Earlier, we reported Councillor Peter Ladner was standing behind his accusation that Senator Larry Campbell mismanaged preparations for an international peace conference when he was mayor. Specifically, Mr. Ladner maintains, among other allegations, that "no official invitation (for the conference was) sent out." And, in a comment posted on Public Eye, he wrote that funding for the event was cancelled after organizer Alfred Marder rejected "a scaled-down project that would fit the $50,000 budget (approved by the city)." One wonders, then, what to make of a letter sent by Mr. Marder to councillors in which he writes "I must inform you that based upon the invitation of the City of Vancouver, two invitations have already been sent" to those attending the conference. And he goes onto state that "The City of Vancouver allocation of $50,000 last March 31, 2005 is much appreciated and fully sufficient to cover our proposed program and budget, which is attached for your information." The following is a complete copy of that letter, which was leaked to Public Eye.

INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF PEACE MESSENGER CITIES
Alfred L. Marder, President

February 2, 2006

Dear Mayor Sullivan and Council:

Re International Association of Peace Messenger Cities and Mayors for Peace
Vancouver Program and Budget - June 23rd to 26th, 2006

I am taking the unprecedented step of violating protocol and our own standards of relations with members of our Association by writing directly to the leadership of the City of Vancouver concerning the General Assembly in June. I do this in order to protect the integrity of the historic organization, initiated by the United Nations, that I have the honor to serve as President and to avoid any embarrassment to my organization and the City of Vancouver. I am certain you will appreciate my motives.

I write to follow-up on my letter to Mayor Sullivan of January 18, 2006. In that letter I expressed my regret that we had not yet had the opportunity to discuss the broad details of the planned Assembly with Mayor Sullivan. I am taking this opportunity to bring the Mayor and Council up to date on our planning.

I must inform you that based upon the invitation of the City of Vancouver, two invitations have already been sent, as per our tradition, to all members of the Association: one from the Secretary-General and one from myself. In addition, since we are a "child" of the United Nations, we are in the process of sending a letter of information to all the Ambassadors to the United Nations of the countries of our membership, informing them of the General Assembly, urging them to encourage attendance. We are receiving letters of acknowledgement. The last step in this process is a letter from the Mayor, in his capacity as host, inviting the Cities to attend.

The City of Vancouver allocation of $50,000 last March 31, 2005 is much appreciated and fully sufficient to cover our proposed program and budget, which is attached for your information. Like you, we understand the necessity of establishing budgets and working within them. We take pride in our collective capacity to convene our international gatherings in a cost effective manner. We also take pride in being able to count on the commitments of our host member cities for all of our international gatherings.

We anticipate some 60 delegates, inclusive of spouses, will attend the International Association of Peace Messenger Cities functions in Vancouver. We expect to be joined by up to 20 Mayors for Peace. We hope we will be joined by members of your Council as well as other GVRD Council members and interested World Urban Forum Mayors and Councilors. In all we anticipate our meal gatherings to top out around 100 people. We expect that Mayors wishing to participate in World Peace Forum 2006 programming and possibly Vancouver International Jazz Festival or the Earth Festival may reduce the dinner numbers somewhat.

There are 98 UN designated International Peace Messenger Cities and almost 2,000 Mayors for Peace. While only about half of our members and but a representative sample of Mayors for Peace will attend in Vancouver in June, the full memberships of both organizations are looking forward to hearing of our collective success in Vancouver. I think it is a fair observation that the upcoming World Peace Forum 2006 has most peace organizations and their memberships around the world also looking forward to success in Vancouver.

Former Mayor Larry Campbell's warm invitation in May 2005 at the Non-Proliferation Treaty talks in New York to the Mayors for Peace and the International Peace Messenger Cities to come to Vancouver to attend both the World Urban Forum and the World Peace Forum 2006 made a lot of sense to our respective memberships. We, from the outset, have approached our planning based on the City of Vancouver's hosting commitment of $50,000, which includes up to 4 nights per hosted delegate at the Sandman Hotel based on the negotiated room rate of $99 per night, inclusive of taxes. We have long anticipated our programming would commence on Friday afternoon, June 23rd, following the conclusion of the World Urban Forum and conclude mid-day Monday, June 26th, following the conclusion of our business meeting. In my discussions with United Nations and with our members, we have made our plans and arranged our schedules with those dates and commitments in mind. Please understand that some of our respective members will be coming from literally halfway around the world and face in-transit times of 25 - 30 hours each way! It is a significant commitment to come to Vancouver and it must be planned well in advance.

As note above I have attached our proposed Mayors' Program and Budget for your information. You will see most of the program and speakers are confirmed with the remainder to be finalized over the next few weeks. In the seventeen previous General Assemblies, the hosts have confined themselves with the logistics while our Executive board reserves the prerogative to determine the agenda and the theme. We adopted the theme of the World Peace Forum as fitting with the presence of the World Urban Forum in which we have participated as speaker in the past: "Cities and Communities: Working Together To End War and Build a Peaceful, Just and Sustainable World".

We fully understand that there has been a change of administration and much of this may new. We trust you recognize that it fully respects both the letter and the intent of Council's March 31st, 2005 motion. We look forward to Mayor Sullivan opening our major Forum on Saturday morning at the Plaza of Nations, where in addition to IAPMC and Mayors for Peace delegates, your own Council members and other regional Mayors and Councilors we expect we will be joined by 5,000 plus World Peace Forum 2006 delegates and interested regional residents. We anticipate significant global media coverage.

We are excited about coming to your beautiful city, to working with you and to spreading word of your hospitality and support throughout our respective cities and spheres of influence. I trust we can all count on your continuing support. Should you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me.

Sincerely,

Alfred Marder,
President,
International Association of Peace Messenger Cities