Citizens speak on proposed Vancouver Casino

(Here is a story I just wrote in 30 minutes in a mock webfile for a class at my college. I am going to invest in a smartphone, as I had to race back home from city hall on the bus to meet my professor's deadline!)

Over 200 people showed up to Vancouver City Hall last night to have their say on the proposed expanded casino next to BC Place, and after hearing from the applicants and staff only a handful of union representatives had the opportunity at press time.

Council voted to extend the hearing an hour, yet after hearing from the applicants — Paragon Gaming, PavCo and the B.C. Lottery Corporation — and city hall staff, there was only enough time to hear from a handful of citizens all union representatives who spoke in favour of the casino proposal.

Outside council chambers a rowdy overflow crowd of over 100 people sat and stood watching the proceedings, Mayor Robertson requested respect for the applicants several times.

"This is an important debate, I respect it," said David Podmore, head of PavCo — the government company that owns the land next to BC Place.

Vocal anti-casino protesters outnumbered two-to-one a group of about 50 Edgewater casino employees all wearing yellow T-shirts with the slogan “Save Our Jobs.”

“In 2013 our lease is up at our current location and if this project does not go through approval by the city that means 600-plus employees are out of work,” said CAW 300 spokeswoman and Edgewater PR representative Lesley Harris.

Many protesters rallied out front of city hall before the hearing under the banner “Vancouver Not Vegas.”

Proposal critic and renowned architect Bing Thom said outside city hall, “The government has become addicted to the gambling revenues, [to them] it's easy money."

Councillors were critical of these projected revenues in their questioning of the applicant’s numbers.

Council also critiqued the lack of weight the applicants put on the social problems the expanded casino might bring and BCLC president Michael Graydon admitted the BCLC has no ability to ascertain spending habits of problem gamblers in casinos.

Obvious News: Vancouver will still have hundreds of homeless people in 2015

                                         Chris Huggins (Flickr)/photo

Planning department shows city still has considerable challenges if it wants make good on mayor's promise to end homelessness in the next decade.

A new report from city hall says 450 new housing units are needed to end homelessness in Vancouver by 2015.

City Manager Penny Ballem’s report garnered praise from councillors during a festive Lunar New Year session. Only Coun. Suzanne Anton questioned the projected shortfalls and the secrecy of the report.

“To me, my conclusion [from the report] was that 450 units will solve homelessness in Vancouver. Well… no,” Anton said. “450 units will not solve homelessness."

                 Thomas Quine (Flickr)/photo

The report projects - despite the city’s partnership with BC Housing creating 14 new supportive housing sites by 2012 - the city will still be short hundreds of units by 2015. This shortfall will increase 750 units by 2020 to a total of 1,200 units if additional housing is not provided.

     

“Elimination of homelessness is quite realistic, it could be rolled back province-wide by an investment equivalent to the new stadium roof — $568 million,” said Coun. Geoff Meggs. “All that's missing is political will.”

Anton, the lone councillor outside of Mayor Gregor Robertson’s ruling coalition, believes these numbers are greatly undervalued.

“There’s about 7,000 built now, so there really needs to be 3,000 more to properly accommodate all the people who are living [downtown],” Anton said. “I think the mayor was looking for a real political solution to his election promise.”

Anton was also disappointed with lack of transparency in the report. “I thought it was a disgrace to democracy that it was brought in that forum so that nobody had any notice of it.

 Coun. Suzanne Anton

“It was a PowerPoint [presentation] and council didn't even have it in front of them. There was no opportunity to properly challenge it or question it or prod it or to see what it actually meant,” Anton said. “This mayor is famous for his disinterest in hearing from people. And presenting it in this way so nobody could address the subject was very odd indeed.”

Coun. Tim Stevenson thinks the report — on which the city will hear from the public and report back to council by the end of April — and its compiling of concrete numbers is another step in a larger process of understanding Vancouver’s homeless began by previous administrations.

“I've been awaiting this report for a number of years and it is excellent in my opinion,” Stevenson said. It will certainly lead us into the future.”

The report focused on mapping the city’s total homeless population, supportive housing and rental units. The report claimed only 10 per cent of Vancouver’s homeless — largely single men — come from other provinces, dispelling a popular myth that many migrate to get away from cold winters further East.

The Community Services department will conduct another count of the city’s homeless population Mar. 16, 2011, as part of its annual report card on the issue.

The report stressed the need for 12 to 15 more supportive housing sites to close the eventual 1,200-unit gap by 2020.

“There's no question that the only way to get adequate housing is for senior levels of government to help with the funding,” Anton said. “The best housing is when there's partnerships with the city — which is usually land and facilitation services — BC Housing non-profit groups and the province.

“That's what puts housing together right now.”


The report can be found here : http://vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/cclerk/20110201/documents/HousingandHomelessnessStrategy.pdf

Theatre Review : Studio 58's "The Comedy of Errors"

Directed by Scott Bellis. A Studio 58 and Langara College production sponsored by the Langara College Theatre Arts Advisory Committee. At Studio 58 on Thursday, Jan. 27. Continues until Feb. 20.

Studio 58’s newest production surprised viewers with its dark update of Shakespeare’s mistaken identity masterpiece.

The play was a manic success in the capable hands of director Scott Bellis, a veteran actor, founding member of Bard on the Beach and grad of the Langara’s vaunted theatre program.

The reimagining of Ephesus as a dark industrial town meshed well with the opening scene’s choreography, which was set to the soundtrack of Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes film. The set channeled the look and feel of that movie and Naomi Sider’s macabre costumes were straight out of a Tim Burton film.

The juxtaposition between the script and setting was a little jarring at the outset of the dialogue. However, Shakespearean soliloquys soon found a comfortable home in this parallel universe where policemen tote revolvers and conjurers dole out electroshock therapy. The giant steam clock and the town’s electrical grid repeatedly blacked out as a hunchbacked repair man precipitated scene changes or freeze frames where one character would step out for a monologue.

With a story revolving around two sets of identical twins and their repeatedly mistaken identities, the four actors created palpable characterizations and you often found yourself forgetting that one Dromio had departed the stage and another had come on.

The identical twin brothers named Antipholus, and their twin servants the Dromios, have been estranged for years until Antipholus of Syracuse, played by the capricious Anton Lipovetsky, arrives in his brother’s town and is promptly caught up in controversy over his twin’s supposed adultery.

One of the most memorable scenes has both sets of twins rebuking each other from a revolving doorway as it spins out of control and the characters fall further into madness. Throughout the production characters banter back and forth rapid fire and there were no signs of opening night jitters.

The script is one of the bard’s dirtiest, and demonstrates that filthy jokes told between buddies are still funny even when referencing geography in old English.

The gigantic Joel Ballard plays the portly cook at the butt end of the jokes and his disturbing take on Nell steals the show. Nell is constantly longing for one of the Dromio twins and punctuates each temporary defeat with an unbridled Chewbacca warble. Bellis admitted in the talkback session this was a clear homage to the beloved Star Wars wookie.

The rest of the cast put in strong performances, with notable contributions by Pandora Morgan as a vampy courtesan and Paula Burrows as the altruistic Luciana.

As good as the ensemble was, it could not save viewers from the drawn out denouement where each character’s problems immediately vanish in an unbelievable scene.

Overall this was an ambitious and dark new take on a classic play with a surprisingly malleable script.