Vancouver City Councillor

Organizers are finalizing the details for the Jim Green Celebration of Life at the Orpheum next Saturday, April 14 at 1.30.

Music, memories and a drink with friends afterwards.

All welcome.

Click on the image to download a black and white poster.

BC Place has made all the changes it deems necessary to digital signs installed around the new stadium, according to City Manager Penny Ballem, and the city has no power to take further action.

Ballem advised council of BC Place’s stance in a memo circulated earlier this week, drafted in response to my earlier request for information on strategies the city could undertake to ensure the signs become compliant with city policy.

It’s clear now, as I suspected, that there’s no legal avenue open to the city in the face of BC Place’s actions. Council continues to receive periodic e-mail complaints from neighbours.

If you are a Vancity member, I urge you to elect Jan O’Brien for a second term on our credit union’s Board of Directors.  She’s committed to cooperative values, environmental action and social justice.

This recommendation should not come as a surprise! Jan and I have been married for more than 30 years, so my bias is pretty clear.

Jan brings a unique perspective to the Vancity Board. Her experience includes leadership roles on non-profit boards as varied as Everywomen’s Health Clinic, West Coast LEAF and DOXA, the documentary film festival.  She has professional training, a MBA from SFU, as well as experience in senior roles in the trade union movement and the BC NDP.

Jan is currently the vice-chair of the Vancity Board and a strong supporter of Vancity’s efforts to reduce its impact on the environment. She recognizes the important role Vancity’s employees play in our credit union’s success. She’s proud that Vancity leads the way by delivering on every day financial services while maintaining its strong record of giving back to our members and community.  I hope you’ll support her re-election.

Jan has been recommended by Vancity’s Nominations and Election Committee.

There are three ways to vote: online (www.vancity.com) April 3 to April 27; by mail until April 27; and in some branches from April 13 to 21.

You can read more about Jan’s qualifications at www.janobrien.ca.

Translink, caught in the crossfire of a political range war that sees municipal and provincial politicians vying to see who can be angriest about transit waste, has announced that its customers like it as much as ever.

Translink’s 2011 financial performance report released today shows customer satisfaction at the highest level ever, tied with last year.  Spending was under budget, thanks to a $56 million cut in operating costs, and operating costs per passenger kilometre were down too.

It’s all summarized on page 15 of the 2011 Financial and Performance Report, which shows passenger complaints on the system have risen slightly to 87.5 per million boarded passengers from 85.9 last year.

What’s the problem from the passenger end of the telescope?

Lack of transit information on the vehicles and insufficient numbers of bus stops are the major concerns. Dig deeper and we find “less than half of customers feel they are getting good-to-excellent value for the money they spend on transit” and “overcrowding, on-time reliability and frequency of service” are the big frustrations for bus riders. (Details starting on page 69 here.)

But additional bus service is not on the horizon given the upcoming efficiency review commissioned by the Translink Commissioner and the full audit demanded by regional mayors.  A proposed 13 percent fare increase, also under the commissioner’s microscope, is by no means assured, meaning that funding for service increases would be gone.

The message to transit riders seems to be “glad you like it — can you manage with less?”