Today I’m very happy for two good reasons.
First, I’m so pleased to let you know that my online petition urging Mayor Kennedy Stewart to keep his campaign promise to raise the empty home tax to 3% already has more than 700 signatures! I’m also happy that the Georgia Straight, still one of the best progressive media voices around, ran my original November 15 blog about my petition as a comment piece last week.
I emailed the mayor and all members of city council a copy of the petition on Monday. I haven’t heard back from anyone yet, but fingers crossed that such a large number of signatures gathered in such a short period of time will have an impact on his thinking.
If you haven’t already done so, you can still sign my petition here. And if you can, take a minute to read some of the comments posted. It’s very revealing that so many people are taking the time to comment about their situations—how $2,300 to rent a one-bedroom apartment is just not doable, or a suitable home for one 4-member family is simply out of reach and they might have to leave Vancouver after living and working here 15 years.
Another commenter noted how many empty home owners are faking occupancy by hiring people to turn on lights and put out garbage bins! Or are those some of the many illegal, empty-home Airbnb’s around town that city regulators haven’t shut down yet—empty houses that would otherwise make excellent homes for somebody in Vancouver’s housing crisis?
More good news is the announcement just after midnight Wednesday morning that a tentative settlement has been reached between Coast Mountain Bus Company and Unifor, the union representing transit workers. This tentative agreement, which I hope gets approved by Unifor’s members, averted a three-day total shutdown of all buses and SeaBuses.
On a personal note, my partner, Penny, had a medical appointment Wednesday and was dreading the fact it would have taken her three hours to walk to it at Broadway and Cambie from our home in Kitsilano. Due to her very bad back, she has difficulty sitting down in vehicles, which rules out taking a taxi or accepting a lift from a friend. She loves the bus because she can stand up! We sometimes forget about people like Penny who rely on transit because they literally have no other choice.
So today is a great day for me. I hope it’s one for you, too!
Daily atmospheric CO2 [Courtesy of CO2.Earth]
Latest daily total (Nov. 27 2019): 410.58 ppm
One year ago (Nov. 14 2018): 408.41 ppm
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