You can’t please everyone, I’ve learned on this job.
Here’s proof: “I stopped reading his articles some time back. I found them unsettling.”
That was from letter writer Teresa Henderson.
The other night at Oppenheimer Park, a community activist criticized me for a lengthy story I wrote a few years ago where I spent several months chronicling the lives of two women in the Downtown Eastside.
The activist called it “poor-nography.”
The story was about two moms, who despite their struggles, were working with other moms to become better parents. They even formed a moms’ group at a community centre and one of them was working her way through a course to become a counsellor.
Inspiring, I thought, and not another cliché story about poverty and despair.
Anyway, I tell you this because no matter what I write, there always seems to be someone or some organization who will criticize the piece or take me to task for not including another point of view.
Which I think is great.
It means people are reading.
But, unfortunately, decreasing space and little time — the best excuses going for people in my field — make it difficult to be as thorough as I’d like to be when I file a piece. I’d love to write a lengthy tome that captures the zeitgeist of today’s Vancouver but, sadly, I’m not independently wealthy and can’t afford to spend a year without a paycheque (hint, hint big pocketed book publishers).
So with little time left to finish this rambling piece of porridge, I thought I’d make room for a note from the communications director for the OneCity civic party.
Here’s what he wrote: “Think your story today is missing a very important point: A week ago, OneCity released a proposed levy very much like the one cited in San Francisco.”
The comms director was referring to a previous entry in which I wrote about San Francisco and how voters there were going to the polls next month to decide whether they want to have the city invoke a steep tax on property owners who resell residential buildings within five years of buying them.
The comment came with a link to OneCity’s release on the topic.
OneCity council candidate RJ Aquino is proposing the “Vancouver flipping levy” where the tax on a sale will be deposited with the city’s housing authority to create homes for low and middle income residents.
Aquino gives an example of a buyer purchasing a $1 million property, leaving it vacant and then selling it in less than a year for $1.5 million. Under OneCity’s levy, that purchaser would be taxed 50 per cent, translating to $250,000 going to the housing authority.
That percentage of tax would drop to 35 per cent if a property were sold in years two and three, and to 20 per cent in years four and five. But as I wondered in a previous entry, how the heck is the city going to track whether the owner bought on speculation or is in Palm Springs, Calif. four months of the year?
Kind of a privacy issue, don’t you think?
San Francisco has some ideas.
But, sadly, I’ve run out of time.
Which means: Critics, trolls and all those people who have a hate on for my work unite!
My email address is at the bottom of this article.
Look forward to hearing from you.
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