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[caption id="attachment_5599" align="alignnone" width="497"] Unlike the Vancouver Police Department, but exactly like plumbers, and pipe fitters, our transit police put "We're Hiring" signs on their vehicles. What's not to take seriously?[/caption]

They look like police, and they dress like police, and they even carry guns, but the eight-year-old SCBCTAPS, or TransLink Police Service, or simply, "the transit police," still seem more like jumped-up, over-paid, security guards. This incident from 2011, where a transit cop lost a bomb on a plane during a training exercise didn't help their image. This year, calls for their force to be disbanded have increased, as the transit police have proven to be quite ineffective at curbing fare evasion, and no one's exactly sure what else they do, besides costing taxpayers a lot of money.

[caption id="attachment_6224" align="alignnone" width="497"] Even secret agent Maxwell Smart knew better than to talk on his shoe phone while driving. Get Smart people! It's dangerous.[/caption]

Our public auto insurance authority, ICBC, has teamed up with British Columbia's police for a province-wide, month-long campaign against distracted driving. Operating a handheld electronic device such as a cellphone, while driving a motor vehicle, has been illegal in BC since January 1, 2010. Penalties include a $167 CDN fine and three penalty points on a driver's license, which affects their auto insurance rate.

Distracted driving is no laughing matter, but people are always good for a chuckle. According to this item in The Vancouver Province newspaper, a B.C. Provincial Court  Judge has brushed aside one defendant's claim that he wasn't even holding his cellphone, but rather his wallet.

Last Wednesday, September 18, delegates to the Union of B.C. Municipalities convention, held here in Vancouver, voted down a much talked-about resolution put forward by  Sidney, B.C. to regulate motorized wheelchairs, and electric mobility scooters, in the interests of public safety. This Times-Colonist post on the UBCM meeting, says the rejection came despite an impassioned speech in support of the resolution by by Sidney Mayor Larry Cross. Sidney's final resolution was, in fact, a major climb-down from their original call to license motorized wheelchairs, and electric mobility scooters across the province. Mayor Cross compared his community, with its high proportion of seniors, to a canary in a coal mine, signalling the kinds of problems other municipalities can expect.

“We’ve had a fatality in our community. We’ve had, in the last eight months, two serious rollovers — one of which resulted in a gentleman spending the summer in the hospital with a broken hip. Those accidents could have been avoided.”

The original proposal to license mobility scooters was met with charges of discrimination, and agism, but I think it was motivated by public safety concerns, and desire to get ahead of the curve,and begin laying the groundwork for regulating a future full of such mobility vehicles, exactly as happened with automobiles early in the 20th Century.

[caption id="attachment_3485" align="alignnone" width="497"] All downhill from here. Frame from Murray Siple's NFB documentary Carts of Darkness (2008)[/caption]

Stand in downtown Vancouver, or farther South on the steeper parts of Fairview Heights, and look North, across the waters of the Burrard Inlet -- you are looking at the North Shore, aka, North Vancouver, a steep slope covered with rich homes, and mansions, which catch the sunlight, and glitter like gems, all in settings of natural greenery, These properties all run along, and are connected together by, steep, and winding, streets and avenues. Naturally, there are binners who collect bottles and cans on this well-to-do slope. Some of these fellows have been righteously crazy dudes, who turned bottle collecting with supermarket shopping carts with no brakes on steep, winding roads, with names like "Mountain Avenue," into a kind of extreme sport.

Back in 2008 a former snowboarder, turned documentary filmmaker named Murray Siple, made the documentary about this North Shore binning culture, called Carts of Darkness, for the National Film Board of Canada. I've only just noticed that the NFB posted the entire documentary on YouTube -- embedded below. I think this is a great bit of documentary filmmaking, whether you care a whit about binning or not.  It's also an interesting look at binning in Vancouver. While, I've never collected containers on the North Shore, it looks nearly identical to areas I do bin, particularly parts of the Arbutus Ridge.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sGyq5l-dfI

[caption id="attachment_3455" align="alignnone" width="497"] Oh crap! Abbotsford already needs to update their new city logo. Click the image to enlarge.[/caption]

Reports last month that City of Abbotsford workers had deliberately spread chicken manure on a homeless person's camp brought a veritable poo-nami of criticism down on Abby officials, from the mainstream media, homeless advocates, and even bloggers. The City action occurred June 4th across from the Salvation Army building on Gladys Avenue. Hours after it became news, and the sh*t hit the fan, city manager George Murray publicly took responsibility for the action, and apologized. Abbotsford Mayor Bruce Banman also apologized. Two days later, city staff removed the manure.

The impression was of an ill-thought-out, knee-jerk reaction to some public complaints, by one lone city official. Well, the sh*t continues to fan out; several news organizations have obtained internal emails showing the manure dump on the homeless encampment was, in fact, a team effort, coordinated between several Abbotsford City Managers, as shown by this item in The Province newspaper.

According to this post on the CBC Web site, internal emails obtained by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) through an access to information request show that managers from the city's bylaw, forestry and parks departments were all involved.

[caption id="attachment_3222" align="alignnone" width="497"] A Monster Home, but not how I remember them. Click the image to enlarge it.[/caption]

Back in the day -- the days of the 1980s -- a controversial new home design popped up on lots across the suburban communities of Greater Vancouver (aka the Lower Mainland). The polite term for the new style was Vancouver Special, but it was commonly, and derisively called a Monster Home. Basically, it was just the biggest, cheapest, box shape (with a roof) you could legally put on a lot. It was stereotypically two-storeys, with brick facade fronting the outside ground floor. Inside it was ideally suited for the addition of illegal secondary rental suites. The design prompted zoning bylaw changes all over the Lower Mainland.

Excuse my language, but it's true, literally. An article in yesterday's Vancouver Sun newspaper talked about frustration over homeless people in Abbotsford, B.C., and, by way of illustration, described how Abby's municipal workers more-or-less carpet-bombed one homeless person's campsite with chicken manure. The article cited a separate incident where police pepper sprayed another homeless person's campsite. With the incidents in the press, Abbotsford's Mayor, Bruce Banman, expressed his disapproval over how the municipal workers acted, and Police Chief Bob Rich said his department was investigating the pepper spraying incident. Today, however, The Province newspaper, in their editorial, suggested that Abbotsford had a long history of harassing it's homeless people, which currently are thought to number about 200, in a general population of over 133,000 (2011). Ironically, according to the Wikipedia article, Abbotsford has been named by Stats Canada as the nation's most generous city in terms of donations for nine straight years.

Followup: internal emails reveal extent of manure dump planning ►