E-486 Arborist industrial complex

Lots is happening for Vancouver's mayoral candidates. Kennedy Stewart is cleared of conflict of interest complaints but still faces a defamation suit from the NPA. Meanwhile, Mark Marissen and Ken Sim have dueling columns that both take aim at the mayor.We have polls! First, Sutherland and Globalcon released a public poll in April; you can see the charts on our Twitter timeline. And we have our hands on internal polling from the Kennedy Stewart campaign.On the climate front, council rejects staff recommendations to delay a ban on natural gas in new builds, which was allegedly supported by the natural gas lobby. Council did however agree to several other delays that would (hopefully) help clear the permitting backlog.Despite that success, council was not able to reconcile competing motions that seek to ban leaf blowers in the city and they mired themselves in procedural shenanigans.Then we take a little detour to learn about what it means to abstain as some councillors still seem confused and we look at whether the perfect is the enemy of the good. On the reconciliation front, Richmond's mayor continues making excuses to not start council meetings  with a territorial acknowledgement, while Vancouver mulls taking a racist's name off one of our streets.And this week's Vancouveratta comes via TikTok.