We don’t yet know how much the budget for the 2010 security costs has increased. The original estimate of $175 million was laughable, considering Salt Lake City’s security costs in 2002 were close to $500 million. Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day is being coy, but plans to release the adjusted estimate soon.

Plenty of discussion at the Pacific North West Economic Region’s annual summit, here in Vancouver this week, including the aforementioned Olympic security costs, and the announcement that the road from Vancouver to Whistler will be closed to non-Olympic traffic during peak Olympic times. If you aren’t on a bus going to an event, then you can pretty much forget trying to drive the Sea-to-Sky Highway, or to Horseshoe Bay to catch a ferry. Does this mean BC Highways Minister Kevin Falcon will finally get that helicopter he’s been coveting?

BC Ferries will be increasing their fares by as much as 17.6%, depending on the route, starting August 1. Considering that gasoline prices have increased by 26.9% over the past year, the ferry increase could be worse.

It does lead one to wonder whether cost increases like this will discourage tourism, which is experiencing zero growth, according to Candice Gibson, manager of consumer marketing at Tourism Vancouver.

The cure for flat tourism numbers is lesbians, according to Gibson and Vision Vancouver councillor Tim Stevenson, who has been mysteriously quiet for the last year. Lesbians, says Stevenson, have plenty of money and no children, and would spend more time in Vancouver if Vancouver bought a $33,000 advertising contract with Curve magazine.

Meanwhile, it’s also been revealed by Candice Gibson, that Vancouver is already a top spot for gay and lesbian tourism, based on a survey done by San Francisco-based Community Marketing. It’s hard to fathom how $33,000 and four print placements in Curve mag would make a discernible difference in our travel destination cachet.

If you’re too poor to travel this summer, you can always take in the Victory Square block party this Labour Day weekend.

Or check out the new Cactus Club at Bentall 5, which along with food concept architect Rob Feenie’s new menu items, Veuve Clicquot by the glass, and three Basquiats, a Warhol, and a Brent Comber hanging on the walls, still offers many reasonably priced “pre-Feenie deep-fried pub standards.” All that and a minimum 1 hour wait. Globe and Mail food critic Alexandra Gill’s review is here.

While we moan about declining tourism numbers and decide where we’re going out for dinner tonight, Monsanto et al are having their way with South African farmers. Over the past decade, South Africa has entered trade agreements with large, multi-national agricultural biotechnology corporations, such as Monsanto, which promote the subsidisation of patented GM seeds. Through an incentive system supporting monocultures, small-scale farmers are systematically integrated into commercial agriculture. Small-scale farmers who sign up for GM deals quickly lose control over seed management, production, and eventually their land.

I was late to the Monet to Dali show at the Vancouver Art Gallery yesterday, awe struck at the number of important paintings on display. If you haven’t been yet, this one is not to be missed. It closes September 16.

Now, the VAG has just announced that there will be a major retrospective of Georgia O’Keeffe paintings on display from October 6 to December 13. This will be the first solo exhibition in Canada dedicated to the American artist in 50 years.

The exhibition will also feature a selection of photographs of O’Keeffe as a young woman taken by her husband Alfred Stieglitz, and of her later in life by American photographer Todd Webb. I saw some of the Stieglitz photos a couple of decades ago in New York and look forward to seeing them again, this time in conjunction with some of O’Keefe’s canvases.

Image source: George Eastman House webpage

In my mailbox this morning, info about some upcoming lectures:

Congestion Pricing: An alternative to highway expansion in the region?
Wednesday, May 16, 7-8:30 pm
Venue: SFU Harbour Centre, 515 W.Hastings Street, Vancouver
Admission free, but reservations are required.
Email cs_hc@sfu.ca or Call 604.291.5100

Other cities in Europe, Asia and North America are increasingly turning to various forms of road and congestion pricing to reduce crippling levels of traffic congestion. Find out how metropolitan areas around the world are using road pricing as an alternative to the traditional approach of simply expanding road networks to meet demand.

Speaker: Lee Munnich, University of Minnesota, leading expert on congestion pricing. Co-sponsored by Better Environmentally Sound Transportation (BEST) and by the SFU City Program.
Details: http://www.sfu.ca/city/fpl11popup.htm

Transportation: On the right track for EcoDensity
Thursday, May 24, 2007, 7-9 pm
Venue: SFU Harbour Centre, Room 1400, 515 W.Hastings Street, Vancouver
Free event. Reservations required: 604.873.7707 or ecodensity@vancouver.ca

Join us for a panel discussion with Dr. Larry Frank, architect Peter Busby and transportation engineer Lon LaClaire. Dr. Frank, the Bombardier Chair holder in Sustainable Transportation at UBC’s School of Community and Regional Planning, specializes in the interaction between land use, travel behaviour, air quality and health. Mr. Busby will comment on the relationship between parking and the development and financing of higher density housing and Mr. LaClaire will focus on density and transit. Co-sponsored by the City of Vancouver and the City Program at Simon Fraser University.

VIA Architecture Urban Design Lecture: Landscape, Waste and Urbanization
Wednesday, May 23, 7-8:30 pm
Venue: SFU Vancouver, Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings Street, Vancouver
To reserve: email cs_hc@sfu.ca or call 604.291.5100

Alan Berger scans the globe with camera and insights into contemporary development-your guide to a vast, largely ignored field of waste landscapes and to the new chaotic urban landscapes in the emerging world. Expect a radical reconceptualization of your thinking. Alan Berger is Associate Professor, Department of Landscape Architecture, Harvard Graduate School of Design. Author of Drosscape: Wasting Land in Urban America and Nansha Coastal City: Landscape and Urbanism in the Pearl River Delta. (AIBC 1.5 NCLU; PIBC 1.5 LU)

Majors’ Public Lecture Series

Planning for the Second Great City: Why what happens south of the Fraser will determine our future
Wednesday, May 30, 2007, 6:30-8 pm
Venue: SFU Surrey, Central City, Theatre 2600 (Westminster Savings Credit Union Theatre), Mezzanine level, 13450 102nd Avenue, Surrey
Admission is free. Reservations are not required. Seating is first-come, first-served therefore early arrival is recommended.

Gordon Price, Director of the SFU City Program and previously a Vancouver city councillor, may live north of the Fraser in the West End, but he knows the future of the Lower Mainland will be determined more by what happens south of the Fraser.
Price will talk about past actions and future visions. His lecture will show how most of the region came to be, what influenced its progress, and what possibilities and trade-offs need to be considered for a more sustainable future. Price will also speculate on what issues will be debated by city councillors to come.
For more information visit http://www.sfu.ca/cstudies/surrey/mayors.htm
This SFU Surrey lecture is presented in partnership with the City Program, Continuing Studies, SFU.

Building Complete Communities: The Noisette New American City
Thursday, May 31, 7-8:30 pm
“Venue: SFU Vancouver, Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings Street, Vancouver
To reserve: email cs_hc@sfu.ca or call 604.291.5100

Noisette is being restored as a sustainable community-one based on a triple bottom line: people, planet and prosperity. The Noisette Company principal John Knott will give an overview of this community’s master plan to develop as a diverse, interrelated network of neighbourhoods, parks, retail areas, industrial partners, civic facilities and connections to surrounding communities. Co-sponsored by Smart Growth BC. (AIBC 1.5 NCLU; PIBC 1.5 LU)

City Making in Paradise
Thursday, June 14, 7-8:30 pm
Venue: SFU Vancouver, Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings Street, Vancouver
To reserve: email cs_hc@sfu.ca or call 604.291.5100
Mike Harcourt (past Mayor and Premier) and Ken Cameron (past regional planner) talk about what’s in their new book, written with Sean Rossiter: nine decisions that shaped the Greater Vancouver Region. Hear first-hand perspectives from those who did the shaping. Also: comments from a panel of ‘new leaders’-the shapers of today. (AIBC 1.5 NCLU; PIBC 1.5 LU)

Not sure how to get properly into the Irish spirit(s) this St. Paddy’s Day? Check out Martini Boys proposed libational itinerary of Vancouver watering holes.

“The World’s Best Commercials” is showing at the Ridge Theatre for the next two nights. It features 88 entertaining minutes of this year’s winners of the London International Ad Awards.

Plays March 14-15, 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. at the Ridge Theatre, 3131 Arbutus St., 604-738-6311, www.festivalcinemas.ca

more from my Outlook inbox:

SEE BEYOND
Women engaged in the Arts, Vision & Empowerment (WEAVE) and Business Objects
presents a gallery exhibition of Downtown Eastside artists.

Join us in celebration of the accomplishments of artists whose creativity
and talent transcend their struggles with poverty, violence and addiction.
This exhibit will expand your definition of community, hope and the human
spirit.

Thursday, February 22, 5-8pm

Business Objects building

211 Nelson St. (Corner of Cambie St.), Vancouver

Free admission & refreshments

There will be appetizers, music and a special elder ceremony to open the
event. Come support local artists and your community!

More information at

604.681.8480 x 226

www.weavearts.org

in my Outlook inbox today:
Come to the EcoDensity Fair on March 3 and 4!

How would you make Vancouver more green, livable and affordable? The EcoDensity process is underway and looking for ideas to make it happen.

EcoDensity is about facing the challenge of growth and change in Vancouver in a way that reduces our impact on the environment – while fostering livability and promoting greater affordability.

Bring your ideas about density, livability and affordability in Vancouver to the EcoDensity Fair on March 3 and 4th, 10:00 - 4:00 at Riley Park Community Centre. For more information visit the EcoDensity website at: www.vancouver.ca/ecodensity

Hear one of the world’s leading housing innovators, Avi Freedman, March 3, 7:00 p.m., at Library Square as part of the Speaker Series. Free. Registration required. 604-873-7707 or ecodensity@vancouver.ca.

Visit the EcoDensity website to learn more about the Initiative, to submit your ideas, and to get involved in the process.

I don’t think this new civil city policy will be changing my fashion approach:

VANCOUVER/CKNW(AM980) - Vancouver Police will soon be circulating a memo reminding officers that it’s okay for woman to walk around the City topless.The move comes after a complaint was made to the police department from a woman who has crusaded for the right to go shirtless for years and was victorius in BC Supreme Court.

Vancouver Police Chief Jamie Graham says not everyone realizes it’s okay to bare your breasts in public, “Whether we’ve now evolved to a stage in our society where people can walk around with no clothes or topless is an issue that is going to generate, on some people’s part, concern and when that happens they phone us.”Graham says officers don’t mean any harm when they detain a topless woman, even if it’s just for brief questioning.

A memo is now being sent to officers reminding them of the Court ruling.

The rock gods Gordon Sumner et al have made it official. They will be enhancing their coffers and reprising their hits on a world tour. More info here if you must.

If you’ve ever wondered why you’re not Adrienne Clarkson, this may be your chance to find out. The Right Honorable Adrienne herself, and her consort husband, John Ralston Saul, are bringing the LaFontaine-Baldwin Lecture to Vancouver for its 2007 turn.

Mme. Clarkson will speak on Friday, March 2, 7pm, at the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver. The lecture is described as a discussion on citizenship and democracy entitled “The Society of Difference”.

The following morning, John Ralston Saul will lead the symposium/town hall/public discussion at the Vancouver Public Library, Alice McKay Room, beginning at 10am. There will be a host of other speakers at this event including Adrienne Clarkson, Bob Rae, and Larry Beasely.

Admssion to the symposium on Saturday morning is free, and tickets to the lecture are very reasonably priced at $10 (plus a $6.50 Ticketmaster “handling fee” for two–grrr).

Source: Penmachine