Quick Court

Justice is supposed to be swift.

That notion has pretty much gone the way of the long bow and the noose.

But never fear.

VANOC conquers all.

Tourist courts to open for Games

Minor charges to be heard within 2 weeks

Which is all well and good and perfectly sensible.

But excuse the rude question.

If it was so darn easy to get all the court and police and justice ducks in a row so quickly so as to not inconvenience some drunken scofflaw from Amarillo, why can't we make that effort 365 for our own citizens?

A friend was involved in December in a comically outrageous run-in with highway police somewhere between Seattle and Portland. Guns were drawn. Not my friend's. He no pack.

He has now returned to the scene of the crime this month and must attend once more in early February.

I don't really care berry much if a law breaker guest from Allentown, PA has to get his sorry ass back here for a court appearance.

But I would like to see local cases cleared with the same enthusiastic dispatch.

By the way...

Does this mean there will be a big new neon sign at YVR - owned of course by the local native band - screaming

COME ON IN BREAK THE LAW GET OUT QUICK

WELCOME TO THE FRIENDLY GAMES

Leaping Lizards

My friend, Bob Ransford, contributed an excellent and thoughtful piece to the Vancouver Sun yesterday on the need for better planning in Greater Vancouver.

Give it a read.

Then, explain this mystery to me.

Two friends of mine - one lives in Shaughnessy in half a beautiful old mansion, and the other lives on 4 acres in the Gulf Islands in a log house he built with his own hands 40 years ago - have had their property assessments jump 60% this year.

That's right.

60%!

Short of discovering crude in the back yard, what could possibly justify this unholy demand for more tax money.

60% raise in one year?

They can't afford that and both are contesting this arbitrary and cruel "adjustment."

I can't.

Could you?

Should we?

The Devil's in the Details

Yesterday I wrote about City hall laying off workers - the wrong workers.

Today, our friendm Martin, shares the gruesome details:

Martino said...

The thing that bugs my wife the most about this is that not one person called or even asked what she does in her job. She oversees the busiest community centre in Vancouver (Kerrisdale) with the most programs. She is constantly overworked, with endless committees to attend, and always took on more responsibilities with a smile on her face.

Without her, there is no way to continue with the amount of programs that are currently running, which will inevitably lead to cuts. And the people who will suffer are the good taxpayers of Vancouver, who depend on their community centre to enrich and educate themselves/their children. To a lesser extent, the Community Centre suffers too, as they will lose revenue that gave it the ability to offer programs at a discounted rate to seniors and school age children.

The worse part of all this is they still expect her to represent the City of Vancouver at one of the LiveCity sites with a smile on her face. She become so cynical the last 48 hours that she thinks she'll have to resign from that, which stinks considering she supported the Olympics from day one and wanted to do her part to represent the city she was so proud of. She even turned down a great volunteer position with VANOC since the City asked that she represent the City for this event.

At the very least, the City should have hired an independent auditor who actually went out and found out what people did in their job...not some fatcat at City Hall who just wanted to balance the budget in order to keep their job.

Saw These 4 at Toronto's Roy Thomson Hall in '91...Smoke!