A caller to city hall's 311 hotline on Nov. 8 wanted Mayor Gregor Robertson to ask the military to remove Occupy Vancouver protesters from the Vancouver Art Gallery's north plaza.
But a person who emailed Robertson Nov. 5 urged a softer approach.
"Please spare the court injunction. Bring a loud P/A system to the art gallery site, and play Don Ho's 'Tiny Bubbles' non-stop until they all leave. I do believe this will work."
The suggestions were in nearly 500 pages of Nov. 2-9 correspondence disclosed via Freedom of Information Tuesday morning. On Monday, city manager Penny Ballem said the cost to taxpayers for the protest camp was $981,103.
Vancouverites, whose names were censored by city hall, reacted angrily to the Nov. 3 near-fatal heroin overdose of a man from Arizona and the Nov. 5 heroin and cocaine overdose death of Ashlie Gough of Victoria. Supporters and foes alike said the city's response to the anti-corporate greed protest would influence their votes in the Nov. 19 election. "Under your administration there has been a massive riot, a redirection of the planned annual Xmas parade, city subsidized squalor, drug use, rodent appearance and traffic disruption at the Art Gallery site," said a Nov. 3 letter. "The inhabitants of the Art Gallery site are now claiming proprietary rights to the Art Gallery site. I believe you abdicated your responsibility to the citizens of Vancouver."
A Nov. 6 email said: "I know as someone who used to have dreadlocks of your own, you at least understand where the movement is coming from. I won't say please make the right decision because that is subject to opinion. So instead I say please support Occupy Vancouver."
Another message on the same day criticized Robertson for not visiting Occupy Vancouver.
"I'm not asking you to not shut down Occupy Vancouver. I'm asking you to have the decency to tell these people to their face that you are going to shut down their camp. Suzanne Anton has that ability, why don't you?"
Dozens of writers, including people who said they were campers, emailed similarly worded messages in favour of Occupy Vancouver.
They cited Canada's constitutional freedom of peaceful assembly or repeated the phrase "I fear that you are using this tragic death for political reasons."
The city's eviction of peaceful protesters even drew a threatened tourism boycott campaign from a person claiming to be a Hollywood entertainer.
"I have a huge, influenceable fanbase," said the Nov. 7 email, under the subject 'Vancouver Tourism Warning.'
A Nov. 9 email from someone at the Gowlings law firm suggested "all local broadcasters donate a free TV channel to them. Parks cleared out, message gets out more effectively, everybody's happy." A week earlier, a 311 caller proposed Occupy Vancouver be given temporary use of an empty civic office or building.
"They need a leading group to sift out the riff raff from the people who are true to their cause," said the message.
On the eve of the election, B.C. Supreme Court Associate Chief Justice Anne MacKenzie ordered the camp be gone Nov. 21. Protesters moved next door to Robson Square, but MacKenzie gave them four hours to pack up on Nov. 22. They moved to Grandview Park but were met by several angry neighbours and a coordinated, multidepartment city operation that convinced them not to camp on the stormy night.
