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Rogers Gone, Former Deputy Health Minister Is New City Manager

by mike_yvr | December 12, 2008 at 10:22 am

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Big moves at Cambie and 12th. Judy Rogers is gone and the new city manager for Vancouver is B.C.'s former deputy health minister Dr. Penny Ballem.

Ballem resigned suddenly from her provincial government post in June 2006 over differences with the B.C. Liberal government of Premier Gordon Campbell. She outlined her concerns in a widely circulated letter of resignation.

Less than a week after Gregor Robertson took over as mayor, Vancouver city manager Judy Rogers has been dismissed.

On Friday morning, after an emergency council meeting, Robertson announced that Rogers was leaving the city after 25 years – the last 10 as Vancouver’s top bureaucrat.

The departure creates the first crisis for Robertson’s Vision/COPE-dominated council, even before it has had a chance to deal with problems left over from the last administration.

Today the newly-minted council – which was sworn in Tuesday - was to be given an in-camera briefing on the details behind the last council’s decision to give a $100-million loan guarantee to Millennium Development, the embattled and cash-short company building the $1 billion Athletes Village on False Creek.

Instead, they were informed that Rogers is gone.

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mtippett

at 14:12 on December 12th, 2008

Some interesting commentary by Charlie Smith at the Straight:

After I said on election night that Rogers’s future might be in doubt, Vision Vancouver councillor-elect Raymond Louie tried to set the record straight.

He told Georgia Straight reporter Matthew Burrows that my comments were misplaced. “I don’t think Judy should fear for her job,” Louie said in what must rank, in retrospect, as one of the most laughable quotes of the year in civic politics.

I subsequently posted an item on this blog suggesting that Rogers indeed was a big loser in the recent Vancouver civic election. “If the B.C. Federation or CUPE Local 15 wants Rogers out for the way she behaved during the strike, then it really doesn’t matter much what Louie thinks,” I wrote.

Rogers didn't help her case by her handling of Estelle Lo's departure from Vancouver city hall or the Olympic Village loan.