SCRIPT CONCERNS
Welcome to another episode of how Suzanne Anton's world turns.
Cue that dreadful daytime soap opera music.
Last time we left Anton, the crestfallen NPA councillor stormed out of a council meeting after Vision Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»Mayor Gregor Robertson cut her off from asking questions about the city's internal review into the Stanley Cup riot.
One week later, Anton, who is the NPA's mayoral candidate, was smiling.
At Tuesday's council meeting, she successfully got her motion passed that requested city manager Penny Ballem report back to city council with guidelines for the internal review.
Ballem is now expected to deliver the following:
. The proposed budget for the internal review of the events around the riot.
. Details of the recommended public consultation.
. Recommendations for establishing the independence of the review.
. Goals for the review.
. A proposed timeline for the review.
Anton was so relieved her motion was approved that she scurried out of the council chamber during the meeting to expound on her victory to a hungry pack of media hounds in the foyer.
Conveniently, she assembled a half dozen of her fellow NPA candidates behind her for some camera time. This, I should mention, came after COPE Coun. David Cadman accused Anton in the chambers of electioneering.
"Maybe he didn't go down there on the night of the riot like I did and saw those looted businesses and saw the breakages," Anton told reporters. "I couldn't believe that I lived in a city where there was looting. Maybe Coun. Cadman didn't see any of those things, maybe he wasn't paying attention to them, maybe they're not important to him."
She went on to criticize Robertson, saying he hasn't taken responsibility for the riot (actually, he told me a month ago that he accepts some responsibility) and that the so-called downtown fan zones were established out of the mayor's office, with no council approval.
Yes, she was fired up. And prior to the meeting, she took shots in a news release at the Vision Vancouver-led Greenest City 2020 Action Plan, saying it didn't reveal costs of implementing green measures and failed to mention the forestry industry. "I don't see a recognition of that in [the report] as part of the green economy," she said at council, adding the forestry industry is "one of the backbones" of the city's economy.
Vision apparently had enough of this. In my last entry, I indicated Vision's media machine might be taking the summer off.
Well, hours after I posted those fine sentences, I received an email dispatch from Vision's executive director Ian Baillie. The headline read, "Latest Anton flip-flop means NPA says no to new parks, pedestrian safety, supporting jobs."
According to Baillie, Anton's "declared opposition to the Greenest City Action Plan" isn't just another flipflop. In fact, he said, "it's the latest sign of the out-oftouch, right-wing politics of the NPA."
Baillie's dispatch included the links to the city's website that reveal Anton voted on four separate occasions in moving ahead with the city's green plan. Council was to vote on the plan again July 14, after hearing from speakers.
The dreadful soap opera music, please.
Tune in next time for another episode of how the rhetoric, partisanship and general wackiness of city politics makes for mediocre copy on what is typically a slow time in the news biz.
[email protected] Twitter: @Howellings
