has writ­ten nothing.”

Truth: Mas­simo has writ­ten for the Tri-City News.

On Owen Coomer:

Ter­rys Claim: “Owen Coomer, a 20-something bar man­ager, admits he ran for mayor in the last gen­eral elec­tion merely to get his name better-known. He attended two of three meet­ings before say­ing he was too ill to appear at the third. He seems to be seri­ous in his can­di­dacy this time out, yet he didn’t respond to TheV3H’s invitation.”

On Ralph Banni:

Ter­rys Claim: “Ralph Banni attended all three meet­ings, responded to the Geor­gia Straight, but appar­ently ignored TheV3H.com request.”

On Andy Wickey:

Ter­rys Claim: “Andy Wickey … [was] at all three meet­ings but wrote noth­ing for V3H.”

And Finally, On Andy Shen:

Ter­rys Claim: “Andy Shen, the very young SFU stu­dent, appears to be run­ning for the sport of it and to brag about his 2,000-plus Face­book friends. He attended the meet­ings, but didn’t write for V3H.”

Andy Shen on Terry O’Neill:

Terry O’Neill says that I appear to be run­ning for the sport of it and to brag about my 2,000-plus Face­book friends. My mes­sage through­out the cam­paign was clear. We need bet­ter trans­porta­tion in the area. We need to attract Green-Industry jobs in Coquit­lam. We need to decrease green­house gas emis­sions, just like what Port Coquit­lam is doing. I brought up my 2,000-plus Face­book friends at an all-candidates meet­ing to show other can­di­dates and the par­tic­i­pants of the all-candidates meet­ing that I am easy to access.

O’Neill also claimed that I did not write for the V3H. The dead­line for the sub­mis­sion was on Tues­day, and the arti­cles were sub­mit­ted prior to that dead­line. It was posted recently on the web­site. I may not have fin­ished it before Terry, but I got it done. I have been com­mu­ni­cat­ing with theV3H on Twit­ter not just dur­ing the elec­tion, but prior to the elec­tion. There would be no rea­son why I would not write for them.

O’Neill also stated that “being a good city coun­cil mem­ber means being … hon­est and will­ing to com­mu­ni­cate with vot­ers.” By attack­ing me with false infor­ma­tion, he is not hon­est. He is spread­ing lies — just like what the social per­cep­tion of a politi­cian is. He brings up the ques­tion, “what does this say about what sort of coun­cil mem­bers they will be?” after attack­ing all the can­di­dates. Per­haps, he should be the one ask­ing him­self that.

Evergreen Line and the Tri-Cities

Published on March 19, 2010 in coquitlam and translink.

Start­ing late 2010, con­struc­tion on the Ever­green Line will begin. The project is funded by Translink, Provin­cial BCLib­eral Gov­ern­ment and the Fed­eral Con­ser­v­a­tive Gov­ern­ment. The cost of the project is $1.4 bil­lion and will cre­ate more than 8,000 jobs within the region through­out the course of the con­struc­tion. The project will stim­u­late com­mu­nity growth and new depart­ment, as you can already see in Port Moody.

Con­tinue read­ing ‘Ever­green Line and the Tri-Cities’

Smoking By-Law

Published on February 1, 2010 in coquitlam, council and politics.

At the last Coquit­lam coun­cil meet­ing, Coun­cil­lor Robin­son motioned to con­sider a smok­ing by-law for the City of Coquit­lam.  Here is the full text of the motion from Jan­u­ary 18, 2010:

Whereas 82% of Cana­di­ans do not smoke;

And whereas it has long been rec­og­nized that sec­ond hand smoke con­tains over 4000 chem­i­cals includ­ing 50 known chem­i­cals to cause cancer;

And whereas senior lev­els of gov­ern­ment have taken actions under their respec­tive juris­dic­tions to pro­tect cit­i­zens from sec­ond hand smoke such as the Fed­eral gov­ern­ments Non-Smokers Health Act passed in 1988 and recently strength­ened in 2007 ban­ning smok­ing and more recently smok­ing rooms from their work­places and the Provin­cial gov­ern­ment recently amended the Motor Vehi­cle Act to ban smok­ing in vehi­cles where a minor (under 16 years of age) is present;

And whereas the Fraser Health Author­ity sup­ports lim­it­ing expo­sure to sec­ond hand smoke;

And whereas smok­ing restric­tions increase the moti­va­tion for smok­ers to quit or cut­back, decreases neg­a­tive role mod­el­ing for chil­dren, pro­tects the envi­ron­ment and reduces litter;

And whereas direct enforce­ment from the munic­i­pal­ity may not be nec­es­sary as expe­ri­ence with out­door and indoor smoke-free laws has shown that the by-law itself is enough to deter most peo­ple from smok­ing. In addi­tion, peer pres­sure aris­ing from the com­mon under­stand­ing that the space is smoke-free also deters peo­ple from smoking:

There­fore be it resolved that the City of Coquit­lam develop a ban on smok­ing on pub­lic patios and spaces where minors (under 16 years of age) might be present;

And that the City of Coquit­lam invite munic­i­pal­i­ties in Metro Van­cou­ver that have yet to develop smok­ing bans to con­sider such a ban;

And that the City of Coquit­lam ask the Province to con­sider a ban on smok­ing in all pub­lic spaces.

As much as I do not like peo­ple who smoke in pub­lic places, I believe that this by-law will (a) drive con­sumers away; and (b) limit the rights and free­doms that are guar­an­teed under the con­sti­tu­tion.  I believe that instead of ban­ning smok­ing from our city, our city coun­cil should get the pub­lic aware that smok­ing is bad and try to dis­cour­age it.

Although it is going to be dis­cussed today at the Coquit­lam Coun­cil meet­ing, please com­ment what you think about this by-law.

Metro Vancouver Torch Relay

Published on January 31, 2010 in british columbia, coquitlam and tourism.

In a week, the Torch Relay will come into the Metro Van­cou­ver. This is an excit­ing time for us who live in the Metro Van­cou­ver. We will be the host region of the best Olympics so far in the world. Con­tinue read­ing ‘Metro Van­cou­ver Torch Relay’