[5] In 1959, one of the commissioners, chief planner Gerald Sutton-Brown, generated a city plan that former TEAM alderman and transportation engineer Setty Pendakur described as "completely automobile and freeway oriented".
By the fourth quarter of 1967, a public hearing on how the route was chosen turned into one of the "wildest, most stormy meetings ever seen at city hall", wrote The Province's Bud Elsie.
[7] The nearly 500 people who attended, most of whom were opposed to freeways, turned it into a networking opportunity, "and, with their vest pocket diaries in hand, eagerly arranged to meet again for further discussion".
[8] Those further discussions led to the formation of a political movement that in just nine months would develop policies and attract candidates to run for every position in the next civic election.
[10] The founding president was Phillips, the head of a successful Vancouver investment firm; first and second vice-presidents were broadcasting executive Bill Bellman and labour leader Ed Lawson.
Partial area representation would mean fewer names on the ballot and district aldermen "would be available to perform the ombudsman function which is so important if we are to counteract the feeling of alienation that exists all over this city".
Running under the TEAM banner, Burnaby mayor Alan Emmott lost to NPA incumbent Tom Campbell, who received fifty percent more votes.
At a TEAM meeting, Phillips cited the lease of land to the Pacific National Exhibition and lack of development in False Creek as "glaring examples of stupid management policies".
Phillips succeeded in a motion to have the planning department investigate rezoning the 1000 block of Robson Street for a high-rise apartment district with two levels of pedestrian-oriented shopping malls.
Hardwick proposed changes to the city charter to allow for elections earlier in the autumn, and for ballots to include candidates' names in non-alphabetical order, along with political affiliations.
With the election approaching, TEAM chose William C. Gibson as its mayoral candidate and endorsed a full slate for city council, including Calder, Hardwick and Phillips.
[28] Candidates for city council said they were united by "a common concern for the quality of life in Vancouver" and cited as accomplishments the halt to the downtown freeway and progress toward development of False Creek.
[34] All three TEAM aldermen filled in for Campbell when he was away, and a Province story described how Phillips spent his time in the mayor's office "priming an engine that had practically ceased to function.
It proposed a larger council with an executive group chosen from its ranks that would take full-time responsibility for governing; evening meetings so more citizens could attend; cash deposits for civic candidates, and the elimination of voting privileges for corporations.
[36] Calder, who had proposed the council restructuring, quit the Town Planning Commission, dismissing it as a toothless body used to pasture off defeated NPA candidates.
[44] Following Phillip's swearing-in as Vancouver's 32nd mayor, The Province noted that it had been five years since TEAM was formed to combat what sponsors felt was aimless civic leadership.
[47] A couple of weeks later, at its annual meeting, TEAM voted to make it official party policy to ban more downtown underground malls.
The ensuing conflict led to the abrupt resignation of a long-time bureaucrat, and NPA commissioners blaming Cowie for staff morale plunging to the lowest ebb they said they'd ever seen.
Historian R. Mike Steele wrote that after decades of adversarial relations between the park board and city council, things changed greatly in the two years after the 1972 election.
He attributed the greater cooperation to the majority of elected officials from both bodies being "political comrades bent on amending a structure they viewed as unresponsive ...
During the campaign Puil, a long-time park board commissioner, accused TEAM of failing to act on rising crime and vandalism, squandering civic resources, aggravating the housing crisis, making Vancouver a haven for welfare bums and promoting permissiveness in schools.
[57] Phillips' housing priorities were to set policy on secondary suites to maintain quality of neighbourhoods and provide lower-priced rentals while helping families gain equity in their homes, "enough to make living in Vancouver affordable again".
[63] Two months later, a few days after Marzari quit TEAM to finish her term as an independent, Phillips announced he would not run in 1976, telling reporters he had accomplished most of what he had set out to do and was ready for a return to private life.
[64] In January 1976, Province columnist Nate Smith was pessimistic about TEAM's chances in that fall's election, noting that president Don Bellamy had told a television interviewer that he felt like the "captain of the Titanic".
[66] There, Harcourt warned that he'd find it difficult to support the party unless it restored itself as a grassroots movement, and he lamented the loss of TEAM's former energy and excitement and some of its community organizers.
"Volrich said some crucial questions must be faced in the city: How large a population, how much housing and what degree density, how much additional office and commercial space should be allowed.
Post-election analyses of TEAM's weaknesses helped explain its fall: the discouraging perception that it was washed up; the view that it was too conservative and its members had become complacent; the defections of Marzari, Harcourt and Volrich.
It noted that TEAM president Walter Hardwick believed polarized politics were taking precedence over solving urgent civic issues and that "ideology is clearly interfering with the advancement of public interest.
In the fourth quarter of 1986, a retirement party was held for Brown, who was "leaving politics without regret" after eight years on council, four on park board, and a 1978 mayoral run.
[85] In 1988, columnist Denny Boyd characterized TEAM as "the civic party that developed three mayors, Art Phillips, Jack Volrich and Mike Harcourt, before fracturing and collapsing on itself and vanishing".