Beast of Burnaby - the BCA behemoth swallowed its opponents whole

Official Results, 2011 Municipal Election, City of Burnaby, B.C. There are 146,123 registered voters on the Municipal list. Only 32,953 bothered to vote!! Clearly - No issues, no turnout.

Election Twins - Burnaby's free bi-weekly press - the NEWS LEADER and BURNABY NOW delivered their election editions to every home in the city on November 18, with wrap-around BCA - Corrigan advertisements. Very effective. Congratulations BCA!

BCA Sweep - All Candidates Victorious

Another civic election has come and gone. Results? A total BCA sweep. The BCA took the mayoralty, every council seat and every school board seat. In a democratic society that shouldn't happen... unless an angry electorate is throwing out a hated regime. But in Burnaby the opposite is the case. The electorate has returned a loved regime to power, rewarding BCA with a second total smack-down of the alternative civic party - TEAM Burnaby.

I don't object. I may not care for the council much, but I like Derek Corrigan, respect the job that he's done, and realize that we have the best mayor this side of the Fraser River. Still, democratic dictatorships are dangerous. The integrity of our mayor is the best hope we have of keeping individual councillors clean, and municipal spending within reason. The weekly press is not our watchdog, nor does it have to be. Vigilance is the responsibility of the individual.

TEAM is not a Team

"TEAM Burnaby" bills itself as a "non-partisan civic organization". The sad truth is that it is not a team, and it is not non-partisan, and that is why its candidates were destroyed on November 19th. Since its founding TEAM Burnaby has been hobbled by the fact that its power brokers (those who choose the candidates) don't even like each other. TEAM is composed of TORY and LIBERAL organizers who pummel each other during every Federal and Provincial election, and then make a token attempt at being friendly, in the hope of taking a few seats away from BCA. It's bizarre. Mismatched shoes will never become fashionable. The BCA prevails because it is an effective alliance of the local NDP machine, backed by the financial clout of the important unions. - You don't stalk a beast of that size unless you are packing an elephant gun.

I read in the BURNABY NOW today that "about 20 TEAM candidates and supporters" showed up at their Election Night Rally HQ to watch the results. The TEAM mayoralty candidate, Mr. Tommy TAO, didn't even bother to show up. Shame! Nor did perennial civic candidate Mr. Lee RANKIN. On the TEAM website today I read a promise to regroup and try again in 2014. That's one promise most of us hope they do not bother to keep. What is required, if we are to restore competitive democracy to civic politics in Burnaby, is a clean piece of paper, a new civic party, and hall full of people who stand for community and not tired old political allegiances.

23.3 % Voter turnout in Burnaby

The Burnaby NEWS LEADER, in its election post-mortem, reported today that VOTER TURNOUT on November 19 was 23.3 per cent. Only 34,035 registered voters in Burnaby bothered to cast a ballot on Saturday. The front page story on Friday was "Candidates pull out all the stops in the last days"(BURNABY NOW, Nov. 18) Maybe so, but clearly all of that pipe organ music did not draw much of a crowd. The truth is that there was no campaign to follow or to generate any interest among the electorate. Only some tub thumping among school board candidates created any sound at all. But that was all noise, and nothing resembling a march.

What comes next? You guessed it. Salary increases for mayor and council. The civic employees get their tickets punched. Taxes go up. Municipal fees increase. And TEAM goes back into its cave to hibernate for another three years. Somebody seal that den, while they're sleeping!

Silvano Cicuto convicted in NYC - former builder and contractor was focus of fierce opposition to construction of "Monster Houses" in Burnaby

.
I enjoy reading Kim Bolan's reporting in the Vancouver SUN largely because she has been 'at it' long enough to add a veteran's perspective to crime and court stories, and issues which seem to bemuse younger reporters. Meaning what? Meaning that Bolan can remember a time when illicit drugs were not a hefty component of B.C.s economy, and a career option for many.

Her February 12th story details a case which other local media have not covered - a case which has been hidden from us. It involves B.C. men arrested in a sting in 2010, conducted by American police without the assistance of the RCMP. The DEA raids in Newark, New Jersey and Manhattan smashed a cross-border drug ring trafficking in Ecstasy and another synthetic drug called BZP. The name which caught my attention was that of a well known Burnaby contractor. The other man, a recently suspended Vancouver mortgage broker, was totally unfamiliar to me. Silvano Cicuto is identified by Bolan as residing in the city of New Westminster, but many will remember him as a Burnaby resident, often covered in Burnaby newspapers. Cicuto pled guilty last September to serious charges. The Americans had recorded his aggressive telephone conversations and waited for the Canadians to arrive in New York. His alleged accomplice, Luciano Mannu, is said to be from Vancouver and goes on trial tomorrow (Feb. 22). Two other men, drug couriers used by Cicuto, have also been tried.

.

Kim Bolan's original story, "Tale of failing fortunes," is online [HERE]. Her followup piece, "Cicuto's smuggling sentencing delayed," is archived [HERE].

Mr. Cicuto pled guilty to all charges in a Manhattan courtroom, thus avoiding a public trial. He is represented by Manhattan Attorney Stephanie M. Carvlin who, says Bolan, "lays out Cicuto's life story...like an historical novel". His best excuse for organizing a high risk, cross-border drug smuggling ring, is that he was unable to recover from the loss of a million dollars that was owed to him when an Internet company - 360 NETWORKS, went bust. That alleged capital loss was said to have destroyed his contracting business, but his lawyer did not explain how.

Cicuto and Sons Contracting Ltd., once a booming business in Burnaby, is said to have employed up to 150 people. They still have a yard in South Burnaby. Cicuto is said to have been a great boss, a man who kept a "cantina" in the basement of his business, a man who treated employees like family, on occasion paying for trips to Disneyland. An examination of the Cicuto and Sons bidding history at the City of Burnaby (mostly culvert and waterline projects), shows that in the 1980s and 1990s their firm regularly sought contracts, some of which were in excess of half a million dollars. Sometimes Cicuto won the bidding competition, sometimes he didn't.

Mr. and Mrs. Cicuto shown in a 1989 publicity photo which the SUN obtained from the BURNABY NOW.
The records of the City of Burnaby and the two Burnaby newspapers contain a wealth of information on the Cicuto business and family. More than can shared in a brief Blog article. The Vancouver SUN asserts that Mr. Cicuto is "a complicated criminal" and that is undoubtedly true. From what I pieced together of Mr. Cicuto's open past, (in a few hours with microfilm and old Council Minutes) I surmise that "organized" is only sort of crime he would engage in.

A property owned by Silvano Cicuto, located at 1922 Edinburgh Street, New Westminster, was heavily damaged in an arson fire in 2010. The blaze is still under investigation. The SUN caption notes "Cicuto is currently in New York on organized crime charges."

Luciano Mannu (above) is the unknown in the case, as is his stated profession - the murky world of mortgage brokering. The B.C. Registrar of Mortgage Broker's revoked the licence of Mr. Mannu in May of 2010, when it learned that he was being held in a pre-trail center in New York city, having been arrested in a Drug Enforcement Agency sting. Mr. Mannu was a one-man "corporation," masking his business with a dummy Vancouver address. The details of the suspension of his REHAB CAPITAL CORPORATION are available as a FICOM download, here .

MONSTER HOUSES IN BURNABYAlthough the term "Monster House" has fallen out of fashion, it was once a major political and cultural issue in the Vancouver region. The construction of oversized houses, which broke up the staid and leafy profile of many Vancouver streets, was often blamed on newly arrived Hong Kong Chinese. It was claimed they lacked an appreciation for the West Coast aesthetic, and were displaying the arrogant behavior of the nouveau riche. Understandably, the Chinese saw the issue in B&W terms - ie. "racism". That's what it was, and the issue took 20 years to settle out. Meanwhile a legion of urban planners, activists and politicians made careers for themselves.
In Burnaby, the most famous builder of "Monster Houses" was Silvano Cicuto. His chapter of the tale started when he went to the Municipality and negotiated a covenant which would allow him to build a super-house on Burris Street, where he owned a 65,000 sqft lot. The Burnaby NEWS (now the NEWS LEADER) reported that "the rezoning for Cicuto's became one of the most controversial municipal issues of 1990. Neighbors and other residents seized on the proposal as a symbol of the evils of monster houses. Cicuto [Italian born] accused his critics of racism." It got worse. Cicuto overbuilt by 3,000 square feet before city inspectors caught on, and the media became intensely interested.

Dan Hilborn, covered the story for the BURNABY NOW. His report for April 3, 1981 began: "The public will get a chance to vent its anger against a house built more than 3,000 sq. feet larger than allowed under Burnaby zoning regulations. Tuesday night Burnaby aldermen were expected to approve a new public hearing on the 11,984 sq ft.ft. home of contractor Sivano Cicuto at 7347 [sic] Burris. St." In the report Alderman Corrigan is quoted as saying that Cicuto had phoned him and attempted to blame the whole mess on his architect. Corrigan, a lawyer by profession, was not about to be manipulated and indicated he didn't know where the truth lay. The news report added:"Since articles began running in local newspapers, daily media and television news, the family has been forced to call the police to stop window smashing and trespassing on the Burris Street property, Cicuto said." Circuto was particularly incensed with the Vancouver SUN which had ignored his many supporters, choosing to quote "an angry part-time newspaper reporter who lived several blocks away."
In his June 5, 1991 story Mr. Hilborn upped the square footage of the house, but his point was made: "The massive 12,500 square-foot Silvano Cicuto home at 7437 Burris will stand exactly as it was built." Cicuto had defeated his neighbors in Buckingham Heights, and City Council. Alderman Corrigan, for one, was still upset with Cicuto noted that Cicuto had already suffered the "punitive effect" of negative press coverage. (It's an argument his lawyer will also make at his sentencing hearing in New York.)
That didn't end it, because the Federal Fisheries experts had an ongoing interest in rejuvenating salmon s on the slopes around Deer Lake. Circuto's project had disturbed the creek which ran through his property, and he had spent good money to fix the problem. In 1993 a neighbors' redevelopment brought the matter of silting back before Council, and into the press. Cicuto had further plans for his property and he did not relish the attention.
In 1995 he applied for a relaxation of the very covenant which he had negotiated with the City in 1990. Why? His son planned to sub-divide the family's 1.5 acre property and build a 10,000 square foot house at the back of the newly created lot. An outraged neighbor remarked, "The bylaw restrictions in Burnaby are very generous as it is, and it just seems that everyone is pushing and pushing and pushing".
In 1991 Silvano Cicuto mustered a 378 name petition of support, and successfully "swayed" Burnaby Council. His lawyer in Manhattan has assembled a thick file of letters signed by his "passionate defenders," folks who suggest he is the victim of unscrupulous men who took advantage of his good nature. I think the judge in New York may be outmatched. If I had to guess, it would be that Mr. Cicuto will get a very light sentence and be returned to Canada to serve it.
.

Burnaby Arts Council to launch film festival in 2010

One of several benefits I enjoy is the fact that I live and work in Burnaby, B.C., the community which, in July 2009, was designated "The best-managed city in Canada". Those kudos came from MACLEANS, the Canadian news magazine which also ranks our universities. (If interested, you can read "Canada's Best-Run Cities" here.) Even though our population density continues to climb, Burnaby also enjoys the distinction of having more jobs than it does residents. It is a fact that many of the major film studios and software design firms operate from Burnaby, but use Vancouver as their postal address. We often tip our hat to the "Vancouver" Brand, but must continue to forge our own identity.

One cultural event we have sorely lacked in Burnaby, is a festival which could showcase the talents of our emerging filmmakers, those who may not be ready to compete on a national level. Recognizing their need, one of the city's busiest cultural organisations - the Burnaby Arts Council (B.A.C.), has decided to sponsor a film festival which we will launch in April - May, 2010. The details... specific dates, application requirements, sponsor information and more, will be available soon.

DEER LAKE FILM FESTIVAL

I first met Brian Daniel, the B.A.C. President, two months ago. We swapped ideas, he sold me a membership, and before long he had me enlisted for a project he had been working on. It was easy to agree on the fact we must do more to encourage students and other emerging filmmakers. We will start small, but our goal is a festival for the younger talent in the Lower Mainland - high school, post secondary students and the newly graduated, who want exposure for their best film work to date.

I was given the green light to begin the planning and promotion, and my first act was to meet yesterday with Burnaby Mayor, Derek Corrigan and discuss the festival. He was very enthusiastic and it's encouraging to know that we can count on city to play a supportive role. I am seeking volunteers to assist with the processing the submissions, and a myriad of other tasks as they arise. We believe our festival will be a good fit for the James Cowan Theatre at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts, which is neighbor to the B.A.C. offices in Deer Lake. Press releases will go out soon.

Derek Corrigan, Mayor of Burnaby, receives his copy of the film OAKALLA. The mayor had a long association with the prison and was interviewed for the documentary. [Philip Jack photo]