Author: Matt Robinson

Concerned parents and citizens plotted with community leaders and politicians in East Vancouver Thursday on actions to prevent the possible closure of two local schools. The schools are just two of nine in East Vancouver identified by the Vancouver School Board as likely to be shuttered in 2011 to offset an $18 million budget shortfall.

Thursday’s meeting followed the release earlier this week of a University of B.C. report that claimed East Vancouver children are already more vulnerable than others in the city. With East Vancouver slated to take a disproportionate hit for the citywide shortfall, many in attendance questioned the board’s wisdom.

The cuts would be an “attack on the most vulnerable kids in this city,” said Noel Herron, a former Vancouver principal and school trustee.

“Vulnerable families feel like they’re under attack,” said Grace Tait, a family coordinator with the Ray-Cam Co-operative Centre. She noted that schools are “the only places that those families access any kinds of supports.”

Local mother Andrea Esslemont spoke of the great efforts she took over the last year to ensure her daughter, who has special needs, would be able to attend a school close to her home that has the level of care and attention she needs. “I want her to have the best possible start so that she can be the best person she can be,” said Esslemont, who also said that adjusting to change is very difficult for her daughter. “I don’t want the school to close.”

The meeting, which attracted a small crowd of a few dozen, was held at the Strathcona Community Centre amid a backdrop of plunking piano keys and the thumping of active young feet.

“You close a school, you close the heart of the community,” said Herron, “you close a neighbourhood school, you shut the neighbourhood down.”

Organizer Jenny Kwan, MLA for Vancouver – Mount Pleasant, said the shortfall and anticipated cuts amount to “a crisis in our public education system.” She challenged those in attendance to take coordinated, ethnically inclusive action to demand that their schools remain open.

A committee was formed in response to Kwan’s challenge. It is expected to take action on a number of suggestions made in the meeting.

Scattered pockets of loyal BC Lions tailgaters gathered Saturday outside Empire Field as they prepared to support their team in its match against the Hamilton Tiger Cats.

The air, sweeter than ketchup, was thick with the smell of pig fat dripping onto hot coals, and small plumes of smoke from portable barbeques floated up into an unexpectedly perfect blue sky.

It was 5:30 p.m., less than two hours from game time, and in accordance with BC Lions rules and regulations that stipulate tailgating can only begin three hours before a match, the party should have been at its peak. But it was all so… pedestrian. Where was the beer-soaked, raucous bash? Whither the muscled men with stomachs painted orange and black, the women sporting faux-lion fur bikinis? What of the flatbed trucks stacked with speakers and dance stages?

In fact, the tailgaters were a reserved, relatively disjointed community. Large reclining lawn chairs were arranged in semi-circles around food that was consumed with proper cutlery and napkins. Conversation was relaxed in true Canadian fashion. The only real action to be found was up in the air, as children spiralled footballs above rows of empty vehicles.

So what was the attraction? Would anything have been lost if an early season decision to ban tailgating from Empire Stadium had not been overturned?

“It was like they were taking the fun out of the CFL,” said Clay Palmantier, who drove from Williams Lake to take part in the tailgating and promptly made friends with Andrew Rogers and his family.

“It’s an event. You get together, you have some fun, then you head into the game,” said Rogers. “If you only do the game, you’re missing the whole experience.”

The food might have been a motivator.

“I think the first week we had sandwiches and it’s grown to steak and lobster,” said Mike Edwards, who started tailgating this season.

But it was not until five hours later, when 21,000 dispirited hometown fans stood to leave the stadium following a disastrous fourth quarter and ultimate loss that tailgating truly began to make sense. Present among the crowd were a few hundred tailgaters like Edwards, who left knowing that at the very least he had enjoyed a barbeque with friends, or like Palmantier, who had made a few new ones.

Thirty-six teams from cities across Canada and the United States jockeyed for positioning Saturday at the fourth annual East Van Crown hardcourt bike polo tournament.

It was the second of three days of festivities that began with Friday’s Dirty Threesome Co-Ed Tournament and continued with Saturday’s round-robin qualifying matches.

For the uninitiated, hardcourt bike polo is a minimalist, scrappy version of traditional mounted polo, with its horses traded for bicycles, and luxuriant grass fields ignored in favour of patches of pavement lined with makeshift boards.

Teams are comprised of three players, including a goaltender, and games are won by outscoring the opposition. This is done, ideally, without falling, touching ones feet to the ground, or ramming, hitting, or otherwise interfering with opposing players.

As Saturday’s matches developed, it became evident that these ideals are not always met, as competitor after competitor tumbled and crashed their way through the day.

Almost as captivating as the relentless action on the courts was the spectacle of the sport.

The riders were a motley bunch. With few exceptions, team members wore mismatched colours, rode varied styles of stripped-down mechanical steeds, and fashioned their homemade wheel guards and mallets from an array of different materials. It was Mad Max meets organized sport, and the only prevailing theme was discord.

That in mind, the tournament’s location is wholly appropriate. It is being held in East Vancouver’s New Brighton Park, a meandering stretch of green-space framed in industrial land, presided over by the neighbouring Viterra grain terminal, and assaulted by the sounds of industry.

Kiersten George, first runner-up in Friday’s friendly tournament and muddied from a hard spill, sucked at air heavy with grain dust as she recovered from her first qualifying match. Her team, the 2 0 Chicks (pronounced “two-oh-chicks”, in reference to the team’s Seattle area code, 206) had just suffered an unlucky late game defeat, but she remained optimistic. “Top ten would be amazing. Really what we want to do is be the best all-girl’s team out there,” she said.

The 2 0 Chicks and their 35 competitors are scheduled to return to New Brighton Sunday to compete in the elimination brackets and fight for the 2010 East Van Crown. The tournament final is expected to begin just prior to dusk.

For more information, see host organization East Van Bike Polo’s website at www.evbp.ca.

Yaletown has miniature dogs and boutique shopping.

Kitsilano has maternity stores and yoga studios.

East Vancouver has an 18-metre tall gang sign lit up in white neon.

It’s not your average district.

Installed in January 2010 in anticipation of the 2010 Winter Olympics, Vancouver artist Ken Lum’s Monument for East Vancouver is an irreverent homage to the colourful roots of its host.

The brash and imposing neon crucifix is a former local gang symbol that takes its shape by intercrossing the letters ‘V-A-N’ with ‘E-A-S-T’. Like a soldier posted to sentry duty, it stands atop one of East Vancouver’s tallest hills, staring down residents and would-be visitors who reside in the trendier, more upscale sister districts to the west.

“It (makes) me smile,” said local restaurateur Flavio Testani. “We’ve got this thing here that screams… ‘don’t mess with East Van.’”

The message just might be appropriate, given the community’s notorious history. “I remember it being a seriously hard neighbourhood,” said resident Geoff Bowers. “It was a full-on zoo.”

The district’s ill-gotten reputation seemed to speak for itself. “There was no such thing as Vancouver east of Main Street. You never went east of (there) because you’d either get beaten up or whatever,” said Guy Babineau, who grew up in Vancouver’s Westside, but now resides near Commercial Drive.

So does Lum’s nod to East Van’s grittier side reflect the current state of the neighbourhood, or is East Vancouver shifting away from its infamous roots?

“I think it’s a good place to live,” said Rob King, rolling a cigarette outside his home north of Hastings. “It’s not like it used to be.”

“The neighbourhood’s come up so much,” said Bowers.

Joanne Whiteman, who has lived in the community for the past six years, is not so certain all that much has changed. It’s “not very safe,” she said. “It makes me watch my back every time I’m walking down the street.”

It’s a reminder that although East Vancouver is in transition, it may yet possess a touch of the same hardened spirit that inspired Lum’s installation.

Monument for East Vancouver, located at the corner of Clark Drive and East Sixth Avenue, can be safely viewed from kilometres away. For those who want to risk a closer look, be forewarned – you’ll be treading on East Van turf.