My Park & School Board Picks—Why Them?
Advance voting is done; voting day is tomorrow—Saturday, October 15th, 2022. By Sunday morning, every municipality will have a new or re-elected mayor, and a new mix of councillors. In Vancouver, we also get new Park Board commissioners and school board trustees.
Because It's 2022: My #vanpoli Election Guide
Advance voting started this past weekend. Despite having some candidate ideas, I was largely unprepared to vote. I realized that what I needed was a tool for organizing the most important factors for my picks for Vancouver mayor, council, park board and school board: values and affiliation.
The Party for Your Right to Bike
When summarizing Gregor Robertson's ten years as mayor, any historical perspective on the City of Vancouver will undoubtedly refer, perhaps quite pointedly, to his responsibility for the growth in cycling — the activity, and more importantly the infrastructure that enabled its growth.
Shift gears, find higher ground.
Today, a friend texted me a link to an op-ed in a major Canadian newspaper, headlined "Ban the Bike!" It was as much my friend's preamble to the piece, as the piece itself, which got my knickers in a twist. Something along the lines of, 'I thought this made some good points — what do you think?'
This is not about cycling
The challenge is how to make this about more than ‘just cycling’. It's something many writers face — how to write something that is, ultimately, about something else. Deeper thoughts about freedom, community, and social equity. You know, hope-y, change-y kinda stuff. Or something like that.
It's like that
Their stories span the course of over 30 years — people pushing for safer, more accessible, and more equitable streets, communities and cities. But the most satisfying part of capturing these stories is everything else — the personal histories, some highly relatable, some vastly different from my own, and all of them fascinating.