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Tis the season to shop local

The holiday season is well upon us, and this weekend marks “Super Saturday”—the busiest shopping day of the year and the last Saturday (December 19) before Christmas.

If you’re like me and leave gift shopping to the last minute, the thought of a crowded mall on the weekend before Christmas is enough to make your skin crawl. Thankfully, I don’t even have to leave East Van, let alone venture into a mall (okay, maybe Kingsgate Mall), and my last-minute shopping is way more impactful because I buy local.

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Short changing Strathcona lacks long term vision

The provincial government recently announced $35 million in funding — for what are termed as routine capital grant upgrades: things like window and boiler upgrades, roof replacement and energy efficiencies.

Vancouverites, were of course disappointed that of the 109 projects, not one was in our local school district.

What piqued my interest though, is that of the relatively modest wishlist submitted as part of the VSB’s Routine Capital Plan Submission — most of the requests are for my local elementary school, Lord Strathcona.

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Viaducts removal and Vancouver’s eastern expansion

Vancouver City Council approved an amended staff report to remove the viaducts in principal, with the inclusion of a serious commitment to immediate downgrading of Prior Street and a new east-west arterial, as well as meaningfully honouring of Hogan’s Alley and the black community displaced from there. — Still there is more work to be done, in particular regarding development and affordable housing, delivery of Creekside Park and the management of traffic in NE False Creek.

Earlier, I wrote the following op-ed:

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Strathcona/DTES Disappear on New City Website

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Strathcona/DTES Disappear on New City Website
September 3, 2012

Like Many Vancouverites, when the City announced it’s new $3million dollar website last month – I was curious to check it out.

But when I went looking, I found that our neighbourhood had been disappeared.

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What does the City’s viaduct plan say about Prior Street?

So what does the City’s viaduct removal plan say about traffic calming on Prior Street?

Unfortunately for Strathcona – not a lot. In fact, the map illustration shows a new six-lane Prior Street extension that connects to Main Street, Quebec Street and a new expanded six-lane Pacific Boulevard ends before Gore – with no details about what happens to those six lanes of traffic east of Main. Prior street is identified as the “direct east-west link to the downtown for commuter vehicles and large goods-movement trucks