time for diplomacy is now

Tim Carlson pictured at Western Theatre Conspiracy 10th Anniversary Party.

Playwright feels time for Diplomacy is now

Vancouver Courier

Friday, October 27, 2006

By Shawn Conner

Diplomacy is the title of a new production from Western Theatre Conspiracy. But a less than diplomatic incident sparked the play.

Prior to Diplomacy's gestation, playwright Tim Carlson came across an anecdote about Prime Minister Lester Pearson getting an earful from President Lyndon Johnson. Apparently, the Canadian leader had criticized Johnson's handling of Vietnam, suggesting negotiations with that country might proceed in a more positive direction if the U.S. stopped dropping bombs on it.

"So Johnson hauls Pearson down to Camp David," says Carlson, at a West Side coffee shop. "It's just the two of them standing out by the swimming pool, with some press and aides around. And supposedly Johnson grabbed Pearson by the lapels and said, 'Don't come down here and piss on my rug.'" Piss, adds Carlson, was the then-president's defining metaphor. "He was a big brawling Texan."

The playwright liked the image of the leader of the land of the free giving the prime minister a shake. Around the same time Carlson came across that story, relations between Jean Chretien and the Bush administration were strained. "So there seemed to be some commonality," he says. As well, the 2004 U.S. election campaign was underway, and Vietnam was suddenly part of the dialogue.

"Bush hadn't gone over, and [John] Kerry was the one with the experience." Attitudes and even the history of Vietnam were being rewritten, it seemed. "These days the White House is saying, 'We did what we needed to do, we didn't lose that war, we found an honourable way out.'"

These are some of the themes Carlson has worked into Diplomacy, which, despite its subject matter, is intended to connect on an emotional level. "I didn't want to write a purely historical or political play," he says, "but one which is essentially very much a family drama, where the effects of history and contemporary politics play out on an interpersonal dynamic."

Diplomacy revolves around four characters. Roy (Keith Martin Gordey), now an historian specializing in Canadian diplomacy, deserted the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War. An, the daughter of Roy's wife Thu Van, is a diplomat in Damascus. Cal (John Innes), a journalist, tries to help his friend Roy when the latter suffers a crisis after the tragic death of Thu Van. Roy's student Cal (Josh Dixon) stirs the pot by confronting his mentor.

Khaira Ledeyo, the actor who plays An, brings personal experience to the production. "The part is for a woman in her 30s who came over as a boat person from Vietnam, which is Khaira's story," says Carlson. "She was two at the time. Her mother fled. An actor that can bring that kind of personal history to the play is important, in a lot of ways."

Diplomacy marks Carlson's second full-length play produced by Western Theatre Conspiracy, the company he oversees with director Richard Wolfe. With the production, WTC enters its 10th year of bringing to Vancouver cutting-edge work like Closer, A Skull in Connemara, Blue/Orange, and Carlson's own Omniscience.

Three years after its Vancouver debut, Omniscience is finding a warm reception in Europe. A Lisbon theatre company is performing it next year, and a German translation is scheduled to be read in early December as part of the Berlin-based International Theatre Institute's dramaturgy conference.

Though set in the future, the earlier production and the modern-day Diplomacy share some themes, including what the writer calls the fallout of war. "I don't think a war is over when peace treaties are signed. There's a fallout that lasts at least two or three generations." You can see that, he says, in post-traumatic stress syndrome, which affects not only participants in war but their families and friends as well.

"I came across an article about a guy who served in Vietnam, then became a Protestant minister in Seattle," says Carlson. "He committed suicide last year because the war on terrorism footage and conversation put him back in that whole Vietnam mind frame. As tragic as that is, I think it's really telling. That idea plays a big part in this play."

Diplomacy runs Nov. 4-11 at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre. For more information, visit www.vecc.bc.ca

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Diplomacy

by Tim Carlson

Directed by Richard Wolfe

Nov 2nd to 11th, 2006

Western Theatre Conspiracy kicks off its 10th anniversary season with the premiere of Diplomacy presented by the Vancouver East Cultural Centre, Nov. 4-11. (The show opens Saturday November 4th, with two- for- one previews November 2 & 3, 8 pm. There is also a matinée November 11 at 4 pm. There are no performances November 5 & 6.)

Diplomacy, written by Vancouver’s Tim Carlson, delves into the heart of the most fractious debate facing the country: Are we a nation of peacekeepers or a nation of warriors? Is there a middle ground?

A conflict-fueled drama with moments of heartbreak and dark humour, Diplomacy is signature Conspiracy — a theatrical reflection on international themes that define the contemporary world.

International politics infuse the personal politics between four Canadians whose lives were defined by the Vietnam War and now struggle to position themselves in the present.

Diplomacy charts the psychological disintegration of Roy (Keith Martin Gordey), who deserted the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War to become a historian specializing in Canadian diplomacy.

Roy’s Vietnamese-born wife, Thu Van, has flashbacks to the war she experienced as a girl as the war heats up in the Middle East where her daughter, An (Khaira Ledeyo), serves as a Canadian diplomat in Damascus. Thu Van’s tragic death shakes Roy’s faith in his past, his teachings and personal philosophy. His fears spiral out of control, leading him toward violence. Roy’s best friend, Sinclair (John Innes), a journalist, tries to lead Roy back toward his pacifist convictions. Josh Dixon rounds out the cast.

“The Vietnam-era draft dodger or army deserter is a quintessentially Canadian character — as influential in the evolution of national identity as any other category of immigrant,” says playwright Tim Carlson. “They are in many respects the embodiment of how the nation saw itself in relation to the United States during the Vietnam conflict: They opted out of a war their government lied about, we welcomed them and they have made a great contribution to the country.”

A stellar design team includes David Roberts (winner outstanding set design Jessie ’06, A Skull in Connemara), Alan Brodie (nominated outstanding lighting design, A Skull in Connemara), videographer Flick Harrison (nominated special acheivement for video design Jessie ’05, Omniscience), composer and sound designer Chris Hind (Skull, Omniscience, Closer) and, joining Conspiracy for the first time, costume designer Sheila White.

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got the transportation blues

Translink halts plans to fight congestion

Most spending frozen while province review decides transit body's fate

The Vancouver Sun

Thursday, October 19, 2006

By William Boei

TransLink directors put a hold Wednesday on nearly all spending to ease future transit and traffic congestion in Greater Vancouver while they wait for the provincial government to decide the regional transportation authority's fate.

Only two projects escaped the axe:

- Directors decided to spend $147 million on 34 new SkyTrain cars to deal with serious overcrowding on the Expo Line.

- Planners will get $16 million to do detailed design work on the $970-million Evergreen light rail line to the northeast corner of Greater Vancouver, even though the project has a $400-million capital shortfall and its future is uncertain.

Directors approved an $880-million budget for 2007, including a $200-million surplus as a hedge against deficits forecast for later in the decade.

But they put a hold on all other future projects, including construction of the Evergreen Line, bus fleet expansion after 2007, a new rapid-bus service to Surrey, spending on roads other than maintenance, buying a third SeaBus, and design and construction of another rapid-transit line along Vancouver's severely crowded Broadway corridor.

The delays in expanding roads and transit are expected to add to already critical congestion problems on the region's major commuter routes, where travel times have increased by about 30 per cent in the past 10 years. The Broadway corridor, where bus routes are overcrowded, has become the most-congested transit corridor in the region.

TransLink bureaucrats warned directors they can't plan for anything beyond 2007 because Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon's governance review of TransLink has not reported back yet, and until Falcon receives that report and makes his decisions, they won't know what kind of funding to expect or even who will be in charge of the region's transportation planning in future.

TransLink starts a new three-year budget cycle in 2008, and there is no assured source of money for projects tentatively planned for those three years in the agency's ambitious 10-year outlook.

TransLink director and Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan said the 10-year outlook was never practical, especially once TransLink had committed to shouldering debts from the Canada Line project.

"Now we are starting to pay the piper," Corrigan said. "Now we are recognizing that the plan was over-ambitious. Some of the priorities have hamstrung us."

But TransLink chairman and Richmond Mayor Malcolm Brodie said TransLink will be fine as long as the provincial and federal governments step up to the plate with sustainable funding.

"What we need is senior governments to come in and help us out," Brodie said.

Falcon has said he is willing to ask the federal government to help pay for the Evergreen Line, but has refused to commit the province to any other new funding for TransLink.

Directors approved a preliminary design and business plan for the Evergreen Line as well as the $16 million for detailed design. But if there's no new money by next spring, the line may stay on the drawing board.

Brodie defended the decision to spend more money on design despite the capital shortfall, saying if TransLink stops the process completely, there will never be funding from senior governments.

The possibility that the line won't be built upset Port Moody Mayor Joe Trasolini, who recalled that TransLink directors voted two years ago to build it at the same time as the Canada Line.

To the provincial and federal governments, Trasolini said: "It's our turn. If you ever want to show your faces in the northeast sector, take us seriously."

Vancouver TransLink directors were worried that new buses and more rapid transit to reduce congestion in the Broadway corridor may be melting away.

Coun. Suzanne Anton said failing to expand the system "would almost be like giving up on our mandate."

"We've made a deal with citizens," Anton said. "If you get out of your car, we'll provide you transit. So we've got 100,000 people a day at that [Broadway SkyTrain] station out of their cars, and we're not able to keep up with the transit they require. That's the big challenge for this board."

Mayor Sam Sullivan added that he has seen hundreds of people lined up to catch buses at Broadway and Commercial while full buses pass them, unable to take on more passengers.

Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts said her city desperately needs improved bus service while Coquitlam Mayor Maxine Wilson urged the board to extend rapid transit east of the Pitt River into Pitt Meadows and Maple Ridge.

But TransLink chief operating officer Ian Jarvis said TransLink will have to find new money if it wants to build anything new from 2008 on.

Jarvis said existing funding sources, such as property tax, transit fares and the new parking tax "won't grow fast enough to keep up," and several directors said the public won't put up with more property tax increases.

Corrigan reminded directors that previous Social Credit and NDP provincial governments paid for 100 per cent of Greater Vancouver's rapid transit projects, such as the Expo and Millennium lines, but that funding under the provincial Liberals for the Canada and Evergreen Lines had dropped to 20 per cent.

"The province has completely abandoned a responsibility that was funded by the previous governments," he said.

TransLink also heard demands from the public and lobby groups for more and better transit service, some of them conflicting.

Marion Town, of Better Environmentally Sound Transit (BEST), wanted directors to use some of TransLink's current budget surpluses to buy more buses.

Officials of Douglas College in Coquitlam urged directors to approve the Evergreen Line in principle, including an extension to the college, which they did.

Citizens for Appropriate Evergreen Transit wanted TransLink to scrap the Evergreen light-rail plan completely and build a SkyTrain line to Coquitlam instead. TransLink staff said that would cost an extra $300 million, in addition to the existing $400-million shortfall.

Students from Vancouver Community, Capilano and Emily Carr colleges wanted TransLink to extend its successful U-Pass program to their campuses. TransLink plans some U-Pass additions next year, but major expansion would require more buses, and those were put on hold together with other post-2007 plans.

The Bus Riders Union demanded TransLink cancel the Evergreen Line and use the money to buy more buses. Directors said they admired the young activists' energy and passion, but found their ideas impractical.

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For whom the road tolls

Pt 4 in the series, Destination: Gridlock

National Post

Wednesday, Oct 18, 2006

By Lawrence Solomon

Traffic congestion costs Toronto an estimated $1.8-billion a year, and a poll of business leaders this month said fixing it should be the new city council's first priority. In the final instalment of a four-part series, Lawrence Solomon argues that toll roads are not part of the solution -- they are the entire solution.

Three years ago, with urban road tolls working brilliantly in London, Toronto mayoralty candidate David Miller mused that tolling promised to be advantageous for Toronto, too. His rivals pounced on his statement and Miller meekly recanted. Road tolls held no promise after all, he decided, if they threatened his candidacy.

How does play-it-safe Mayor Miller feel about road tolls today? ''I don't believe they're the right solution for Toronto,'' he answers, adding that he has thought long and hard about toll roads over the past three years.

Does Miller pooh-pooh the successes that London and other cities have had -- an end to gridlock, increased transit use, less pollution -- all because of tolling?

Well, then, I ask, would he consider the more sophisticated system for Toronto? ''[That's] not on my agenda,'' Miller says, ending the conversation. ''You have my position.''

It's hard to blame Miller for his caution. The last thing a politician wants, as he's seeking re-election, is a political wrong turn that could give his election rivals an opening. Although public opinion polls show Miller comfortably in the lead, his lacklustre leadership also makes him vulnerable: According to a Toronto Star/Decima poll released last month, Miller has a modest 53% approval rating, including only 17% who are ''very satisfied'' with him.

What does Jane Pitfield, Miller's chief opponent, think of roads tolls? ''I'm fundamentally opposed,'' she blurts, quickly re-blurting that she would consider letting the public decide the issue through a referendum, but (blurt #3) ''not at this time.'' Moreover, she says adamantly, Toronto should adopt the best practices from around the world, and if road tolls turned out to make sense for Toronto, she'd be all for them.

While Pitfield drives off in all directions, and Miller steers clear of controversy, Toronto's traffic worsens, harming the economy and the environment. Cities with courageous leaders, in contrast, see solutions to traffic and their civic leaders see electoral success.

No civic leader has been more courageous than ''Red'' Ken Livingstone, London's radical mayor, who ran for office in 2000 on what many considered a suicidal pledge to toll private vehicles entering downtown London. To the amazement of a press and political establishment that mocked his campaign, Londoners took his arguments to heart and voted him in. The concept then proved so successful -- within a year trips by car declined 30% while those by bicycle rose by 20%, by taxi 20%, and by public transit 23% -- that Livingstone ran for re-election four years later on a vow to extend the tolling system. Londoners re-elected him.

Stockholm and its mayor went down a more circuitous road. There, left- leaning Social Democrat Mayor Annika Billstrom ran for office in 2002 pledging to avoid road tolls, then overwhelmingly unpopular with the public. The national government, also led by Social Democrats, thought otherwise: Over her fierce opposition, it forced tolling on Stockholm in what became known as the Stockholm Trials, a seven-month test period from Jan. 1 of this year to July 31. After Stockholm residents had experienced the toll system first hand, they would deliver their verdict in a referendum on election day, Sept. 17.

As soon as the Trials began, and the benefits of tolling began to sink in, public opposition began to change. By June, a majority in the city had swung in favour of the tolling. By the end of the trials, only 40% of Stockholm residents opposed the toll and the merits of tolling had become so clear that even in Stockholm's suburbs, where the opposition to road tolling had raged most, the public became evenly split -- 46% for and 46% against. The public sentiment in favour of the trials was cemented on Aug. 1, one day after the Trials ended, when Stockholm's streets once again become congested.

Needless to say, along the way Mayor Billstrom became a fierce advocate of the tolling system, and ran for re-election as its champion.

On Sept. 17, Stockholm residents voted to make the tolls permanent. They also voted Billstrom out of office.

The change in public attitudes towards tolls follows the facts on the ground. Facing a charge of 10 to 20 kronors ($1.50 to $3) to pass an electronic toll gate during weekdays between 6:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m., some 100,000 drivers per day decided to make lifestyle changes. Traffic declined by 22%, travelling speeds for buses and cars in the inner city increased between 30% and 50%, public transit use increased by 9%, and emissions decreased by 10% to 14%. A cross-city rush-hour trip that once took two hours, compared to 30 minutes in off-peak hours, took less than 45 minutes during the Stockholm Trials. As a side benefit, traffic injuries dropped by 10%.

In Stockholm, as in London, previous attempts at alleviating traffic congestion proved futile. The latest instance occurred several months before the trials began, when the city added 200 new buses to its fleet, boosted the number of rush-hour trains and express bus routes it operated, and installed 1,800 new park-and-ride places at stations. The expenditure -- some $200-million -- would have been largely wasted had the Trials not increased demand for public services: The additional transit facilities had next to no effect on the number of cars on the streets.

Other traffic-reduction measures, such as bicycle lanes and sky-high gasoline taxes, also accomplished little. Gasoline taxes were also counter-productive in fighting gridlock because they penalized vehicles that are part of the solution -- including private automobiles that relieve congestion by operating on uncongested streets.

Once targetted tolls came into place, drivers had meaningful choices. Some shifted their commutes and shopping trips to different times of the day, when the streets were less congested and the tolls lower; others arrived before 6:30 a.m. or left after 6:30 p.m., to avoid the toll altogether. Others changed their routes to avoid areas subject to tolls, or put off trips that could just as easily wait. Some shared rides with others to also share the cost; still others switched to taxis or public transit or bicycles or walked. With the price signal directing traffic, almost everyone became savvier about where and when they would travel.

The savviness grows around the world. It is now the policy of the European Union government to electronically toll roads throughout the EU. In the U.K., where even rural roads are slated to be tolled by 2014, the next Queen's Speech to Parliament is expected to discuss road tolling. In Milan, road tolling trials begin in 2007. In New York, Mayor Michael Bloomberg is soon expected to unveil a historic plan for modernizing the city, with tolling as a centrepiece. Around the world, more than 100 cities are studying how best to implement tolls.

Toronto, David Miller would have us believe, is a special case not suited to tolling. Trust me, he says, ''I've thought about this for three years.''

Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Urban Renaissance Institute, a division of Energy Probe Research Foundation. He is also a director of PEMA, a non-profit with patents on electronic toll road technology.

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two more years of hell on wheels

Roads ripped up for rapid transit

The Vancouver Sun

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

By William Boei

VANCOUVER - Construction of the Canada Line in downtown Vancouver shifts into high gear this week, and won't start winding down again for more than two years.

Work began on the Yaletown Station at Davie Street last spring, digging is now under way for the Vancouver City Centre station at Granville and Robson, and construction fencing starts going up this week in preparation for more excavations on Granville between Pender and Cordova.

For the next two years and a few months, three of the five blocks of the Granville Mall between Robson and Cordova will be fenced off and dug up.

Sidewalks on the mall will stay open, as will east-west streets. A temporary bridge will be built over the Canada Line trench at Hastings, and there will be traffic pattern changes on Cordova.

At Granville and Robson, the hole for the City Centre station is about 15 per cent dug and the whole block has been fenced in from sidewalk to sidewalk.

"We'll be down to the tunnel level by the end of January," said Steve Crombie, public affairs vice-president for InTransitBC, the consortium that's building the rapid transit line from Vancouver to Richmond and will operate it.

The tunnel-boring machine that's burrowing under downtown Vancouver left its starting point at Cambie Street and Second Avenue several months ago and is currently under False Creek. It will pass the Robson construction site some time next spring.

Major construction at Robson will be finished by the end of 2008 at which point the hole will be filled and the road rebuilt, although below-ground work on the station will continue for several more months.

The two blocks from Georgia to Pender will not be touched.

But on Granville north of Pender, an extraction pit will be dug for the tunnel boring machine, Granville at Cordova will be excavated for the Waterfront terminus station, and the stretch in between will be trenched for tunnel-building.

The boring machine will arrive at the pit about the end of March or early April, Crombie said.

Its cutting head will be hauled out of the pit and trucked back to Cambie and Second, where it will start its journey all over again to build the line's second tunnel. The extraction pit will be covered pending the machine's second coming.

Work crews began erecting construction fencing between Pender and Hastings Monday.

The next few weeks will see utility relocation, tree and street-fixture removal and piling work.

"The actual heavy excavation should start a few weeks from now," Crombie said Monday.

Once the hole is dug at the Granville-Hastings intersection, a temporary bridge will be built for east-west traffic.

At Cordova, the construction site will likely extend into the intersection, starting early next year.

"There's going to be a traffic pattern change on Cordova that's being worked on right now," Crombie said.

Parkades around Granville and Cordova will be able to stay open, although the one on the southeast corner will have to use its Cordova entrance only.

Lanes on either side of Granville in the construction area will stay open, but will likely be restricted to business loading and unloading only.

Structural work on the Waterfront Station should be completed in late 2008, at which point the road will be resurfaced. Inside work on the station will go on until July of 2009.

At the other end of downtown Vancouver, at Davie Street and Pacific Boulevard, months of messy piling work was expected to be finished today.

Permanent fencing with better sight lines will be built about the third week of November, but station construction will take all of 2007 and 2008. That should allow the road to reopen, but work will continue on the station entrance at Davie and Mainland.

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Canada Line construction in high gear Granville Mall excavation is underway.

A. Waterfront Station

- Construction fencing goes up starting this week
- Excavation begins by mid-November
- Road restoration begins about the end of 2008

B. Boring machine extraction pit

- Excavation begins by mid-November
- Boring machine reaches extraction pit by the end of March
- Road restoration begins about the end of 2008

C. Robson Station

- Excavation has started, continues through January.
- Tunnel construction begins in May
- Construction ends by the end of 2008

D. Yaletown Station

- Piling work ends today.
- Excavation begins late November
- Construction continues to the end of 2008

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New YVR link on schedule

Transit line going up 'right before our eyes'

The Province

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

By Andy Ivens

An air horn blared, assembled dignitaries cheered and concrete began to flow for the final elevated guideway column on the Vancouver-airport section of the new Canada Line rapid-transit line yesterday.

On time and on budget, the Canada Line is emerging "right before our eyes," as TransLink chairman and Richmond Mayor Malcolm Brodie noted.

Because of the rapid pace of construction, Brodie predicted the time until the Canada Line gets up and running -- scheduled for November 2009 -- "will go by very quickly."

In nine months' time, the four-kilometre Sea Island section of the line should be completed. It will then be used as the test track for the entire 19-kilometre line linking the airport and Richmond to downtown Vancouver.

The next phase of construction will see the guideway extended eastward over the Arthur Laing Bridge, under the Oak Street Bridge and on to the Bridgeport Station site.

Concrete segments weighing 39 tonnes -- each one unique -- are being cast at Canada Line's pre-cast yard in south Vancouver and transported to their locations.

A hybrid-design cable-stayed bridge will span the main channel of the Fraser River somewhere near the foot of Cambie Street. It's the first of its kind in North America.

"[The bridge] was a challenge," said Alan Dever, director of communications for Canada Line Rapid Transit Inc.

"It has to be high enough for the shipping [on the Fraser] and low enough for the planes [to pass over safely]."

The bridge will feature a dedicated bike path and a pedestrian walkway.

Steve Crombie, vice-president of public affairs for InTransit B.C. Ltd., said the YVR station "will be integrated with the look of the airport . . . You will see lots of glass that will make it transparent."

Crombie said West Coast native art will be incorporated into the station, in keeping with YVR's theme.

- Road closures on the Arthur Laing Bridge will begin next month. On 16 nights between Nov. 1 and Dec. 15, northbound, southbound or all lanes will be closed from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m.

why wallace is a bull

Big Ben's dislike for Flip helped fuel his departure

ESPN Insider
October 6, 2006
By Chris Sheridan

DEERFIELD, Ill. -- First and foremost, it was the money that brought Ben Wallace to the Chicago Bulls. They were offering a starting salary of $16 million -- more than $4 million more than what the Detroit Pistons were offering -- and the bottom line, we all know, is that money talks.

But there was another factor, too, one that Wallace had kept pent up until now, that made his decision an easier one.

He did not like coach Flip Saunders, not one bit. And the fury he felt toward his former coach after sitting out the final 12 minutes of Detroit's final playoff game last season stuck with him through June and into July -- a month that began with Bulls general manager John Paxson and coach Scott Skiles ringing his doorbell on the afternoon of the July 1, coming into his home and making a three-hour pitch to Wallace and his then-pregnant wife, Chanda.

A considerable amount of trepidation was rattling around inside Paxson's head that afternoon when he first walked in the door, but the feeling he exited with three hours later was somewhat hopeful. "I didn't know how realistic it was. I think all of us thought it would be very difficult to get Ben out of Detroit, though we saw there might be a crack in the door just from reading stuff," Paxson said.

There had been an episode in Orlando late in the season when Wallace refused to re-enter a game, and then there was Game 6 in Miami and the quotes from Wallace afterward that indicated all was not quite so hunky-dory over on the other side of Lake Michigan.

"The bottom line is we had the money, and we sold him on Scott being a no-nonsense guy who comes to work every day. We didn't have an agenda other than that, but we thought maybe there was a part of Ben that said maybe it's time to change teams one last time and see if I can't do something great somewhere else. We saw there was something [in Detroit] that he wasn't as thrilled about as he had been in the past, but I honestly didn't think we had much of a shot," Paxson told Insider from inside the second-floor office he inherited from predecessor Jerry Krause overlooking the court at the Bulls' suburban practice facility.

What the Bulls did have was a bevy of cap space, enabling them to offer Wallace much, much more than the Pistons were willing to pay. The starting salary of $16 million should end up being the most money Wallace ever makes in an NBA season, as his contract decreases to $15.5 million next season, $14.5 million in 2008-09 and $14 million in '09-10. Still, it all added up to $60 million, which was $8 million higher in total dollars than the Pistons indicated they were willing to go.

In a league in which making money is the bottom line, the decision started to become more and more of a no-brainer for Wallace the more he discussed it -- even though he was the No. 1 fan favorite in Detroit, a player whose name was called last in pregame introductions, a player who embodied the work ethic that the Pistons had always maintained was one of the main keys to their success, a player who might have even had his number retired if he had finished his career in Motown.

"I weighed all the pros and cons. One thing that really made me comfortable about coming here wasn't anything Pax or Scott did, it was that those guys I played with in Detroit, great guys, great teammates and great friends, it was like we were all in there negotiating together," Wallace said. "My agent talked to Pax, then came back and talked to me. And after we finished talking I hung up the phone and called Chauncey, ran the scenario by him, called Rip, Rasheed, Lindsey, Tayshaun, those guys. So it wasn't like I was making the decision on my own. I talked to those guys, and they all told me we would love to be selfish and tell you we need you to come back so we can make this run again, but they said this seems like an ideal situation with a team that reminded them of us when we won the championship. They said, 'It sounds like the best situation for you, and we can't blame you if you take it,'" Wallace said.

So Wallace took it, putting his six years in Detroit -- along with a coach he had no use for -- in his rearview mirror.

He had been stewing over his benching in Game 6 in Miami, and he skipped his exit interview with Saunders back in Auburn Hills, opting instead to speak only with team president Joe Dumars.

"At that point in time, the frustration was still sitting heavy on me, so there wasn't no need for me to have a conversation with Flip at all," Wallace recalled. "I thought the worst thing he can do to a player who's been there and been in the fight with you all season was to put me on that bench and force me to watch that whole fourth quarter and not have an opportunity to get in there and see the action. That was the toughest 12 minutes I ever had to play -- or ever had to watch. It sticks with me, it's still with me."

I interviewed Wallace that night in Miami after Game 6, concluding he was more apt to leave than stay after hearing him say: "Everyone knows where my heart is. It's in my chest." Wallace hinted at how livid he was over being benched for the fourth quarter, but held his tongue for the most part and never ripped Saunders by name.

Fast-forward to this past Wednesday evening following the Bulls' nightcap of two-a-day practices, and Wallace finally decided to open up to ESPN.com.

Did he like playing for Flip?

"No. I just didn't like the way we handled things," Wallace said. "We got away from our bread and butter, and that's on the defensive end. I hear him saying now that I'm gone he can open up his playbook. I laugh at it. Everyone's looking for something, and for him to say that, he's fishing for getting a reaction out of me. It's funny to me, real comical. I never thought you could win when you've got five guys on the floor looking for the ball and no one out there doing the little things. So that's on him. If he feels like that, go ahead."

Wallace mentioned Jim Lynam, Doc Rivers, Rick Carlisle and Larry Brown as the favorite coaches he has played for, going on to say Skiles reminds him of Brown because he does not play favorites and sees himself as a teacher at both ends of the floor.

Saunders did not make the list.

"I have no relationship with him. He's coach and I'm a player, and that's as far as it went. If you say your door is always open and we can always talk about things and you'll be willing to listen, and when I come to him to talk about something that's bothering me that I think is hurting the team, if you don't do anything to change it, then that's the last time I need to talk to you."

That time came early in the season when the Pistons were reeling off wins and beginning to set their sights on making a run at 70 victories, a number they'd eventually fall six wins short of.

"We weren't playing as hard as we could on defense. We had to grind it out when we should have been up and comfortable, giving other guys a chance to get some reps. But for the most part we had to fight. I just told him the way we were playing defense then, we didn't have a whole lot of defensive principles. We were just out there playing on natural ability, and we needed to put some type of system in place we were going to come out every night and use, instead of trying to feel our way through it," Wallace said. "He said: 'OK, I understand what you said.' But he never changed."

"Carlisle was cool. He's one of those coaches who said his door was open and you went to talk to him, if he didn't believe in what you said, he'd tell you and say, 'I'm not going to do it that way, it won't work.' You can't do nothing but respect that," Wallace said. "And coach Brown wasn't afraid to go out there and run a play for you, and if you did well on it he was going to keep coming to you."

Saunders also spoke to Insider, taking issue with Wallace's recollection of their meeting.

"We had opened 8-0 and we were just back after losing in Utah. We talked more about what he was doing offensively," Saunders said. "As far as Game 6, I'm probably as frustrated as him; we weren't scoring, and I was trying to get some offensive firepower."

Saunders did not run many plays for Wallace, and his scoring average sank from 9.7 points in his final season under Brown to 7.2 in his lone season under Saunders. Wallace did pick up his fourth Defensive Player of the Year award, but his rebounding average (11.3) dropped for the third consecutive season, and his blocked shot average (2.21) fell for the fourth straight year. Numbers such as those have caused many to say the Bulls overpaid for a 32-year-old center already on the decline, but while Paxson will allow that the Bulls did overspend (because they had to), he feels the perception that Wallace is in decline will inspire his big free-agent pickup.

Chicago is coming off its second straight first-round ouster in the playoffs, but last season was a throwaway year after the Bulls decided to trade Eddy Curry (and Antonio Davis) at the start of training camp, sacrificing their only low-post scoring threats along with a respected veteran whose leadership capabilities were not replaced. By bringing in Wallace and P.J. Brown, two players whose leadership comes from setting an example through their practice habits and game efforts, some of those missing elements have been replenished.

When the Bulls open the season Halloween night in Miami, Wallace will be back at the same locker where he sat so wounded and angry in June after what turned out to be his final game in a Detroit uniform. But he'll be wearing Bulls colors this time, red and black, and he'll be starting a new chapter in a career that has taken him from being an undrafted nobody to possibly becoming the biggest impact free agent since Steve Nash left Dallas for Phoenix.

And when the final 12 minutes roll around, Wallace hopes Saunders is watching somewhere on TV, taking note that Wallace will be spending this fourth quarter on the floor instead of the bench.

"From here on out, I'm going to remember that 12 minutes on that bench," he said. "I had been there through thick and thin with those guys, and I hated to watch my teammates out there put up a fight and there was nothing I could do to help them. It was like the big brother scenario, seeing someone pick on your little brother or sister and you can't do nothing about it.

"It was a helpless feeling, man. Things were going the way they were going, and there was nothing I could do to change it."

So Wallace decided to change what he could.

Mostly it was about the money. But it was also about Saunders.

And that, folks, is why Wallace is a Bull.

Chris Sheridan covers the NBA for ESPN Insider.

fishing for condo dollars

Site to resemble 'classic fishing village'

Vancouver Sun

September 9, 2006

By John Mackie

The Olympic Village site that Robert Stern will be working on is located in the middle of the southeast False Creek lands. The city of Vancouver sold the 2.6-hectare [6.4-acre] site to Millennium Properties for $193 million in April, a record price for undeveloped land in Vancouver.

Condo king Bob Rennie will be marketing the site, which will include 12 residential buildings ranging from four to 13 storeys high.



"The whole idea is, instead of defaulting to this ultra-contemporary [look], to build a classic fishing village," says Rennie.

"That's more the vision for the Olympic Village, and I think it's
really smart. It's sitting on the water, and it's lowrise buildings, it's not highrise buildings."



There will be about 93,000 square metres [one million square feet] of residential space, but how many units, or what they will cost, is still in the planning stages. Stern's building is in a prime waterfront location, and will be a tiered structure of six to nine storeys, with 15,800 square metres [170,000 square feet] of space.

"I think it will stand out in terms of the quality of architecture and the materials that will be used," says Millennium's Shahram Malek.

"But it will also tie in to what's happening to other buildings around this particular site that he is designing for. He is actually a contextural architect; he tries to build within the context."

Several architects will be working on the site. Stern will be working with local architect Lawrence Doyle on his building, while Paul Merrick and Stu Lyon will be designing several buildings each. Arthur Erickson may design a community centre.

The buildings should be completed by the end of 2009 and will be used as the athletes' residences during the 2010 Olympics. Purchasers will be able to move into their condos in the spring or summer of 2010.

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Trouble on the village green

Tempers flare as city planners and private developers lock horns over creation of an Olympic village that screams West Coast and sustainability

Vancouver Sun
Friday, September 22, 2006
By Frances Bula

The third-floor room at Vancouver city hall is funeral-quiet while everyone waits for architect Paul Merrick to respond to the critiques of his design ideas for the Olympic village.

One after another, the architects and landscape architect from Vancouver's urban-design panel have told him they can't see how the sketches he's shown them say anything about what is supposed to be this revolutionary new development's defining characteristic -- its green, environmental design.

And more than one comments disparagingly on the idea of making this look like a "fishing village" -- a concept that had been floated by some people from the Millennium team in a recent newspaper article.

Five seconds pass. Ten.

Finally, Merrick, a white-haired icon of the Vancouver architecture world, who has been sitting in his chair at the end of the crowded table, speaks.

"I have never been so insulted so many times in my life. I'm staggered at how destructive and negative and scathing so many of you have been."

Another long silence as everyone in the room sits frozen until James Cheng, a panel member who is one of the city's pre-eminent architects, intervenes gently.

"Paul, don't take this the wrong way. We're trying to be constructive. We're just trying to get some clarity on the principles of where you're going."

Merrick snaps: "Well, it didn't seem that way to me."

In the next 30 minutes, with some tense talk about timelines and an open acknowledgement of the fundamental disagreement between the city and the developer over the look of the project, everything settles down.

In four weeks, the group concurs, the three architectural firms involved will each come in with a detailed design of one of their buildings that will give everyone a close-up look at what they're planning. And then they'll get down to the hard discussion of whether those buildings meet the city's and the panel's design expectations.

Another day, another exhausting, difficult debate over the Olympic village. And another small step forward.

While the Sept. 13 meeting -- the fourth workshop with the city's urban-design panel -- was more emotional than most, it was also representative of the intense and passionate communal debate that has gone on for the past six months over the eight blocks of southeast False Creek that will become Vancouver's image to the world in 2010.

Ever since the city announced April 5 that Millennium had been chosen as the developer for the 16-acre city parcel that will be the Olympic athletes' village, it's been a roller-coaster ride for city planners, the developer, the architectural teams involved, and people who have taken a long-term interest in what has always been dreamed of as an international model for how to build an entire neighbourhood that's green.

There are huge expectations for this project: It will change Vancouver. It will take the city's design and architecture community to a whole new level. It will be an inspiration for future developers to build green, because they'll see that it's attractive, doable, and marketable.

Southeast False Creek has always faced two contradictory goals. All kinds of advocates, from community activists to mainstream politicians, have wanted it to be a model of sustainability. That doesn't just mean recycling dishwater or putting in rooftop gardens. Sustainability, in the new, broader sense, also means creating a community that includes all income levels, fosters connectedness, is economically viable, and reduces the distance people have to travel to shop or work.

But at the same time, the city has also wanted to get the maximum economic return from the site.

The previous council was willing to take some kind of hit on the economic return in order to achieve the first set of goals. The current council wanted the maximum money and was worried about building something no private developer would be able to duplicate. So, it made some of the sustainability goals more conditional.

So now Millennium and city planners are struggling to deal with both of these realities. Millennium paid beyond top dollar for the land. At $193 million, that's $210 per buildable square foot -- a record for Vancouver. Once construction, financing, design, and other costs are added in, no one thinks Millennium will be able to sell what it builds for under $1,000 a square foot.

That means it needs to sell to the kind of people who are currently the target market for luxury condos in Coal Harbour.

But there are still unstoppable expectations about building a unique, sustainable neighbourhood that will be the city's most visible symbol of its green and West Coast identity.

So for six months, there have been meetings and meetings and meetings, sometimes with up to 90 people thrashing out issues like whether air-conditioning is environmentally acceptable.

No one says it's been easy.

"The first time anyone does a green project, you're going to have brain damage," says Tom Osdoba, the head of the city's sustainability office.

For that reason, the city has constantly pushed Millennium to bring in more people with sustainability expertise so the wheel doesn't have to be reinvented so painfully.

Roger Bayley, a partner in one of the three architecture firms that will build the 12 residential buildings, says that as recently as a month ago, the city was still pushing them to bring in Peter Busby, the city architect with the strongest track record of green buildings.

But Millennium is determined to stick with its original team of architects: Paul Merrick, who advocated more than two decades ago that the city should consolidate land in southeast False Creek for future development; Robert A.M. Stern of New York; and Stuart Lyon, whose firm designed Millennium's current downtown condo project, L'Hermitage, which combines high-end condos with housing for low-income singles.

Instead, it has chosen to hire sustainability experts from places like Seattle and Victoria to complement the local teams.

On the other side of the table, Millennium has its own frustrations with the city's approach to sustainability.

It has been working hard to create environmental buildings through what's called, in the trade, "passive design." That means trying to eliminate the need for energy-consuming building components by using natural light and air or different construction techniques. That means wider hallways, lightwells, a certain kind of balcony design, thicker and more energy-efficient walls.

But, says Bayley, a partner in Merrick Architecture, it's been hard to convince the city to compensate for the space all of those elements take up by giving the project extra density.

Millennium had asked for an extra four per cent, on top of the 1.1 million sq. ft. now allowed in the official development plan. Planners have agreed to only two per cent.

"If you were passionately committed to passive design, you would be advocating for that space," says Bayley.

He also says it's been Millennium that has had to push for at least some modest-market housing -- housing that's not high end and not social housing, but geared more toward middle-income earners.

Under the previous council, the developer would have been required to build one-third of the project, about 330 units, as modest market.

City staff are preparing to recommend giving Millennium an extra 90,000 sq. ft. in order to build 100-150 modest-market units.

"But that's 30,000 less than we had asked for," said Bayley. "That's a significant loss in the social sustainable goal."

In spite of the frustrations on both sides, the signs of a unique project are starting to emerge.

The entire district will be heated through a system of water pipes that will recover heat from the shower and washing-machine water flushed into sewers. That eliminates the need for boilers and hot-water tanks.

Cooling for the units, something Millennium insisted on, will also be done through water pipes, where the heat carried away from the units will likely be diffused through the public fountains.

All rainwater will be captured in either cisterns on roofs or in surface channels that will flush it through grassed swales in the park. That eliminates the need for storm sewers and provides water for the planned urban agriculture.

The streets will be narrower than anywhere else in the city and designed primarily for walkers, cyclists and transit.

The architectural teams are angling and designing buildings to take advantage of wind and sun patterns. One of Lyon's social-housing buildings will have live-work townhouse units that wrap around the walls of the grocery store, giving people a chance to operate small businesses from streetfront spaces attached to their homes. He and the city are working on making one of the other social-housing buildings a "net zero" building -- zero net energy consumption.

The biggest challenge yet to come is what those buildings will actually look like.

The emotional debate at last week's meeting was over the design.

The city wants something that looks West Coast and tells people this is a special neighbourhood, designed on environmental principles.

Senior urban designer Scot Hein names buildings like the Watermark restaurant on Kits Beach, the new Killarney pool designed by Roger Hughes, and Arthur Erickson's Waterfall building near Granville Island as buildings that have elements the city would like to see incorporated in the new neighbourhood.

He says the city is not trying to make Millennium build a hippie commune or a fake warehouse district. But they do want something that says Vancouver and 21st century and sustainable.

"It's not about messy-looking buildings, industrial buildings or corrugated metal like Granville Island," says Hein. "We have in mind buildings that are very forward-looking and we think a very marketable kind. We can be clever and demonstrate sustainability in buildings that are quite marketable."

He says Millennium's problem is that it is stuck right now in thinking that can't be done.

Millennium's group is equally adamant that it has to have a product that it can sell to the international market.

"The city's examples are modern with strong expressions of a new architecture," says Bayley. "But we're headed in a more traditional way. What we're proposing is a more international style of architecture that would appeal in the international marketplace."

The neighbourhood's most prominent building, on the waterfront, will be designed by Stern's New York firm, which has made its name by building neoclassical towers with formal gardens.

How that debate is going to be resolved is the next chapter in this drama.

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Olympic village development moves forward to a public hearing on rezoning

Vancouver Sun
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
By Frances Bula

VANCOUVER - City council narrowly agreed Tuesday to move the Olympic village development along to its next step, sending it to a public hearing for a rezoning that could dramatically increase the amount of construction allowed on the site. The move was strongly opposed by opposition councillors, who wondered what benefits the city would receive in return for giving the developer $40-million worth of additional square footage.

They said they didn't have enough information about the finances of the development to make an informed decision.

The rezoning proposal, contained in a report from city staff, recommends giving Millennium Development about 200,000 extra square feet of density, on top of the 1.1 million the area is already approved for.

"That's worth $40 million. What are we getting for the $40 million?" asked Vision Vancouver Coun. George Chow. "The mayor has talked about eco-density in the city. But we want this to be equitable density."

He and Coun. Raymond Louie repeatedly asked city staff how the bid from Millennium, with that density bonus factored in, would compare to two previously rejected bids from Concord Pacific and Wall Financial.

Jody Andrews, the project manager for Southeast False Creek, said if councillors don't like the rezoning deal, they are free to reject it after they've heard from the public (hearings to be held Oct. 17 and 19) and obtained more information on the financial implications of the proposal.

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