Even Vision Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»insiders are shaking their heads over Mike Magee's public attack on the Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»Fair Tax Coalition earlier this week. Magee is Mayor Gregor Robertson's chief of staff and usually hangs out in the political shadows. In the past, when he has had opinions, they have been private or at least "off the record."
Days before the Vision-dominated council was about to approve the city budget and a 2.84 per cent property tax increase, the Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»Fair Tax Coalition ran a couple of half-page ads in the Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»Sun demanding a zero tax increase, suggesting councillors "seem to ignore the negative effects of increased municipal spending."
Magee went on the attack Sunday telling a Globe and Mail reporter the Coalition was making "a direct, political, gratuitous attack on Vancouver's mayor and council," and added: "They should be ashamed of themselves."
So this raises two questions. Why is Magee, who is not elected but is simply the hired help, making this attack? And is there any validity to it?
Understand that Magee is the kind of guy who doesn't sneeze without thinking about the strategic implications of his actions. You have also noticed that the boys in the mayor's back room like to keep Robertson completely bubblewrapped and as far from anything negative as possible. No more "f**king hacks" slip ups please.
But usually when it comes to the heavy lifting, which is to say taking a critical stand on an issue, it's Coun. Geoff Meggs who is asked to step up. Or, given that this was a budget issue, it might be chair of the finance committee Coun. Raymond Louie.
In what can only be viewed as an act of extreme political indiscretion, the hired help had a hissy fit. Or as Magee told me, the reporter "caught me at a particularly steamed and vulnerable moment."
But was there reason to react to the Coalition's ad campaign at all? In each of the past four years, Robertson and his majority have faithfully favoured the Fair Tax Coalition by shifting a portion of the property tax burden from commercial to residential property. Literally millions of dollars have been moved off the backs of businesses each year.
Robertson made that policy a condition of his standing as Vision's candidate for mayor. His main Vision opponent at that time, Raymond Louie, was dead set against the shift. And, indeed, every year the Vision council has enacted it, they've received considerable heat from their own members to say nothing of the party to the left of them, COPE.
But they continued to shift shamelessly away, following the recommendations of an independent commission on the matter, until this year when a proposed relationship between residential and commercial taxes was achieved. At this point the commission recommended a moratorium before further shifts, which is what council is doing.
Throughout this process, while Vision councillors and Robertson were taking their lumps from their own team, they noted that members of the Coalition remained remarkably mute in their praise. Or to put it in the words of an unrepentant Magee as he told me: "They have shown zero amount of gratitude or any common decency."
What complicates matters in this strained relationship is the role played by Leonard Schein. The successful movie theatre owner and operator has been a Vision supporter from its birth and, in fact, was co-chair of the group that broke away from COPE to form Vision when it was called Friends of Larry Campbell.
He is also now chair of the Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»Fair Tax Coalition and you'd think he would have done what the Coalition has done in the past to influence council, which is to just pick up the phone. Instead, council was blindsided by an ad campaign where neither party has come out looking very good.
With friends like these, well, what can I say?
