The half way mark in this Council term arrived yesterday, and an interesting two years it has been.
People often ask me if it what I expected, and my honest answer is not really. The job is different than the Councillor job, and there is no doubt we are in a different political environment now than we were two years ago. Folks who followed my path here (Hi Mom!) know that I got into this work without a “politics” background, but a background of working and volunteering in the community. When your mindset to problem solving has always been what works best practically (follow the evidence) and where does the community want to go here (follow the community), the shift to include how will this be torqued for political speaking points (follow the meme) takes learning a new set of skills, and a tremendous amount of patience. Not being a trained political lobbyist, this is a steep learning curve.
That said, there are many successes to celebrate from the last two years, and more clarity on the challenges facing us in the next two. In my mind, there are three big news stories in the first half of the term:
Changing Legislation. The provincial government took some bold action on the overlapping housing crises that have been plaguing our region for a decade or more. There was a lot of talk about this, and some pitched political battles between a few local governments and the province. I didn’t stay out of the fray. I said at the time, and continue to believe, that big changes had to happen, and to my Mayor cohort who were gnashing teeth and rending garments, my response was mostly to say “you really should have seen this coming”.
The path we were on was not sustainable, and as radical as the changes proposed seemed at the time, they are not immediate shifts, but long-term system changes that will take a decade or more to demonstrate their value. I am still concerned that the changes they emphasize the wrong tool (“the market”) to solve a problem caused by overreliance on that same tool. None of these changes will make a substantial change unless we have senior governments significantly increase their investment in building non-market housing. And I continue to push to province on our need for investment in schools, child care, and other infrastructure the needs to come with new housing.
Like in other Cities, the sudden legislative changes caused significant work load challenges for staff. Unexpected and foundational shifts in our OCP and Zoning bylaws are not easy to implement, and our new Housing Division did incredible work, met our regulatory deadlines, but also set a path to a new OCP that fits in our community. We were also fortunate to have secured Housing Accelerator Fund support that overlapped with this work, and allowed us to staff up and bring in additional resources to get the job done.
Opening təməsew̓txʷ. No doubt the opening of the single largest capital investment the City has ever made is big news. The doubling of aquatic and recreation space is an important investment, as our population has almost doubled since the CGP was opened in 1972. As expected with a state-of-the-art facility (filter and water management technology that is first in Canada, being the first Zero Carbon certified aquatic facility) of its scale, there were a few technical teething problems, but they are being managed under warranty, and have not taken away from the popularity of the facility. To find out it was listed by the Prix Versailles as a 2024 Laureate is unexpected and something the City of New Westminster should be proud of.
The big decisions about təməsew̓txʷ were made by the previous Council (including the critical “Go-or-No” decision during the uncertainty of summer 2020 that almost certainly saved the City a hundred million dollars), but the opening of the pool means that a myriad of operational decisions, and finding room in the budget for the new staff compliment, is something this Council oversaw. And now with the Parks and Recreation Comprehensive Plan being developed to envision the next decade of recreation investments, it is an exciting time for asset renewal in the City.
One Man Down: Jaimie McEvoy having a serious heart attack and missing a big portion of this year was also something the framed how Council operated, and the work that the rest of Council was able to get done. It also created some procedural uncertainty around what we do when a Member of Council needs to take a medical leave longer than a few days – believe it or not, we didn’t have procedures around this, nor does the Community Charter, or (as best we can tell) any other local government in BC. We are glad Jaimie is now able to transition back into the job and provide his voice to Council, and do those many other things in the community that keep us all grounded.
Halftime is also a goodtime to measure how we are doing in the goals we set for ourselves as a Council. Fortunately, we have two recent reports to Council on this. At the end of September, we received a report called “Council Strategic Priorities Plan Quarterly Status Update” which outlined staff’s assessment of where progress is on the 5 Strategic Priorities and the 49 action categories, using a traffic light model. The majority of items are “green”, indicating we are on track and meeting our performance indicators. Sixteen are “yellow” – meaning at least one performance indicator is falling behind and there are concerns to address. There are seven items that are “red”, indicating we are not on track, and there are concerns about our ability to achieve them.
The biggest challenge in the “red” category is simply resources: staff time and the ability to finance more staff time. There are also some senior government regulatory and funding issues we need to be more effective in advocating toward. However, progress on track or near track for 86% of our objectives is an excellent measure.
The bigger question isn’t how staff feel we are doing, but how the community feels about it, and the good news here is found in our recently-completed Ipsos Survey of the community. This was discussed in Workshop last week, and you can read it all here.
These kind of things always work better graphically, but the short story is that 88% of New West residents find the quality of life in new Westminster Good or Very good, 77% are Satisfied or Very Satisfied with the level of service they receive from the City, and 78% think they get Good of Very Good value for their tax dollar in New Westminster.
On Council Strategic Priorities, most residents feel are doing a good job on most of the priorities:
Meeting the City’s housing need is the only area where the majority feel we are not meeting community expectations, but traffic safety also comes in lower than most. It is perhaps no surprise that housing affordability, homelessness, and traffic are the biggest issues in the community in the extended survey questions. We know this, we can feel it when we talk to folks, but it is good to have come confirmation that what we hear in the bubble is connected to what is happening in the community. With all due respect to Facebook comments and partisan jabs, it is valuable to have actual random survey data that connects with the community and gets a defensible “mood of the room”. If I can summarize: we are doing well, mostly on target, but most certainly have some work to do. That is a good half-way mark check in.
The one thing we are not doing as well as I would like to celebrating our wins. There has been great foundational work this term – region-leading work – that hardly gets the fanfare it deserves, because it is hard stuff to “cut a ribbon” in front of. Our new Code of Conduct Bylaw and functional Ethics Commissioner; bringing the Electrical Utility and Climate Action together into a new Department of Energy and Climate; amalgamating various service areas into a new Department of Community Services; changes that fast-track Childcare and Affordable Housing approvals; our provincially-recognized and lauded Community Advisory Assembly model. This is progress that builds us for future success.
No resting on laurels, but I do feel proud of the work we have done to date, especially considering significant political headwinds and a surprises like the new provincial housing regulations. On to year three!