Category Archive: Soapbox

Election wrap up: letter to the editor

Posted by Mike Klassen on December 13, 2011

While mapping out potential new directions for my urban affairs blog CityCaucus.com, I've also been gently easing into Christmas festivities with my family and rekindling relationships that took a back seat during my campaign.

Last Friday I ran a 'thank you' ad to Vancouver voters in citywide editions of the Vancouver Courier (click for more details), and lately submitted a couple of letters to the editor to set the record straight in response to recent commentary about the 2011 election campaign.

In his own post-election comment, Courier editor Barry Link lamented the influence of alphabetical ballots, stating that all the while: "high-profile NPA candidates like Mike Klassen, who did everything but punch out a side of beef and jog up city hall's steps in his run for council, were left on the outside looking in." I love a good Rocky Balboa analogy, and it prompted me to write the following:

On the subject of ABC surnames raised by editor Barry Link, I think good ballot placement can definitely tip the balance. (I was surely tempted to run under my middle name Aaron.) However, I'll give credit to voters for picking George Affleck, Elizabeth Ball and Adriane Carr for the new council as they are all excellent choices. I'm convinced that Coun. Ball succeeded thanks to a reputation built through years of community service and innovation in Vancouver's arts scene.

Note that Woodsworth, Yuen and even myself came only a few hundred votes short of getting elected despite less favorable ballot placement. There are many things that can be done to ballots themselves without throwing out a system of governance that has helped to create a highly successful city like Vancouver. For example, today's printing technology can easily produce ballots with names placed in random order. Or candidates could be provided with a number beside their name, which could aid thousands of voters with limited comprehension of English.

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Tagged: campaigning, election 2011, letter to the editor, vancouver courier

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Why I'm running for Vancouver city council

Posted by Mike Klassen on July 16, 2011

At the time of my campaign announcement last April there were many things to prepare, and it never occurred to me that I would take the speech that I wrote for that day as a blog post. Here again are my thoughts as to why I'm running for Vancouver city council...

I’m here to make it official, and to let Mayor Gregor know...I am an NPA Hack.

I’ve read the bio of one of Vancouver’s most charismatic leaders in our city’s history, Mayor Gerry McGeer.

Mayor Gerry did what would seem incredible today. He went against the powerful city establishment back in the 1930s, and was determined to build an iconic and important city hall in what was known as Strathcona Park at 12th & Cambie, which he did in nine months!

In one of his most famous speeches he called Vancouver “A City of Destiny.” A city of destiny.

Destiny can mean a lot of things, but during those hard times it probably sounded like hope for the future. You’re in Vancouver. This jewel location set between the mountains and water, at the outer edge of the Empire. We can create something great here.

Look what we’ve done since. Vancouver as a city has accomplished so much.

Our West End is admired across the continent for its vibrant downtown residential communities. We’ve invited the world here twice within a generation, during Expo in 86 and the Winter Olympics last year. We’re consistently praised for being the world’s most livable city, with clean water, clean air and our peaceful, pluralistic neighbourhoods.

But I fear we may be taking that success for granted. We’ve started to believe our own hype.

For Vancouver to be more remarkable in the 21st Century as it has been in the 20th it has to overcome some major challenges.

Vancouver has become too unaffordable for too many people to live here. I’ve seen friends leave our neighbourhood with their families over the years for Burnaby, the Tri-Cities and Surrey because they simply can’t afford Vancouver any longer.

Vancouver needs a housing strategy that creates supply that will diversify the market, and drive down costs. We’ve wasted scarce resources by building million-dollar waterfront social housing units, and it’s simply not sustainable.

Vancouver must become once again a city where young people want to live and start families. We may not be able to give you a white picket fence, but we need world-class amenities and walkable communities, safe streets and excellent modern schools to attract the next generation.

Jobs and opportunities are packing up and leaving Vancouver as well. When Mayor Gregor said he was going to create green jobs I had no idea what that meant, so I looked up the addresses of all these great companies he said would create jobs on this side of Boundary Road. Turns out they were in Surrey, Burnaby, North Vancouver, Richmond.

What I want for our city is for my daughter to be able to live here and have meaningful employment. Today we’re seeing a new kind of brain drain, but not to Toronto or the US, but to the suburbs. We have to retain that talent in Vancouver.

Continue reading "Why I'm running for Vancouver city council" »

Tagged: election 2011, favourite, politics, vancouver city council, vancouver city hall

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VO's Linda Solomon & Vision crony involved in another hatchet job

Posted by Mike Klassen on September 28, 2010

If it's a gift I got from Sullivan's staff, how come I had to work so hard for it?

Another day, another smear from Gregor Robertson's cronies against me. Honestly, don't they have anything better to do with the #1 guy on their hit list?

This week the webzine run by the sister of Gregor Robertson's bagman and key advisor Joel Solomon gave their current favourite agitator another opportunity to smear me in a story full if misleading and inaccurate statements. Ian Reid, the former BC NDP policy wonk who got himself into hot water a few years ago for going off script, also a former Vision Vancouver campaign manager and close buddy of Gregor Robertson's chief of staff Mike Magee, as well as busy blog commenter, came up with this little gem about me and the work my company did for Mayor Sam Sullivan.

The main revelation of Reid's tome was that I did work for Sam Sullivan's office when he was Mayor of Vancouver. Reid FOI'd my invoices to Sullivan's staff, and though Reid doesn't bother to, I'm happy to share them with you here. As you can see we provided detailed statements over the span of 32 months, right down to items as short as a quarter-hour. We billed for about 8-12 hours per month, although I'm certain there were occasions when we worked many more hours than we billed for.

Thinking Cap Inc. provided varied and extensive services over the course of 32 months. While Thinking Cap's invoices are several pages long and contain over 100 lines describing our work, FD Element's invoice is one-line long: "Project: Gregor Robertson's 'About' Page – $27,500", done in about three months. Furthermore, the invoices indicate that we built a full website – with content – for under $3000. Reid, and Allen Garr, have taken pains to make it sound like we billed the same amount for similar work. The facts show that we billed one-tenth the amount that FD Element did for similar work.

Frankly, I could have cared less if it weren't for the fact that while this work was being done by FD Element, they hired Vision mouthpiece Jonathan Ross at the same time. Dumb, dumb, dumb, in my opinion.

In his hatchet job on me, Reid fixates on the matter of a contract, but how indeed is that the fault of me or my company? And how exactly do you get a contract for someone doing piecemeal as opposed to project work? The Mayor's office hired me, not the other way around. If anything, I should have insisted on a more secure relationship, and possibly terms of separation. No such luck, however.

I decided to call someone at Vancouver City Hall with some experience in dealing with outsourced help. They explained that yes, contracts are common practice, but there are several suppliers City departments regularly rely upon who do so based upon a simple exchange of emails. I'll take their word for it.

Reid, and his editor Linda Solomon, have published a misleading story about me and Daniel Fontaine, calling it a "gift". I'm still trying to figure out how working hundreds of hours for my modest compensation somehow is a gift. If that's a gift I'll skip birthday celebrations from now on.

Continue reading "VO's Linda Solomon & Vision crony involved in another hatchet job" »

Tagged: gregor robertson, ian reid, linda solomon, mike magee, ndp, smear campaigns, vision vancouver

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In response to the recent smear about me

Posted by Mike Klassen on September 2, 2010

Sadly smear campaigns seen on the national stage are going local

Speaking to my friend Sam Sullivan last year he told me of one regret he had from his term in elected office. He said that he had worked more swiftly and aggressively to correct the record when media got the story wrong. One specific example was the story the webzine TheTyee.ca had published about him, which he eventually had a response published for after he left office.

Yesterday the Vision Vancouver linked website VancouverObserver.com published a wide-ranging smear against myself and Vancouver Sun reporter Jeff Lee. The writer is a former Vision Vancouver campaign manager and close connection to Gregor Robertson's chief of staff Mike Magee. I was not contacted for the story, and I will try to respond to the accusations in the following post.

On the connection with the Vancouver Sun. Since Jeff Lee is the first dedicated City Hall reporter working for the Vancouver Sun in nearly three years, it might come as a shock to the current government that they are getting some more scrutiny from the mainstream media. The fact is CityCaucus.com's political analysis and inside sources in political, business and public service circles are second to none. We're getting stories other media would otherwise not get, and we're providing deeper understanding of the political machinations than the MSM have traditionally provided. It should be no surprise, therefore, that media such as Lee are seeing bloggers as a new source of information. It's up to them to use their own lens on the credibility of the facts and the opinion before re-telling those stories in their publications or broadcasts.

Just like the team surrounding the Mayor and his caucus, we have tried to gain a respectful relationship with the media. Sometimes they listen to us, sometimes they don't.
On my relationship with Colin Hansen. I was introduced to MLA Colin Hansen in 2003 and immediately found that he was one of the most sincere, hard-working and ethical people I've ever known. Everyone who has had a relationship with Hansen I know of holds him in very high regard. It was an honour for me to support him in past election campaigns.
On the scrutiny we give to Hollyhock and to Vision Vancouver insiders and financial backers. This is a core tenet of political transparency – knowing who has access to politicians. I'm proud of the work I've done on this topic, and wish more MSM probing would be done.
On LinkedIn profiles, websites, etc. I'm a consultant who works long days to afford to pay my bills. After ten years as a consultant I don't spend a lot of time doing personal marketing, other than business cards, networking, etc. 99% of my work comes through referral, and my Thinkcap.com website had not been updated in nearly four years. Several clients and/or projects had either moved on or had been updated since I put them on my portfolio. The type of work I do has also evolved into more strategic communications with a strong foundation in social media planning. Therefore I took down my old website earlier in the year (I believe it was in February) and replaced it with my Thinking Cap logo and new slogan "Issues Demystifed".

The writer in the VO piece suggests that I took down my old website in response to my LinkedIn profile being read, and that it happened suddenly. I had no idea that this feature existed in LinkedIn (until yesterday), and as I said the website was changed months ago as it was frankly too out of date and didn't properly reflect my present work. I had no idea who the author of the VO post was until just a few weeks ago.

I rarely take time to update profile bios, Facebook photos, LinkedIn or Plaxo info unless I've really got some time on my hands, which is rare. I think I update them once per year or so. I began writing for 24 Hours as a political commentator in October 2009.
On Jeff Lee's "empty city hall" story and our response on CityCaucus.com. I was only vaguely aware of the empty floors at Vancouver City Hall until I saw Jeff Lee's video posted on VancouverSun.com. I emailed Jeff about it and he said that the video had been posted too soon, and his story was still waiting to be published in the paper. Not long after the video was pulled. About 2 weeks later about 9:30pm on a Sunday evening I was on a phone call with someone when an email came in from my colleague Daniel with a link to Jeff's story. Realizing that this was a topic which would interest our readers, I quickly began writing an analysis of Lee's story so it would be online when the paper hit the streets in morning. I felt the real story was not the empty floors but the expansion of the Mayor's offices. I wrote the post that evening and published it just after 11pm.

Apparently the fact that our post happened almost "simultaneously" in the eyes of Gregor's political staff suggests that we had coordinated with Lee. The fact is the whole post was written on Sunday night, thanks to the online version being available.
On my appointment to the Vancouver City Planning Commission. The VCPC is a great committee that I had wanted to be a part of for several years. It was an opportunity to collaborate with very smart people on the topic of city-making. I applied for a spot on this voluntary advisory body, and then proceeded to lobby for that position through my Mayor's office connections. Despite my relationships, I was not certain whether I would have the opportunity to serve on the VCPC. There had been a full "Three R" review of the advisory committees done in the months preceding.

In the end I put my name forward as Vice-Chair and was selected by my peers on the committee for that role. It was a two-year appointment that had no compensation. I probably averaged about 30 hours per month in terms of my own volunteer time on the committee, and I'm supremely proud of the innovative work our committee did. See it at www.planningcommission.ca. By the way, I build this website as one of my volunteer roles. The web designer was hired directly by the committee.
On my work done for Mayor Sam Sullivan's office. I went back to my Quickbooks accounting software to review when I had worked and how much I billed. I began my first project – an email newsletter – in February 2006 three months after the election. I continued to work with the Mayor's office until November 2008. My total billables including GST added up to about $28,000. That works out to be about $10,000 per year, or about $800 per month on average. A small amount of this work included paying subcontractors.

Myself or my company have not done any other work for the City of Vancouver.

I won't get into the various arguments the writer makes about the record of Sam Sullivan or the NPA. We do plenty of that on CityCaucus.com. I just wanted to make sure that when someone is making false accusations about me and my work, that I set the record straight.

If you have any further questions about me, I'm easy to reach by email or phone. See the info at CityCaucus.com/contact.

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Liberal nod for Rebagliati a sign of party disarray

Posted by Mike Klassen on October 27, 2009

Rebagliati runs in Okanagan-Coquihalla: what are these guys thinking? And what's with the toque?

So Ross Rebagliati is now a Liberal candidate. I do not know Mr. Rebagliati, and do not disparage his accomplishment of getting gold at the Winter Olympics a few years back. However, from what I've seen and heard out of his mouth in the past few days leaves me to think Minister Stockwell Day has nothing to be concerned about.

Day is the Member of Parliament for Okanagan-Coquihalla, a riding that is solidly Conservative. Day took it in a walk last time out, and the Liberal Party finished dead last. Parties who are worried about their ability to get enough members elected start using the "star candidate" tactic in order to draw more attention to themselves. The so-called stars are sometimes, but not always put into safe (winnable) ridings. They are sometimes also put into swing ridings, where it's hoped that their name recognition will tip the balance and lead to a winning outcome.

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Tagged: conservatives, liberals, okanagan, politics, ross rebagliati, stockwell day

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Independent Power "news" not newsworthy

Posted by Mike Klassen on June 8, 2009

Sunday's Province newspaper cover sponsored by a labour union?

When it comes to the topic of independent power in British Columbia, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I laugh because I find the attacks against it by the BC Hydro union, COPE 378, so disingenuous. I cry because of the pathetic job the industry does trying to get its message out.

Sunday's Province cover story was, well, how do we put this gently...inflammatory? Innuendo-filled? Uh, not news.

Here's what you will learn from Sunday's 2-page spread (!).

Plutonic Power's stock price went up when the BC Liberals formed government. Really? Did it by any chance go down in the weeks before Election Day at the prospect of the NDP forming government? We don't know that if you read the story. Hell, if I had the money to throw around on small company stocks, I might have bought Plutonic a couple of days before the election given that the polls showed Campbell would form government again, and the NDP assured us they would "review" (read: kill) IPPs.
Former government staff now either work for or advise independent power enterprises. More innuendo from The Province, as in "the fix is in." Where is Minister Blair Lekstrom's comment about ALL projects being subject to independent review before being approved, and the strict environmental standards projects must abide by? Buried in the last paragraph. Where are former government insiders supposed to work? McDonalds? Then the story will be how the BC Liberals are conspiring to make our kids fat.

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Tagged: cope 378, green power, independent power, ipps, plutonic, province newspaper, run-of-river

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When really good people run for public office

Posted by Mike Klassen on May 5, 2009

I'd like to give my unwavering support to a great local candidate running for a provincial MLA seat named Haida Lane. I met Haida through the City of Vancouver's Vision Implementation Committee process. I have participated over at Vancouver-Kensington, and she over at Hastings-Sunrise.

When I met Haida I spotted a real community leader right off the bat. She's a good listener, articulate and has a sense of humour. She's not strident, and comes off as very well informed.

Haida and her husband are raising a young child in her East side borough near the PNE grounds, and I salute her for putting her name forward as a candidate for elected office. Vancouver is extremely lucky to have someone like Haida seeking to represent them.

Politics is an unnecessarily ugly business. For a generation we've made running down elected representatives a part of our culture. Few of them deserve the disrespect they get. Haida deserves the respect of voters in Vancouver-Hastings. Have a closer look.

For more on Haida read this piece in the Georgia Straight, or see her on Facebook.

Tagged: bc liberals, east vancouver, georgia straight, haida lane, provincial election, vancouver, vancouver-hastings, voting

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The parents must face justice too

Posted by Mike Klassen on February 8, 2009

Sickening. An eighteen year-old male driving an expensive Buick SUV while drunk, roars around the turn by the entrance of Granville Island, loses control and careens into two pedestrians crossing in crosswalk. The 31-year old man and his 25-year old woman companion die at the scene. The driver makes a run for it and is caught by police. He has been driving under the influence, with 14- and 16-year old girls in the vehicle with him.

Who owns this vehicle? How did an 18-year old get the keys to go for his fatal joyride in contravention of rules about young drivers?

The young driver's parents or guardians must be held partly responsible for this tragedy. Heavy fines and jail time must be a possible penalty. I won't hold my breath though. They'll probably carry on with their lives without paying any kind of penalty, such is the selfishness that too often pervades our society.

This story makes me angry because there will be no justice.

Tagged: autogedden, cars, drunk drivers, granville island, justice system, kitsilano

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