Author: Patrick Johnstone

On disclosure

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

I was about to publish my long-delayed blog post on the campaign financial disclosures from the November election, but then saw another declaration was released, and found it so humorously ham-fisted, that I have to write about that first. (I’m massaging some graphs for the other one… will be ready soon)

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation have always been reluctant to talk about where their money comes from, but as the front organization for Federal Conservative datamining the NO side in the ongoing Metro Vancouver Transportation and Transit Plebiscite, they attempted to get some press this week by releasing a declaration of their campaign contributions.

Except, of course, they did no such thing.

Their declaration document, which you can read in its entirety here, is amazingly bereft of details, and suffers from some basic math problems (reinforcing the notion that math is not a CTF strong point).

The document states that the NO campaign has a budget of $27,259.30. That came from anonymous donations amounting to $7,003.30, declared donations from 10 individuals that total $5,186, and $14,750 from the CTF coffers. Those numbers leave an unexplained $320 gap, but that is not the real problem with this “declaration”.

Of the $27,259.30, exactly $5,186 is actually disclosed – less than 20% of the total money they are spending is from a declared source. The largest contribution, the $14K from the CTF itself, will never be declared, nor is it clear if this declaration actually covers the true cost of this campaign – not the least including what portion of Jordan Bateman’s $75,000 annual sticking-up-for-the-little-guy salary is included, or how much Hamish Marshall is getting paid, because he doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who works for free.

"Declared" donations to the NoTranslinkTax campaign by category.
“Declared” donations to the NoTranslinkTax campaign by category.

More concerning, the 160 (or 153, as the CTF doesn’t even get the number of donators correct) people donating to the campaign, they list 10 people, or 6%. How is that “Releasing a Donor’s List?” And , of course, that 160 (153?) people does not include the mysterious people who pump up the CTF tires every day.

The CTF, with this half-hearted and untruthful declaration is in no position to criticize the Better Transit and Transportation Coalition, which is comprised of (at last count) more than 130 member organizations, all listed on the website. It is clear that the Mayor’s Council is spending money on this campaign, and each City that contributes is going to need to account for how that money is being spent (for example, New Westminster set a budget of $20,000, and is within that budget). It is also clear that TransLink took some of the money they regularly spend on advertising every year (a little under 1% of their budget) in order to get the word out about the Plan. That is public money and will be declared publicly, as is the law for these types of organizations.

However most of the partners in the coalition, from the David Suzuki Foundation to the Vancouver Board of Trade and Unifor all have their own accounting requirements, and will need to declare to their members how their money is being spent. The CTF will need to do this as well, but no-one expects that to be a public declaration, and besides a few board members and spokespeople, no-one is really sure who their members actually are. So I’m not criticizing the CTF for not being open about their spending, I’m criticizing them for pretending to be open and daring anyone else to pretend to be as open as them. Yet another silly distraction.

In the spirit of providing some positive after all that criticism above, and talking about data that isn’t a distraction. Here is a much better source of info on the numbers that matter in this plebiscite. It is an ongoing project that is using some data visualization and data crunching to tall the more nuanced story about how we fund transportation in the region. They are just starting up, but the early results look good. And their pie charts are way cooler than mine:

chart

Ask Pat: How do I know I’m registered to vote?

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Vote “Yes” Dumby asks—

How do I know I’m registered to vote for the Transit Referendum? What is the most convenient way to vote for the Transit referendum? Will they mail me a ballot?

To register to vote, you can go to the Elections BC website and register on-line. You need a Driver’s License or a Social Insurance Number. If you are already registered, it will simply replace your old registration, so don’t worry about registering too many times (you can only vote once). You can also call them at 1-800-661-8683 using that app on your phone called “phone”. If you register in March, you should automatically get a ballot. If you don’t see a ballot in two weeks or so, you should probably contact them at the phone number and specifically request one. It isn’t only the most convenient way to vote, it’s the only way.

Reaching out for a YES vote .

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

On Monday, I spent a bleary-eyed morning at a SkyTrain Station with several other volunteers, engaging folks on the referendum, and stumping for the YES side. Lots of people had serious questions, and needed clarity on a few of the myths that are out there. Most appreciated having information, and providing links to where they can get better information. Some people agreed to disagree, and that is cool.

The funniest conversation of the day I had was with a middle-aged guy coming off of the 555 express bus, and it went something like this (I paraphrase):

ME: “Would you like more information on the Referendum?”

HE: “Are you on the YES side? Because I have to tell you something.”

ME: “Yes, I am supporting the Yes side.”

HE: “Do you know why businesses are opposing this?”

ME: “What businesses?”

HE: “All businesses, we are all opposed. Do you know why?”

ME: “But most business appear to be in favour. Business- supporting organizations like the Surrey Board of Trade and the Vancouver Board of Trade have publicly supported the YES side here,”

HE: “Do you know WHY businesses are opposed? You need to listen.”

ME: “I am listening sir, but I need to understand your premise. The BC Chamber of Commerce, the Chambers of New Westminster, Delta, Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows, North Vancouver, Richmond, the Tri-Cities, they are all on the Yes side, so they are clearly not opposed at all”.

HE: “I can tell you why all the businesses are opposed.”

ME: “But I don’t think they are opposed. There are BIAs across the region supporting this, as is the tourism industry, the hotel industry, construction and building trades, consulting engineers, real estate boards and building management associations, the Port Authority, the Gateway Council…all of these organizations, representing the vast majority of private sector employers in the Lower Mainland, are in favour… who are all these opposed businesses?”

HE: “They are opposed because TransLink is wasteful! Have you heard about the Poodle on the Pole?”

Me: “um… yeah, except the public art budget for TransLink is less than .1% of their annual budget. “

HE: “They should cut that! Then they don’t need this tax!”

ME: “Thank, you sir. Have a nice day.”

For the rest of you, here is a quick link to the 100+ organizations, business and otherwise, who are on the YES side of this campaign.

The Future of the Region – Yes or No.

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

A few interesting developments on the Referendum front, and it has been a while since I wrote about it. Unless you have been living under a rock, or work in a phone bank for the BC Liberal party*, you are aware there is a referendum going on to decide how we will invest in transportation in the region.

We are less than two weeks from when ballots go in the mail, so it is a good idea for you to look into how you will vote, so you don’t lose your franchise. Elections BC recently released the full details of how the Plebiscite** is going to work. A few details:

If you were born before May 30, 1997, have been a resident of BC since November 29, 2014, are a Canadian resident and live in Metro Vancouver, you can register to vote online at the Elections BC website or call their 1-800 number (you need a Driver’s Licence or a Social Insurance Number). You will get a ballot in the mail. If you don’t get a ballot in the mail in March, you should contact Elections BC and request one. You have until March 29 to return your ballot. The Mayor’s Council set up this helpful graphic to show you the timelines of the vote.

timeline

Like my council Colleagues across the region, I have been busy with this campaign. As unique as the voting mechanism is, this is just an election campaign, and identifying your vote and getting it out requires a lot of organization. I have been talking to community groups, helping with phone volunteers to identify support bases, and helping develop the get-out-the-vote plan, etc. etc.

I’ve said before that democracy is not what happens on election day, but how we, as citizens, get involved between elections to get the most out of our elected representatives. If you think this referendum needs to be won, if you think we need to put the brakes on the cuts to transit service and enter a new era of transit expansion in our region, then I ask you – what are you doing about it? Get in touch with me, with the City of New Westminster, or the Mayor’s Council to see how you can help.

When I have time to be involved in the “air war”, I have concentrated on two things (an links below are to others doing exactly that):

1: Outline in as much detail as the audience needs about the myriad of benefits, tangible and otherwise, that this plan delivers to New Westminster and the region; and

2: Hit back aggressively at specific mistruths being propagated by a few very prominent members of the NO side.

One thing that always gives me a chuckle is the plethora of advice for how the YES side should be campaigning, mostly delivered by people loosely connected to the no side (for example, the wife of the guy who is coordinating the NO campaign for the CTF) and wrapped in sanctimony. We have been told, at times, to stop using scare mongering and stick to the facts; that we can’t rely on facts but should instead go for emotion; that we need to describe the plan in detail so people understand; that we need to simplify the message; that we need to appeal to “Joe Sixpack”, or “Students”, or that we should stop relying on “special interest groups”.

I thank them for the advice, but to me, the most effective message I have heard was delivered by Gordon Price at the PechaKucha New West event two weeks ago. It was an inspiring 6 minutes on the past, present and future of the region. After it ended, I thought “we need to get this on YouTube”. Turns out people (as usual) were way ahead of me, and a (slightly shortened, better produced) version has just been made available by the good folks at Modacity. If you do nothing else before you vote, take 4 minutes to watch this video***, if you want to understand what this referendum is really about:

Vote Yes. For nothing less than the future of the region as we know it.

*I received a phone call from a BC Liberal**** fundraiser on Wednesday evening. I allowed him to go through his script about balanced budgets and good times ahead before I asked him what the party was doing to encourage support for the Referendum that the Leader had called, and was (tacitly) supporting. The poor guy had not even heard that there was a referendum going on. He claimed to be in Burnaby (and I have no reason to doubt him, as he seemed to understand what TransLink was and claimed to watch Global News, so he wasn’t in Topeka or Bangalore). I made what I think was a compelling case for the reasons to support the Yes side, and he asked if the result of the referendum would be a deciding factor in the next election for me. I said no, but the leadership shown during the referendum definitely was. He thanked me for my time, and actually forgot to ask for money.

**Yes, this is a Plebiscite, not a Referendum. The differences are rather arcane. In most jurisdictions, the words are synonymous. In BC, they both mean “a vote on matter of public concern”. Where a Referendum is governed by the Referendum Act and “is usually binding on the government”, a Plebiscite is governed by the Elections Act and “may be binding on the government”. Remarkably, this vote is not being regulated by either, but by something called the “South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority Funding Referenda Act”. Regardless, the Provincial Government changed the language from referendum to a plebiscite when the ballot was released, you can make up your own reasons why. Safe to say, whatever it is called, the results of this vote will be politically binding on the government, if not legally binding.

***Note the book at 1:03 in the video. None other than Charles Montgomery’s The Happy City. Nice touch.

**** Since I wrote that footnote*****, I have noticed that some of the strongest messages coming out on the YES side are coming from BC Liberal MLAs, so I am glad to give kudos to the members of the party who are seeing the importance of this vote, and are putting their political capital into it. We need more of this in the next month.

***** This footnote thing is getting out of hand.  

ASK PAT – Brunette Greenway

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

Matt Church asks—

Do you know if there is a completion date set for the Brunette-Fraser Regional Greenway? I am interested in the two sections that remain between Pier Park and Braid Skytrain Station. And will this section be accessible for bikes? And can we share this cost with Metro Vancouver? I look forward to the day I can bike this route with my kids…and end up at Steel and Oak.

That’s the plan! The Riverfront Vision for the City includes a continuous walking/cycling route that connects the Central Valley Greenway at Braid Station via Sapperton Landing and the Pier Park, over the Q2Q Bridge to the established waterfront Greenways around Queensborough.

I can’t give you a completion date, as there are several pieces of property the City doesn’t own that will need to get included (through purchase, establishing rights-of-way, or expropriation) to make a continuous trail happen. The bigger vision is there, but capital costs compete with other priorities (and a YES vote in the upcoming referendum will give TransLink $13Million per year for bicycle infrastructure matching funds – it would be great if New West could tap into those!). Ideally, the entire system is done in the next 10 years, so by the time your kids are old enough to enjoy Steel & Oak, the route will be there!

Council Meeting – March 2, 2015

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

This was a strange day at Council, because we opened with a Public Hearing on an issue where City Council serves as a sort of appellate court in a semi-judicial type hearing. I’m not really interested in discussing the matter here, but if you wish to know more about it,watch the video here.

The evening meeting began with presentations and open delegations (on of which had me thinking of Alex and his droogs), before the real business commenced with Recommendations from the Committee of the Whole from earlier in the day:

Appointment to the Canada Day Sub-Committee

Our Canada Day events are coordinated by a subcommittee made up of City representatives and representatives from the community at large. This motion was to assign someone from the Multiculturalism Advisory Committee to the Canada Day Committee. And I am reminded again how this City is run and made great by its dedicated volunteers.

Moody Park Off-leash Park Design
A few meetings ago, Council enthusiastically approved the initial concept for an off-leash dog park in Moody Park. Inevitably, this resulted in both criticism (see comments on link above) and kudos, which I take as meaning we threaded the needle of public opinion fairly well. Staff and representatives of Council have followed up with the Moody Park Residents Association and the expressed concerns of other members of the public, and have integrated some their concerns with this modified conceptual plan.

There was quite a bit of a debate at Council about how we ended up with a larger off-leash area than initially sketched, but I can see where Parks was going when addressing one of the major concerns of people who were critical of the original plan. There will now be a full 97m length, making for a pretty good run distance for dogs, especially for a park being shoe-horned into such a compact and well-programed park space as Moody Park. In the end, council voted 4-3 for the larger footprint.

Given the historic nature of the park, and its small size and attachment to adjacent residential and pedestrian areas, I think that the visual impact of the fence is an important part of integrating the off-leach area. Council did discuss the fence options as we see them, and have decided on what I interpreted to be the lowest-impact design, and one that fits the character of the park.

Campaign Finance Disclosure Statements

You may realize that these statements are now out and available for public perusal at this website. It should be noted that the Province just received the statements, and have not yet had an opportunity to review and audit them. I note several reports show declarations that are suspect (and a few that are frankly illegal), and I am sure Elections BC will be asking for some candidates, even locally, to re-issue with corrections. I also note that I will be issuing a correction, as it was only seeing the documents on-line that I realized page three of my declaration includes a typo. The “amounts of surplus funds disbursed” on that page ($12,454.46 ) does not reflect the real number which is disclosed on Form 4234 ($1,245.46). An extra 4 slipped into the .pdf there somewhere.

This does speak a bit to the complexity of these forms, and the fact that none of the forms were available from Elections BC until well into the election period (and they changed significantly since last election). Any Financial Agent who set up their accounting spreadsheets based on last election’s rules (as mine did back in August) found out late in the process that all of the rules had changed, and they had to go back and start again. There was also quite a bit of uncertainty with Elections BC staff about how to interpret some of the new rules. My Financial Agent is a spreadsheet and accounting genius who manages huge capital projects for a living, but the Elections BC staff knew her on a first-name basis by the end of the election, so frequently was she calling them to clarify some nuance of the rules.

This is mostly a pre-amble to my suggesting that we should probably cut a bit of slack to our neighbours in the community who did not file their paperwork in time. The $500 fine under the Elections Act is something we cannot (and should not) fail to enforce, just to be fair to the candidates who did file on time, but I hope you will empathize a bit with the complexity of doing these forms, and recognize that sometimes life interferes with your ability to get paperwork done in time!

Zoning Bylaw changes

Back on February 2, Council asked staff to prepare an amendment to the Zoning Bylaw to limit the number of roughed-in plumbing features allowed in accessory buildings in the City, to discourage he ready conversion of these buildings in to living suites, at least until the City is able to have a proper community and neighbourhood discussion around Laneway housing policy (which is occurring right now as part of the OCP review).

Staff have prepared this draft amendment Bylaw, and it will go to Public Hearing on March 30. C’mon out and tell us what you think.

HRA for 336 Agnes Street

There is a plan to restore the 1940 Dontenwill Hall to some of its former glory, and place long-term Heritage Protection on it. The application has been through a public open house, the Heritage Commission, the Advisory Planning Commission.

The Project will go to Public Hearing on March 30. C’mon out and tell us what you think.

Rezoning of 210 Durham Street

This is a proposal to re-zone a lot in Glenbrooke North to allow subdivision into two lots, each with a 33’ frontage. This is the very beginning of the formal process for a rezoning, as it will go to Advisory Planning Commission, the Neighbourhood Association, Public Open House, and Advisory Planning Commission.

Alberta Street Traffic Review

Regular readers (Hi Mom!) will remember that Alberta Street residents came to Council to express concerns about recent changes in the traffic patterns on their street. At the time, we asked staff to come back with options for a short-term “band aid”, and to look at longer-term neighbourhood traffic planning options. This report brought those, and the recommendations are good, but I was not without criticism of the report itself.

You can see my comments in the video, and I will use another blog post to expand on this issue. In the short term, Council decided to install the temporary traffic diverters at the foot of Alberta (the “band aid” previously discussed), then go back and do another traffic survey to see how it those changes affect drivers’ behavior. After that, we will start planning for a more comprehensive neighbourhood traffic management plan for upper Sapperton.

In my opinion, this speaks to a need or a bit of a culture change in how we (as a City) address neighbourhood traffic impacts in our City. It speaks to the Pedestrian Charter, the priorities set out in our Master Transportation plan, and even the direction we are receiving from the general public in the Official Community Plan public consultations. In short: I care less about how well Alberta Street works for through-commuters, and more about how Alberta Street operates for the people who live on it.

Animal Shelter Task Force

The City is looking to replace it’s 25-year old and wholly inadequate animal shelter. A task force has been struck to oversee the development of this shelter. Council approved the Terms of Reference. Woof.

Special Occasion Permits of Queens Park Arena

Beer and Bellies – two great tastes that go great together! Here’s to a good season!

Electrical Utility rates

The City runs its own Electrical Utility, which makes it pretty unique in BC. The City can buy bulk electricity at wholesale rates from BC Hydro, and sell it to residents and businesses in New Westminster for retail rates. The existing policy in the City is to sell electricity at the same rate as BC Hydro charges at the retail level. The City is able to use the difference to pay for the upkeep of the City’s electrical grid, and put a tidy sum of money into the City’s general revenue. Currently, that amount transferred is about $6 Million per year – that is $6 Million in City services and operations that you don’t have to pay for with your taxes.

The City has a lot of latitude about how it sets rates. We could charge more for electricity than BC Hydro charges in surrounding Cities, or we could charge less. Of course, if we did the former, people would probably not react well to paying more; if we did the latter, we would need to find alternate revenue sources to cover that loss to our operating budget (read: property tax increase). I have yet to hear a compelling argument that we should do anything other than what our current policy is: peg our rates at the BC Hydro standard, and use the income to offset property taxes.

This report recommends (and Council Agreed) to raise our rates to match the changes at BC Hydro. Council added to more recommendations.

Councillor Puchmayr asked that the Electrical Utility report beck on the root causes of BC Hydro’s increases: namely, mismanagement by BC Hydro and the Provincial government of the BC Hydro file, with a lack of oversight of the BCUC on issues from run-of-the-river contracts to the installation of Smart Meters.

I further requested that the Electrical Utility provide some reporting on how our rates in New Westminster differ from or match those of BC Hydro customers in our surrounding community. The overall amount of money we change per KwH is the same as what Hydro charges, but there are some subtle differences in how those rates are charged. Because of the different “base charges” and the tiered rates, there may be instances where these charges are different, and I think it is important that New Westminster residents and businesses know how our rates compare.

New West SkyTrain Station upgrades

There is a summary report on the consultations with Council and several Council Advisory Committees in regards to planned capital improvements at New Westminster SkyTrain Station. Timing of this work is not certain, and is likely contingent somewhat on the results of the upcoming Referendum, as TransLink Capital funding is rather up in the air until then.

The bit Council added to this discussion is about the name of New Westminster Station, and by extension Columbia Station. Back in 1985, calling New Westminster Station (as it was the terminus of the line at the time) made sense. Now we have 5 stations in New Westminster ,and two on Columbia Street. With other stations in the system more reflecting local community landmarks (Stadium, Roundhouse, Waterfront), it was thought that maybe we could re-think New Westminster and Columbia Stations. New West Anvil? New West Hyack Square? New West Riverfront? It suspect this is opening a can of worms that TransLink would rather avoid, but I think just having the conversation might be fun.

Correspondence

Letters, we get letters. We get lots and lots of letters.

Bylaws

1: Commercial Vehicle Amendment Bylaw No. 7742, 2015. As Discussed on February 23, this Bylaw change will permit 4 more taxi licenses to be granted in the City. This process moves the Bylaw forward, and there will be an Opportunity to be Heard on this change on March 30, 2015 at our Regular Council Meeting. C’mon out and tell us what you think.

2: Electrical Utility Amendment Bylaw. As discussed above, your electrical rates are going up to match those rates offered by BC Hydro. This is now the Law of the Land.

3: Zoning Amendment Bylaw 7743, 2015 As Discussed on February 2, this Bylaw will limit plumbing rough-ins in accessory buildings to curtail their illegal conversion to unpermitted living quarters. A Public Hearing on this change will be held on March 30, 2015. C’mon out and tell us what you think.

4 & 5: HRA and Heritage Designation, 336 Agnes Street. As Discussed above, there is a proposal to restore Dontenwill Hall. A Public Hearing on this change will be held on March 30, 2015. C’mon out and tell us what you think.

New Rabble Rouser Website!

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 3 Comments.

For long-time readers (Hi Mom!) I am happy to announce I will now have a website that contains everything my former blog was missing: form, function, design, and aesthetics.

If you are reading this on the NWimby.blogspot.com website, then you need to go to PatrickJohnstone.ca right now and see what you are missing. All new posts from this point forward will be there, and all old posts from here are also over there as well, with a much more friendly archive and search capability. It really is better over there. Go now, take the click.

If you are looking at this on the patrickjohnstone.ca website, welcome! Look around. This new website has all of the questionable content you have known from my former blog, along with new features and more questionable ideas, opinions, and news.

The quick good(?) news is that all of the content from my 5 years blogging as GreenNewWest and NWimby is included in the archive here. Those posts are tagged with their original tag, categorized with the NWimby label, and serchable by content and date. Also, all of the writings/musings I did for my Campaign website during the recent Election are also archived here, categorized as “Campaign” and similarly searchable. Hit the Archive button above and search the goodness!

You will also notice that red button over to the right that says “Ask Pat”. That is something new that I hope people will put to good use. Do you have a question about why the City does something the way it does? Do you have an idea about how to make the City better? Do you have a gripe about my use of prepositions? I want to make that feedback as easy as possible. Just click that button and Ask Pat, I will endeavour to answer as soon as I can reasonably get to it, and the answer will appear here and in your inbox.

Much thanks and volumnous shout-out to Wes at Of Desks right here in New Westminster for the incredible work he has done to make this website revamp so damn vamping. I wrote a few words and sketched something on a napkin, and he spun it into a custom design with custom functions that is estetically clean with really clear functions and navigation. It looks great – it works even better!

Welcome to the universe where my name is a web address. How did it ever come to this?

Council Meeting – February 23, 2015

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

The People might have noticed we didn’t have a Regular Council Meeting on February 16th. Instead, Council spend a bunch of time workshopping various topics as aCommittee of the Whole, both in open and closed session. You can watch the open portion online here.

This week, there was an interesting set of Delegations on the future of the Waterfront Parkade, but that is part of a bigger discussion I will cover in another post.

This week’s Regular Council meeting also included Opportunities to be Heard on two sign variance requests. Only the proponent of one came to speak on them, so Council moved ahead with the issuance of the permits:

DVP for 700 Sixth Street

The new Rexall Drugs want to add a couple of direction-finding signs to their free underground parking. Frankly, I was a little bothered that they had already installed these signs, and were asking for a variance now, but it appears there was a lack of understanding about the need for a variance, and the signs they are putting up will replace the ones they already have and will be less obtrusive (more neutral colour and non-branded), so I got past the oversight.

We received a bit of correspondence opposed to this variance from residential neighbours, but it appears they were mostly opposed to the existing lit signs on the buildings, which were approved without a variance back when the building was approved. I agree they are a little big and perhaps brighter than ideal, but it would be difficult for the City to go back and force the removal of a legally-installed sign. The new signs covered by this variance are not lit, so they at least won’t make the situation worse.

DVP for 1025 Columbia Street

We received no correspondence or delegations on this variance. Save-on-Foods want to add a sign to the side of their building so people on Royal Avenue are aware that they are driving by the back of a Save-on-Foods, which seems like a reasonable request.

So, on to the main meeting, which as always started with Recommendations from the Committee of the Whole from the afternoon:

Public Engagement Task Force

The Terms of Reference for the Mayor’s Public Engagement Task Force (of which I am a member) was expanded to put yet more public on it. There were many great applicants, and we had to work hard to winnow it down to what we feel are 6 unique voices who each bring something different to the table. I look forward to working with Jen, Chinu, Daniel, Nadine, Gabriella, and Nancy.

Financial Plan Update

Annual updates of the Financial Plan continue, and I suspect as the public process goes on, I will be writing several blog posts about it.

There were two votes Council took at the Committee of the Whole that were interesting (for a Mayor and Council that ran as a team this recent election) in that they both went down to 4-3 votes in Committee in the Whole. I think that is great sign that we are not being myopic as a Council, but are having meaningful discussions on important topics like the budget.

Council decided to save a bit of money by reducing the requested increase in Parks Labourer positions by 50%). I voted against this, as I felt Parks made an effective case for an increase seasonal staff to meet the demands that increasing green space in the City places on current crews. More people on Council agreed that the department should dig deeper for internal efficiencies to make this happen.

Another interesting discussion ensued around a request to allocate the “bonus money” we receive from digital sign revenues in accordance with the way we spend the baseline revenues. This is a bit complicated, but short version is that the City receives about $1,000,000 in base revenue from the digital signs that were installed last year, and Council made a policy decision when the signs were installed to split that base revenue into 50% for the fund to finance Canada Games Pool replacement, 40% for the Massey Theatre replacement project fund, and 10% into our Affordable Housing initiative fund. The signs are performing better than anticipated, so we expect about $400,000 in “bonus revenue” in 2015. Council has not established a policy on how these bonus revenues are used. It was proposed this year that we use that bonus money to offset some of the tax money we had already earmarked for the Canada Games Pool fund – which means we could take about $400,000 off of your annual tax bill and not short-change the capital planning for Canada Games Pool. Councillor McEvoy argued that not all of the bonus money should go to the CGP fund, but that 10% should go to our Affordable Housing reserve, as per council policy for the base funds. I disagreed, as did two of my council colleagues, but it takes 4 to win a vote.

During the last two Committees of the Whole, we have reviewed recommended changes to the Capital Plan that will move parts of the money into the 2016 budget. Short version here is that the City has both long-term capital plans (to schedule and finance the building and operation of City assets, from swimming pools to sidewalks to computers), and we have short-term capital needs. The money available to us (through your taxes, transfers from other governments, drawing from reserves, through cost-recovery, debt financing, etc.) for these items needs to be managed over a multi-year planning cycle. As a housekeeping measure mostly, the City moved many items from this fiscal year into the years when the funds are more likely to be spent. This move has no impact on your tax rate.

So our proposed tax increase for 2015 is currently pegged at 2.42%. Subject to change.

Mental Health Commission

It is no secret that most local governments are not satisfied with the lack of any kind of meaningful Mental Health strategy on the part of the Federal Government. The lack of leadership from senior governments means that local governments can either suffer the costs of having people with no access to care living on their streets and filling their police blotters, or local governments can step up and provide the missing programs to allow people with mental illness to live and integrate in our society. I’m new to Council so I can’t take credit, but I am proud of the work this City has done to take the latter approach. From working to find a variety of low-barrier housing options to bringing mental health training to our professional first responders so they can turn a potential conflict into an opportunity for someone to get assistance.

Amendment of Council Schedule

There are a couple of projects in the City that are looking like they will be coming to Council for a Public Hearing in April. If the volume of e-mails and letters Council is receiving on these projects is an indication, these will be well-attended public hearings. It is imperative that we allow everyone who wants to speak fair access to the process, but also have regular Council business to get done. Therefore Staff is suggestion we have two separate Public Hearing nights in April as opposed to only one. Hopefully this will allow us to hear more voices and still get home before midnight. Mark your calendars and clear some space on the PVRs, April 20 and 27th will both be Public Hearing nights.

Commercial Vehicle Amendment Bylaw 7742

Rolling right along on Opportunities to be Heard – Council previously agreed to move forward on a change in our Commercial Vehicle Bylaw to allow four more taxi licenses to be granted in the City. Changing the Bylaw requires a formal Opportunity to be Heard, which is scheduled for March 30, 2015 at our Regular Council Meeting. C’mon out and tell us what you think.

DP and DVP for 111 Wood Street

This is a 10-townhouse development on vacant land on South Dyke Road. The project has been though community consultation, Design Panel and the Advisory Planning Commission. Council moved to hold an Opportunity to be Heard on the required Zoning Bylaw change on March 23, 2015. C’mon out and tell us what you think.

Moody Park Spraypark

The plans to have a new spray park up and running this summer in Moody Park are, unfortunately, going to have to wait. The complicated job of re-jigging the underground services for the new waterfeatures is going to go into May, and that would mean the park would not be done until September or later, which would put the playground out of service for the busy summer season. Instead, Parks is going to delay the second phase of work until September, so Kids and family can enjoy the park in the summer, and have a spanking new park for spray season 2016.

Major Purchasing Transactions

The City’s Purchasing Policy requires staff to report out to Council on the major purchases over the previous fiscal quarter. This is that report. I’m happy to see many jobs were awarded slightly (but not too much) under budget. That means we are doing a pretty good job guessing estimating what capital projects cost, and that we are getting them done on budget.

ACTBiPed

I chair this committee, and am happy that ICBC volunteered to provide a liaison to the committee. So much of what we do at that committee has to do with pedestrian and cyclist safety, and ICBC is such an integral part of how transportation safety is planned in our region (and collects comprehensive stats on what works and what doesn’t), it will be valuable voice at that table.

Festival Grant Awards

The City has a staff committee who evaluate grant applications for festivals in the City. Staff are better able than Council to evaluate the viability of the proposed events, and to fairly evaluate the in-kind costs to the City of various events. Still, Council gets to decide if the recommendations of that Committee go forward. For the first time in 2015, these grant applications are separate from Community Partnership Grants, and the City has created a mechanism to “pre-approve” the events in up to two subsequent years. This will provide more certainty to the organizers, and allow them to secure longer-term sponsorship and event partnerships, which will hopefully result in bigger festivals in the upcoming years.

The City has $175,000 budgeted for festival grants, and we received requests for $273,844. Council agreed with the Committees recommendations and awarded $173,280 in total grants. I wish we could grant all of these events 100%. However, in the spirit of using many hands to make light work, I highly encourage you to contact the organizations and offer a little volunteer time. There is simply no better way to enjoy a Street Fest or a Parade than to actively take part in pulling it off! If you are going to be there anyway- why not volunteer a few hours to help out?

Council Delegation Procedure

In partial relation to the last item, our City Clerk (whose job it is to make sure our meetings are run fairly and in compliance with the applicable legislation) has made a couple of suggestions to make delegations work better.

The first is to restrict people from delegating on a topic once a Public Hearing for that topic has been scheduled. We can all think of previous occasions when a contentious project or decision is known to be upcoming, and for weeks leading up to that decision, people delegate to council speaking for or against it. If the project is coming to Public Hearing, it is vitally important that Council not pre-judge the process or argue for or against a project until the Public Hearing is completed. Therefore, if we allow delegations on a topic in the weeks leading up to the Public Hearing, Council cannot address the concerns of the delegate at that time, at risk of violating that impartiality.

This in no way limits your ability to speak with council in an open meeting on the topic, nor does it prevent you from calling, e-mailing, writing a letter, or bending a council member’s ear at the grocery store. It does mean, however, that if you want to delegate on a topic going to Public Hearing once the public hearing for the topic is scheduled, you need to do so at that Public Hearing instead of at a regular Council Meeting. It also assures when you do delegate on the topic, Council and Staff will have the correct information on hand to speak to your concerns.

The second change is to change the delegation form to allow a delegate to add their contact information right on the form, as often staff are requested to follow up with the delegate, and occasionally, that contact info is hard to get.

Review of City’s Towing Operation

The City operated tow trucks and a tow yard. Some people question (as with most things) whether it would make more sense for the City to contract that work out. In October (before I was on Council), Council asked staff to perform a financial assessment of Towing Services to determine if the City was indeed getting good value. Turns out the services provide better services at comparable rates to the major towing Service providers used by some other Cities. The service has (since 2011 at least) been revenue-neutral on towing operations, and has resulted in significant saving for the City in that the towing crews, when not actually towing things, have provided a variety of call-out services at no cost to the City, such as snow clearing, pump station or flood monitoring, parking meter maintenance, and assistance at special events emergencies that a towing company simply could and would not provide.

So we will be keeping our Towing Services folks around for a while longer.

Correspondence

Correspondence included two pieces requiring action:

1: An opportunity for the City to appoint someone to serve on the Metro Vancouver Agricultural Advisory Committee. We don’t have a lot of farms in New West , but we do have a farmer on council, and Councillor Puchmayr was our unanimous nomination.

2: The BC Seniors Games Committee is looking for host Cities for the years 2017, 2018 and 2019. Council asked staff to investigate the details regarding costs and commitments so Council can start the discussion if this is something New West is interested in doing.

Bylaws

Finally, we adopted Bylaw no. 7722, 2014. This is the final zoning amendment bylaw required to permit Bosa to start work on their development at 1000 Quayside Drive. This saw first and second reading on September 8 2014, went to public hearing on October 17 2014, and received third reading on the same night. Although I have not been part of the earlier discussions, I think this is a good development concept that has potential to benefit the Quayside area and especially the River Market, by boosting retail opportunities on that side of the tracks.

And that was a full day’s work.

Coldest Night

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

Walking with Councilors Harper & Puchmayr, Mayor Cote, and MLA Judy Darcy as part of the “Council of Champions” team at the 2015 Coldest Night of the Year walk for Seniors Services Society. Raising funds for a good cause is a little easier on the west cost, where the “Coldest Night” featured a spectacular sunset and flowers blooming along the Quayside boardwalk!

Spending wisely

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

I saw this story in the paper, and could see by the tone (and some social media flitter) that some people are wondering why Council decided to spend up to $20,000 on getting out the YES vote on the upcoming Metro Vancouver Transportation and Transit Plebiscite. I shouldn’t presume to speak for all of Mayor and Council, but I can give you my reasons

Transportation is the #1 issue in this City, and was so during the last election. At that time, this Mayor and the successfully-elected members of Council talked about their vision for addressing this issue, and it centered around implementing the newly-developed Master Transportation Plan. That is the mandate the voters gave us. The MTP contains a variety of goals and strategies, and they are all supported by the plan for transit and transportation infrastructure outlined in the Mayor’s Plan. None of those goals are supported by a NO vote.

Further, during the election I was told by citizens at the doorstep, by people in the media (social and no-so-social), and even by other candidates during all-candidates meetings that the City needs to work collaboratively with our neighbours to solve the regional transportation issues that are impacting New Westminster. The Mayor’s Plan that we are being asked to vote on was developed in collaboration with all of the municipalities in Metro Vancouver, and was approved by the vast majority of them. This is what working collaboratively looks like.

It might also help is we put that $20,000 into perspective.

$20,000 is the cost of a single parking spot. If a YES on this referendum means one more person has access to reliable transit for their daily commute, and the City has to build one less parking spot, we have already broken even.

$20,000 is about 0.7% of our annual paving budget. If traffic is reduced by the infrastructure that comes with this plan enough to reduce the wear on our streets by 0.7% for just one year, then the City breaks even.

$20,000 is less than it costs to respond and investigate a single road fatality in the City. If one less person in a car, on a bike, or walking, is injured or killed in an MVA in our City because traffic is reduced, or because they now have access to a night bus, or because the Pattullo Bridge is made safer, then the City is financially ahead.

A YES vote will bring hundreds of millions of dollars of infrastructure improvements to the transit and transportation system every person in New Westminster uses every day. $20,000 is a good investment, and we (as elected officials responsible for making good economic decisions for the citizens of New Westminster) would be fools to not support the YES side of this referendum.