It's so weird when people write about things that you saw and saw it differently. While there were many people who didn't like Rize -- "weeeee had a charrettttttteeeee!!!" - there were plenty like me who signed Rize's guest book under the apparently odd and wrong belief that making a big housing project out of a burned-down vacant lot at the future corner of a mass transit stop was a-ok. And plenty more who, things being what they are, don't really care.

That sure sounds like a lot of sour grapes. I guess the COPE/ VV honeymoon is over (snicker).

Now for a reality check. COPE is a fracking disaster zone. Anyone paying attention won't soon forget all the internecine battles between the looney cultists and other fringe zombies in COPE. Fer fuck sakes...certain COPE leaders still identify as Marxists.

I think there were a lot of pro-vision people in COPE. Warzone might have been necessary. Look at "OneCity".

This is a very straight, unassailable analysis by a committed and experienced lawyer that simply tells it like it is. She brings up highly inconvenient truths about the sham public hearing processes, the admitted "done deals" that come unraveled after the courts get involved, and the pure insanity behind the 581 CD-1 rezonings in the City that make a mockery of community plans and spike land values through the roof to make the city affordable to no one.

The fact that COPE can attract such a highly accomplished, UBC-trained lawyer who's been in the trenches on so many vital public policy and social justice issues should scare the bejeezus out of Vision Vancouver. And judging certainly from the first two comment posts above, that appears exactly the response. Some shills are already on the warpath to discredit her efforts to speak truth to power.

Gandhi wrote "First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they attack you, and then you win." Well clearly Gayle Gavin has just been viciously attacked, so this bodes well for her election on November 15.

Go Gayle!

"Now it is a private road for residents and cyclists."

I never used point Grey Road for any reason before the change. Now I walk and ride on it regularly. Some 'private' road.

Could some of the wannabe councillor please grow up and treat constituents with respect? We have real world problems that intelligent civic politicians could play a role in addressing. This reliance on demonizing dreaded cyclists and rich-bashing is tiresome. I wish my east van street could get the pt grey makeover. I don't care if rich people have nice things. Worry a bit more about poor people having food and shelter and offer concrete solutions instead of divisive rhetoric and maybe you'll get some votes.

The comparison of Gavin to Ghandhi is as meritorious as that describing the comments in this section to a "vicious attack."

Point taken, Brian Green. Anyone who invokes Gandhi should be regarded as a sacred cow. Personally I've been dead animal free for 34 years and wouldn't dream of devouring a docile beast like a sacred cow. Unfortunately, for local Gandhi quoting cows and UBC trainer law wranglers , this ain't India Toto and all the lunacy at COPE over the last few years has been well documented. Ultimately voters want stability and, in Vancouver, they want a party that shares the majority's desire for a greener city that values social justice. A party that will have common interests with the next Federal government in one short year from now. They don't want a basket case and they don't want the farm team for extremist right wing parties in decline...or any of their ridiculous proxies.

Well said. It is time to harness the energy neighbourhoods have devoted to protests and lawsuits and direct it towards a political solution. Some years ago, those frustrated with the NPA's focus on development put their trust in a new party, Vision Vancouver, believing their claims that they would be a grass roots party that respected community input and democracy. It is now apparent that we elected a Trojan Horse. Vision is a party devoted to developer profits hiding under the best "progressive" smokescreen money can buy. If they are not removed from power in November there will be absolutely nothing we can do to stop our city from being bulldozed before our eyes.

The community consultation process has indeed been a sham under Vision. The only "consultation" Robertson does is with his developer buddies at private events like the $25,000 a plate lunch put on by Bob Rennie.

City Hall is run by the developers. The Marpole Community Centre should have been renewed, but the money allocated for it simply vanished. Now it's been competely taken off the table. But Robertson will hire 28 people for a bloated communications / propaganda team to tell residents that it's good to have the oligarchs in charge. This insanity has to stop.

It's time to show Vision the door and to vote in good politicians who will stand up for ordinary Vancouverites.

"We are going to have a government that does not run roughshod over people and their communities."

The thing is, they don't "run roughshod". They are much smoother than that. Vision is the party that was torn from the right side of COPE as the "Friends of Larry Campbell", and Larry passed the Vision torch to Jim Green, and Campbell, Green were nothing if not a couple of smoothies. It has been only a slight move to the right from Jim Green to Gregor Robertson. They build consensus among "stakeholders", not citizens. They don't run roughshod, they bamboozle, scheme, and bullshit. They are rentier technocrats, bound hip and thigh to the developers who finance them.