Strategic Planning

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

As I reported last week, New West Council completed our Strategic Priority Plan. You can read the plan here, and I will write a second post about the content of it, but first a bit about the process that got us here, and the next steps. In the Strat Plan Blogging sandwich, this will be about the bread, and we can talk about the meat in the middle in the next post.

This Strategic Plan is the work of all of Council, with significant support from staff in preparing it. This is a new Council, with 4 new members and a new Mayor. We have also seen some significant changes in the last few years, between the persistent impacts of COVID-19 on our program delivery and the generational scale of our capital plan. Though it is common for a new Council to adopt a new strategic plan to guide staff work for the term, I felt it was important that this time we take a bit of time for the new Council to get their feet under them, and that we do intensive onboarding and training to assure all of Council are adequately informed to take a meaningful part in the Strat Planning.

As both Strategic Planning and budget planning take a lot of work, I did not want to rush through the former before we started working on the latter, and the budget has legislated timelines we needed to meet. The timing we followed allowed Council a chance to go through their first budget cycle before we buttoned up the Strat Plan – an important lesson in compromise and priority setting. The Strat Plan (and future budgets) will be stronger because we did this learning, but we also needed to recognize that our Strat Plan will not be fully demonstrated in our budget until next year.

The Strat Plan process included a weekend workshop, it was embedded into the many onboarding workshops we held, and there were early written drafts that all of Council opined on, as staff were able to frame and make sensible from all of that input. This was a good exercise overall, as members of Council were free to discuss technical and legislative policy limits with staff in a way that they feel free and unencumbered to ask the “bad question”. There was also space to debate values, ideas, policies, and challenges in a way that is mostly free of the political fray. I think we grew as a Council through this.

All that said, there is a responsibility that Council make decisions transparently, which means that the Strat Plan comes to an open meeting, and all of Council have an opportunity to speak to it. You can see this process (closed development discussion followed by open release and endorsement) is the standard practice for Municipalities that do strategic plans, and you can see other Munis reports here, here, and here.

Now that the Strat Plan is adopted, we will use it to guide future budget discussions, and will integrate it with our other major planning documents, from the Official Community Plan to our Climate Action Plan and Parks and open Spaces Strategy. When Staff or Council bring ideas forward, they will be discussed in the context of this plan – either the new work should match our priorities, or we need a compelling reason to adjust those priorities.

To bring the Strat Plan to function, we will likely be making some changes in the operation of the City. We had a report last week about Advisory Committees, and are beginning the work to assure they are structured to serve the priorities of the Strat Plan. It is also possible that we will make some organizations changes at the staff level to assure that workplans are better aligned with Council’s priorities and that the reporting structure is designed to provide oversight and accountability to the goals of Council as expressed by the Strat Plan. This is the work of the months ahead.

We are in a time when Local Governments are being asked to do more things for more people all the time. We are also being asked to do more with less, in the sense that our budgets are strained and the regional labour shortage means fewer people are available to do the expanded work. To achieve our major strategic goals, we are going to have to set priorities. This is a hard thing for New Westminster (the City, and the community) to do – we are the small city that does a lot, and we are proud of our level of achievement. Yes, there are a lot of great things we could do but we simply cannot do it all. This is called a Strategic Priorities Plan for a reason, and I’ll write in the next post about what those priorities are.

Finally, it was disappointing that the work of the last few months was not endorsed by all of Council. I assumed everyone was in those meetings and discussions for the same reasons, to work out a shared sense of principles and priorities. I thought we had got there, and it was communicated to me that we got there. To have a last-minute amendment on a parochial item seemed performative to me, and to use the lack of support for this performative gesture as an excuse to oppose the result of months of staff and Council work seemed to disregard the collaborative approach Council had taken into this work. I am disappointed by that, but will learn from it.

LOWER MAINLAND LGA 2023 (PT 2)

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

I wrote last week about the political part of the Lower Mainland LGA annual conference, here is the rest of what happened, including the Sessions and Resolutions.

Sessions:
A major part of the annual meeting are workshops and panel sessions where Local Government leaders can share and learn. Considering about half of the attendees this year were new to the job of being a Mayor of City Councilor, these formal sessions (and the ample informal networking time) is really valuable. This is the briefest summary of the sessions this year.

Local Government Partnerships & Innovation
This was a panel discussion with representatives from three Municipalities taking innovative approaches to their unique challenges: Abbotsford taking an Airport the Federal government didn’t want anymore and making it a local economic driver; Whistler working to bring community-based health care work in their unique community; and Chilliwack taking an aggressive approach to Downtown Revitalization.

The last item sparked a lot of interest in the room, and was also the subject of a pre-conference tour. The centre of the discussion is a block branded as District 1881 that over more than 15 years went from this:

To this:

To this:

The Streetview images don’t fully represent the texture of the change, as the first photo has a lot of end-of-life buildings, many boarded up stores and low value leases inthe few remaining. The new Centre is certainly attractvie and higher value (arguably gentrified?). There were some good lessons from their experience here, some not particularly useful now (“buy up land before the prices are driven up!”), and some very useful, though sometimes hard to achieve (“be clear on your vision and stick with it, even through changes in council and government; build partnerships early”). I had some good discussion with colleagues from Chilliwack after the panel to get more details, and will be following up.

Everyone’s Responsibility: Codes of Conduct & Ethics in City Hall Description
This was an interesting and timely panel ad most local governments (by direction of the Province) are reviewing their Codes of Conduct now, we have new Councils across the region, and we were meeting in Harrison, one of the municipalities that is currently facing scrutiny for its council conduct challenges. The Panel included a member of the Provincial government who works in local government oversight, a Councillor for Squamish, which is a municipality with a “model” Code of Conduct, introduced last term, and a Lawyer who guides Cities (including New West) on Code of Conduct issues.

This was an interesting conversation that spoke about the importance of a strong CoC, and also admitted that a CoC was not a panacea for all forms of organizational dysfunction. So many of our systems in local government organization rely on good faith participation, and the development of a CoC is one of these. The importance of developing a CofC when things are going well was emphasized, because trying to bring them in during time of maximum disruption (when they are needed the most) does not work – they have to be in place ahead of time. Lesson learned.

Running a Positive Election Campaign: Reflections and Lessons Learned from the 2022 BC General Municipal Election
This panel brought elected types from Vancouver, Burnaby, Squamish, and Langley together with the observer of all things Municipal, Justin McElroy, to discuss the campaign of 2022, and the potential for positive messaging as a positive force in elections. There was a*lot* here about the battle of ideas, and the absolute quagmire that is election period Social Media. Perhaps one of the insights that stood out was Justin’s advice/observance that elected people who are still talking about the election 6 months later are probably the ones who will not survive, which evokes a bit Nenshi’s comments: stop campaigning and do some work. There will be lots of time to campaign three years from now. Perhaps the most interesting moment was when the question was asked about the role of “Kennedy Stewart’s Road Tax” in a positive campaign, but you had to be there to appreciate it.

We also had a great closing keynote from Bowinn Ma, the Minister of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness, speaking about the lessons learned from the atmospheric river floods, Lytton fire, and other major events of the last few years ,and new ways the Provincial Government is working to help local governments be prepared for the next shitty climate-change-driven catastrophe (my words, not hers), including the Climate Ready BC website

Resolutions
Except for years where there is a spectacular speech implosion, the resolutions session is the most noteworthy part of most Lower Mainland LGA meetings. This is the part where municipalities put forward resolutions they hope the membership will endorse, mostly calls for Senior Governments to do things, like change policy, legislation or revenue streams for local government. In 2023 we had 35 resolutions debated, and you can read all about the here. Most were successful, but some failed. I am only going to speak to the ones that New Westminster took to the session. For the rest, you will have to find some other mayor’s blog. This is a really fun debate process for those who dig local government policy wonking, and want to make change.

R9 Equitable Communities
…be it resolved that UBCM call upon the Province of British Columbia and the Government of Canada to provide resources and policy direction to enable local government to implement analytical processes for the assessment of systemic inequalities (i.e. Gender-Based Analysis Plus) across local government capital investments, operations and strategic initiatives to ensure all citizens can participate fully in civic life and to make measureable progress towards dismantling system inequality in our communities.
This passed non-controversially.

R10 Exemption to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act
…be it resolved that the LMLGA and UBCM request that the BC Government request Health Canada add “public park spaces designed for and used by children and youth” to the list of exceptions to the Controlled Drug and Substances Act exemptions.
This resolution was divisive, and was eventually amended to remove the work “park”, which left it asking for a ban for all public spaces. As this effectively results in full recriminalization of decriminalized drugs, this derailed the motion completely. The amended motion was endorsed by a slim majority of delegates, but in this form will no doubt be ignored by the Federal and Provincial governments, a classic example of cutting off ones nose to spite one’s face.

R16 Vacant Property Tax on Commercial Properties
…be it resolved that UBCM urge the Province of British Columbia to provide local governments with an option to introduce a vacant property tax applicable to commercial properties
This was another hotly-debated resolution, but with a solid majority of delegates voting in support. This will no doubt be ever more hotly debated at UBCM, and the rural-urban divide on this issue may be more pronounced than one might expect.

R28 Bringing Equity to Traffic Enforcement
…be it resolved that UBCM calls upon the provincial government to implement a means-tested traffic fine system, similar to Finland, Switzerland, Sweden or the UK where fines may be calculated on the basis of the offender’s income.
Perhaps surprisingly, there was little debate on this issue, and reflecting the public opinion polls on the matter, this resolution was supported by a solid majority of delegates. Again, I expect this to have a rockier ride at UBCM, but the level of support was positive.

So all in all, New West was 3 for 4 for our resolutions, and our memberswere the re to support solid resolutions for other progressive councils from around the region – this is an area where Port Moddy asnd Squamish really step up and take some regional leadership.

In what became a running joke for some during the resolution debates, was the frequency with which the term “slippery slope” was used as an excuse to not endorse a regulatory change. This is a bit silly, as all regulation is, buy it very nature, a potential slippery slope, which is why the framing of it is as important as the request for it. But I also note that the “slippery slope fallacy” is the only logical fallacy we common name as we are committing it. In debate, we rarely say “this is a total non sequitur, but…” or “I would like to offer the strawman argument that…”, but we have no shame in saying “If we approve this, it is the thin end of the wedge!”.

Maybe I’ll save the rhetoric lecture for UBCM… 

Council – May 8, 2023

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

It was a long, and at times complicated, council meeting on Monday, but we got a lot of really positive work done, and left the room feeling more refreshed than we should have been at that late time of night. The Agenda was lengthy, and started with an important Presentation

2022-2026 Council Strategic Plan
Council has been working on a Strategic Plan for months. This included a bunch of onboarding work, which is important when the majority of Council is new to the job, and brings different expectations of what the City is, and where it needs to be, to the equation. We had an intensive weekend retreat at the Shipyards on North Vancouver, and some workshops following that session. We have also asked staff to do a bunch of work to translate our “wants” into potential deliverables. Anyone who works for an organization the size of this City understands the challenge of distilling visions into a digestible document. I’m really proud of Council and staff for getting here. Share and enjoy.

Is it the Strat Plan I would have written? Maybe not exactly. But I am one of seven at Council, and as much as I might want to impose my own vision on everything in the community, I am part of a team, I recognize the product of the team is a better product – more likely to reflect the vision of the broader community and more likely to reflect a vision that can be realized by the team. This is a good thing, and I have a lot of faith in the team to see us though.

I’m a little disappointed that after all this work, there was not unanimous adoption of the product of that work, ostensibly because the balance of Council was unwilling to add a last minute parochial issue (that had recently been the target of a campaign by a business person with a clear pecuniary interest) into the long-discussed community-focused strategy. Alas, that is where we are politically.

More blog posts to come, because this is an important topic, but for now, the Council adopted the Strat Plan, and our work ahead is prioritized.

We then had a couple of Information Reports pulled forward for discussion:

Anvil Centre Operations
This Report provided City Council with some updates and details on Anvil Centre operations, as a compliment to the report under Consent regarding Anvil Centre budgets. After almost 9 years of operation, and the Anvil Centre being important to many of the priorities in the just-adopted Strategic Plan (Downtown revitalization, the blending of Arts and Culture with Economic Development, developing better connectedness and belonging in the city), Council asked that we have a deeper discussion around the successes and challenges of Anvil, and an opportunity to discuss the mandate of Anvil going into its tenth year. This will come back to us in Workshop format in the middle future.

Demographic Profile of Be Heard New West Registered Users
The City has operated on-line engagement portal since 2020, called Be Heard New West. This is one of the deliverables from the City’s Public Engagement Strategy, which was adopted in 2016 following a Mayor’s Task Force on Public Engagement (which included two members of Council who were not on Council then!). This is , of course, not the only Public Engagement work we do, but it is one that allows pretty close tracking of who we are engaging with, and perhaps more reliantly, who we are not reaching with our community engagement.

This report compares the demographics of the people connected with Be Heard New West with the demographics of the community gleaned from the 2021 census. We have almost 3,500 registrants (just under 5% of the population), which would be a statistically relevant number if it wasn’t self-selected. Groups under-represented might not be surprising. Renters only make up 24% of Be Heard participants, while renter households are more than 45% of the households in New West. People under 35 are underrepresented, while people 35-64 are very much overrepresented. People of Colour are underrepresented, as are immigrant residents. There was some expressed interest in Council to look at other tools to assure better representation of the community in our engagement, which slightly previewed our discussion of the Advisory Committees below.

These items were then moved On Consent:

Anvil Centre Operating Overview
As a companion to the earlier info report, this is a report that arose out of some deeper conversations Council has been having around the budget for the Anvil Centre. Where some on Council have asserted repeatedly that the Anvil is “losing $5 Million per year”. The reality is something different.

It costs about $5.3 Million to run the Anvil Centre every year. $2.4M of this is conference services, $1.2M is Community Arts & Theatre operations, and the remaining $1.5M the cost of the Museum, Archives, art and technology functions. This is offset by $2.6M in revenue earned every year, mostly from Conference Services. This does NOT include parking from the parkade under Anvil or leases of the commercial spaces in the Anvil, which are a separate revenue source, nor does it include the $2.7M in annual capital depreciation, which is not an actual cash “cost”, but an accounting for the idea that the Anvil, like all assets, has a lifespan we need to account for in our capital budget.

Appointment of Corporate Officer
We have a new Corporate Officer, and this is one of the positions we need to officially assign as City Council as they have regulatory role and delegated duties. So this was done.

Approach for Budget 2024 Engagement & Budget Timelines
This report outlines the timelines for engagement on next years’ budget. We have just wrapped the 2023 budget, but Council has expressed a desire to engage earlier and deeper with the broad community on budget matters, and a desire to complete the budget work earlier in the year so we can better align our budget with annual staff work plans, which means we are going to begin the 2024 budget engagement process this month.

There are two plans here: a quick start for 2024, recognizing he tight timelines and staff resources that will include Be Heard New West and directly outreach to a broader community, including both educational materials about municipal budgeting and questions about service levels, priorities, and tax tolerance. Given how this works and more planning time, there will be enhanced work for the 2025 budget season.

Daycare Lease Agreement at 490 Furness Street
This is the Lease that allows KIDS to operate a daycare (12 infant/toddler spots and 25 preschool-age) in a building the City negotiated out of the development of a townhouse project in Queensborough. The Developer built the building and gave it to the City. The Province provided a $500,000 grant towards construction. The City fitted it out, including using $450,000 from our daycare reserve funds, and will continue to own and maintain the building. KIDS won the contract in an open call for proposals, and will staff and operate the daycare, including daily building maintenance. The City will collect $2,800/month in lease to cover the majority of costs for the building, utilities, and to help offset the depreciation of the building, which is clearly a small percentage of what “market rent” would be for a building like this. These costs (and the lease amount) will be adjusted over the term of the lease through quarterly reporting to KIDS.

Early Steps Daycare – Playground License Agreement at 601 Queens Avenue
A new Childcare is trying to set up on Queens Avenue, but the “front lawn” is not large enough to meet provincial standards for outdoor play space. Immediately adjacent to this lawn is City boulevard with more than enough space well set back from traffic, with no clear delineation where City land starts and private property ends. The Daycare operator would like to include a small part of the City-owned lawn as their designated outdoor space. This is OK with the City, but as they are a for-profit organization, we can’t just let them use it (ref. Section 25 of the Community Charter), so we need to agree to a fair lease for the use of public space. This is that agreement.

Expanding the Inter-municipal TNS (Ride-Hailing) Business Licence to include Hope, Kent and Mission
The City is part of an Inter-Municipal Business License scheme along with 20+ Greater Vancouver municipalities to provide a single business license to ride-hailing companies, meaning the operators can legally operate across the region, and each municipality gets its share of the license revenue. Three Fraser Valley municipalities want be added to this IMBL. Which means we need to amend our own bylaw. If you have opinions, let us know by May 29th.

The following items were Removed from Consent for discussion:

Application for Strata Conversion of the existing building at 716 Columbia Street.
This building has been sitting empty for a long time, one of the persistent gaps in our downtown streetscape. Of all the gaps, this the one that we quickest to get filled, as there already was zoning for mixed use and building and building permits were granted almost a decade ago. Strata conversions are not common in New West, as we do not permit existing rental to be converted to Strata. This site was never a rental building in any official way (though it operated as a hotel at some point in the middle-distant past), and is currently not occupied by residents.

There was some discussion about the small footprint and slightly unusual layouts of these suites. They would probably not be given a development permit to build this in 2023, but they were back in 2010, and were granted building permits based on the building code and regulations applicable at the time, so it would be highly irregular (and legally questionable) to retract those approvals now that the work has finally been done.

Long and short, this is the first of the “gaps” downtown that we have got activated, with commercial at grade and some small strata apartments above. That is a good thing!

Rezoning Application for Conversion to Supportive Housing: 422 Sixth Street – Preliminary Application
The owner of this building in the Brow of the Hill wishes to convers two floors of the mixed-use office building to a form of supportive housing desperately needed in the community. 30 units of supportive housing for people facing homelessness, with on-site supports. This is consistent with the OCP designation for the site, and the mixed residential/commercial use and density are within the zoning, but the supportive nature of the housing is not, so we need to do a rezoning to address that specific point.

This is a preliminary report, and there are some details and funding to work out. There will also be a public engagement step as is typical of a rezoning, however as this is consistent with policy and priorities in the City, we are going to waive the Public Hearing on this rezoning.

We then Adopted a a Bylaw:

Tax Rates Bylaw No. 8395 2023
This Bylaw, as it suggests, sets the Tax Rates for 2023, and it was adopted by Council.

Then we had our Motions from Council:

Inviting the Community to Celebrate and Say Goodbye to the Pattullo Bridge
Councillor Fontaine

BE IT RESOLVED that the Mayor write a letter on behalf of Council to the BC Ministry of Transportation to determine the feasibility of opening the Pattullo Bridge to pedestrian, cycle and other non-vehicular modes of transportation for a period of three days (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) subsequent to the opening of the new bridge; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that Council enter into discussions with the Ministry of Transportation to facilitate a community-based celebration of the existing Pattullo Bridge by way of an ‘on bridge’ day-long street festival during the three day public access period

Through some discussion on Council, this got amended to something like (forgive my notes, this may not be perfect):

BE IT RESOLVED that the Mayor write a letter on behalf of Council to the BC Ministry of Transportation and TransLink to determine the feasibility of opening the Pattullo Bridge to pedestrian, cycle and other non-vehicular modes of transportation for a period of three days (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) subsequent to the opening of the new bridge; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that Council notify the Ministry of Transportation and TransLink that the City wants them to host a community-based celebration of the existing Pattullo Bridge by way of an ‘on bridge’ day-long street festival during the three day public access period with City input to the event; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this include a memorial event or day be held to mark the lives lost on the structure.

This motion is consistent with the conversation we are already having with MOTI, including a couple of weeks ago when they came here to present to Council about the Pattullo Replacement project and we will need to engage TransLink, as I understand they are still the owner of the asset.

The history of the bridge is complicated. While the arch has marked the skyline of New Westminster for generations, and is iconic for that, it is also a place where many people lost their lives, and I think a day of remembrance would also be appropriate. We have a year or more to plan this out, so let’s see where the conversation goes.

Updating and determining the effectiveness of the City’s Tree Protection and Regulation Bylaw
Submitted by Councillor Minhas

BE IT RESOLVED that staff be directed to report back to Council regarding the costs, potential sources of funding and operational impacts pertaining to the City conducting an independent and arms-length review and public consultation regarding the effectiveness of our Tree Protection and Regulation Bylaw

It was not made clear what the goal of this motion was, or why this bylaw was being selected for scrutiny among out hundreds of bylaws. There is no data supporting the assertion that the tree canopy is declining, indeed it is likely holding steady. What we can say for certainty is that there are many, many more trees in the City than even a couple of years ago, and their contribution to overall canopy cover will not be realized for a decade. We plant a tree not for today, but for 20 years in the future, and that is why we have an Urban Forest Management Strategy, of which the Tree Protection Bylaw is only one component.

Has this Bylaw been reviewed? Yes. Since the initial introduction of the Bylaw, which came itself after significant public consultation and industry review, this Bylaw has been iterated to make it clearer, more functional, and easier to navigate. Indeed, our Amended Bylaw has served as a model for other municipalities who have followed our lead on navigating the unique challenges of implementing a tree bylaw in a heavily urbanized area facing significant population growth.

If the point is external arms-length review, I would suggest the reviews by the Canadian Institute of Planners, who gave our Urban Forest Management Strategy the national Award for Planning Excellence, and the Planning Institute of British Columbia who gave it an award of Excellence on Policy Planning. To experts in the field, this strategy and the Bylaw demonstrate incredible industry-leading work by our staff.

Without specific ideas of what needs fixing, I can’t support staff spending time or limited resources reviewing this program at this time. I would suggest that time and money are better spent in continued implementation of the strategy. Council did not vote to support this motion.

Finally, we had one piece of New Business:

Potential Changes to City Advisory Committee Structure
Now that we have an adopted Strategic Plan, we are going to do the next bit of work, which is adjusting our Advisory Committee Structure. This happens every Council term, as we did a pretty big shift in early 2019 to a paired Task Force – Advisory Committee model and pared back our 30+ Advisory Committees to more align with areas of strategic focus. There were strengths and weaknesses to this model, but the biggest challenge (identified going back to our 2016 Public Engagement Strategy) is making our advisory committees better match our community profile in demographics. This was also noted in the report further up on Be Heard New West demographics, where council agrees we needed new tools to better connect with the diversity of our community. In this report, one such tool is outlined.

Though there are details to work out, Community Engagement staff are going to develop a “community assembly” or “citizens assembly” or “advisory council” model. The name doesn’t matter (yet. I think it will matter, just not yet) as much as the idea – a larger demographically-representative group of residents to serve as an advisory body to Council and staff. This could be applied in various ways, including having a demographically-representative pool of hyper-engaged participants from which advisory task forces or panels could be drawn on various topics. As the need arises.

This is a new model, we don’t know of anywhere it has been applied yet, but it does represent a new model that meets the goals of our Public Engagement Strategy in a new and exciting way. It is a bit risky, but could be ground-breaking. I’m excited to see where this goes.

And that was the meeting that was. Go outside, get some sun.

Lower Mainland LGA 2023 (pt 1)

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

This week the Lower Mainland Local Government Association held their annual conference in Harrison. The Lower Mainland LGA is the collective of the elected local government officials of Metro Vancouver, the Fraser Valley, and the Sea-to-Sky, and includes 29 of the 30 municipalities from Hope to Pemberton as members. (bonus guess on who is missing?). All of New Westminster Council attended, and as is my wont, I like to write an (admittedly-biased) review of what happened. This will be a series of blog posts, as there are three main components of the event, but I’ll start with the one that is freshest in my mind, the speeches, and come back to resolutions and sessions in follow-up posts.

Every LMLGA has speeches, political ones from each of the three main provincial parties (mush of our resolution work and discussion at the event is about advocacy to the provincial government) and a keynote.

The Keynote in 2023 was from Naheed Nenshi, the recently-more-relaxed former Mayor of Calgary. He spoke about the times and the current challenges of Local Government, and of governance of all forms during the “long emergency” we are experiencing. He spoke of the overlap of 5 crises: The ongoing Pandemic (“It’s not over folks!”); Mental Health and Addictions (Sorry, folks the Alberta Model is not a panacea); Racism and Decolonization (this has been going on for generations, but the need to reckon with it is now and present in all of our discourse); Climate (yeah, he kinds breezed over this, as a guy used to speaking to the Calgary business crowd tends to); and unprecedented inequity (economic inequity is higher now than it was during the Industrial Revolution, than it was during the days of Carnegie and Rockefeller).

He also spoke about his affinity for Purple – not a primary colour, neither red nor blue, but both. He had tried himself to be as non-partisan as possible and found success in speaking to issues, not ideologies. It was interesting to hear him talk about that line, as a Mayor of a fairly progressive local government floating in a sea of conservatism, and after him speaking of the issues above through a lens that most would recognize as a progressive one. But his message of service to the community, of love for your community, should be universal for those called to public service.

His message directed at the crowd at Lower Mainland LGA (elected people recently put in office with three and a half years of work ahead of them) was simple. Forget about the campaign and instead do your work. If you are always talking about the last election or the next one, you are not making good decisions, because you are putting the service of yourself in front of service for the community. Now is the time to Do Your Work, and 6 months before the next election, you can point back at that work, and the voters will decide whether that was enough.

The Leader of BC United, Kevin Falcon, gave a campaign speech that was at times confusing. Much like his speech at the UBCM Housing Summit a few weeks ago (where he told a room of bureaucrats that the last thing the housing crisis needed was more bureaucrats), he perhaps missed his audience here by framing the first half of his speech around the inability of government to do anything useful, while he was talking to a room of people recently elected to do things. There was also a lack of internal consistency in his comments. He spent much of the time saying “government can’t build housing”, and lamenting how ideas to build more housing are hampered by BC Hydro’s ability to supply power, by the need to expand sewers and water and roads. Then he switched to his strategy which was to “Flood the Zone” with new housing, while making no reference to the problem with that approach he just talked about. So, a campaign speech.

The speech was also notable in his unique discretion in only saying “Catch and Release” a single time. And once again, he made it clear to everyone he *Really Loves* the current members of Vancouver city council, and *really hated* the old ones. It is unclear how he stands on the majority of Vancouver councilors who were both on the old council and the new one. Maybe I’m missing some nuance here.

Sonia Furstenau of the BC Greens gave a Sonia speech, in that her approach to these events is so notably different than most politicians. She clearly riffs off of her notes, sometimes far off, but speaks about what she is hearing and feeling in a human way. She is also talented at finding parallels with the points made by others (you should never want to go before Sonia on the agenda if you have the option) and reframing them in creative ways. Example: like Falcon, she wants to “focus on outcomes” – but she is more directed in asking what those outcomes are, and who they serve? At each point, she talks at a deeper level, and challenges us to do the same.

There is a luxury in being the Third Party, but Sonia uses that privilege effectively. She is able to get meta (as the kids say), look at the debates we are having and raise the question “why”? If our processes and debates don’t let us agree on the starting point, don’t let us work from the same data, how will we ever agree on the path to better outcomes? A good example is in how she talks about question Period in the Legislature, when the two parties (for the most part) yell at each other hoping for media quotes. She asks – how does this serve anyone? What would question Period look like if we centred the people being served? If we talked about policy outcomes and took that service seriously? Dare to dream.

The NDP were represented by “our” Minister, Anne Kang of Municipal Affairs (though Minister Bowinn Ma was also on a panel on Friday). She opened in referring to herself as the “Minister of Friendship” – and her first goal being to get to know and meet with the local government leaders around the region. This is a big task with ~180 Local Governments, but Minister Kang has been working hard to make those connections. Spending time as a City Councillor herself, she was able to relate to the folks in the crowd, and received more applause than perhaps the other folks giving Friday speeches on Friday – the benefit of being able to talk about the $1billion Growing Communities Fund and other funding the Province has sent to local governments (Library funding perhaps the most popular in this crowd – note to all current and future Ministers of Municipal Affairs).

She had a few great lines (“Alberta may be calling, but only because this is the place people actually want to live”) but her speech (to my taste) leaned a bit too much on the speaking notes, and not enough on her personal experience in local government and her personal learnings from her first few months on the job. She is new to the role, and has room to grow in it, but the best part was her clear willingness to make the connections that Local Government needs in Victoria.

This points a bit to the overall tone of the room during these speeches, and over the three days. When I was first attending these Lower Mainland LGA and UBCM events 8ish years ago, relations between the Provincial Government and Local Governments were strained. There are, of course, local elected people across the political spectrum, but 8 years ago the lefties and the righties seemed fairly aligned on the idea that the province was doing local governments few favours. This shifted when the NDP got elected. Minister Robinson was “one of us” (a Local Mainland LGA Executive member!) and a bridge builder, as was Minister Osborne. The provincial government was present again at Lower Mainland LGA and UBCM events, and were actively engaging local government. Most of the lefties and the righties agreed this was a breath of fresh air, and received this support warmly, even if some begrudgenly did so.

After a few years of not meeting like this, and with the NDP now owning a long enough legacy of successes and failures, It was clear the room was more divided along partisan divisions than I ever remember feeling before. Perhaps this is “regression to the mean” after a decade of anomalous swings, maybe it is the room half full of new folks trying to find their place and their voice. But I’m afraid the message of Mayor Nenshi may have fallen on ears less purple than we might hope.

THIS HAPPENED (23.5)

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

Aya Carumba, I been busy. Mostly good stuff, but a lot going on. I’m walking every day (come along!), there are Metro and TransLink meetings happening, and as we wish April Showers goodbye, it looks like my May calendar is already filling up to a distressing degree. So I don’t have time to blog much, but here is my oft-promised and always-late photo essay of things I have been doing that aren’t strictly work, though a lot of it is work.

I got to stand next to a ribbon being cut! This for the KIDS Queensborough Childcare centre, built through a partnership between the City, the Province, and Anthem Properties. This is a City-owned building that the development built as an amenity as part of their townhouse development, with funds from the City and the province to fit the spaces out.

I took a quick trip over to Victoria for the Municipal Finance Authority Annual General Meeting (New Westminster is a member). While I was there I was able to set up a couple of side-meetings, including with Jason Lum, who is Chair of the Fraser Valley Regional District and an all-around great guy. We talked about Metro-FV alignment on flood preparedness, air quality, and inter-regional transportation in preparation for the Lower Mainland LGA meeting coming up in May.

I also went out to the Fraser Valley to join Metro Vancouver senior staff and Board Members for a two-day Strategic Planning session that was informative and at times challenging, with the massive scale of infrastructure work Metro needs to do in coming years.

New Westminster hosted (for the first time!) the Pacific Contact conference at the Anvil Centre and Massey Theatre. This conference by the BC Touring Council brings performing artists and venues across BC together to showcase, network, and coordinate seasons for travelling performing artists. It was great for New West to showcase the Massey Theatre and Anvil Theatre, and I was able to provide a welcome to delegates and provide a bit of the background of the two theatres and the City’s continued commitment to performance arts. It was great to run into (and bend the ear of) Briana Doyle, who is more famous in New Westminster than you might expect!

Vaisakhi was on April 14th, and the good folks at the Gurdwara Sahib Sukh Sagar wanted to “share the harvest” and thank City staff for their work thought the pandemic, and offered a free lunch to crews at the City’s Works Yard. The food was delicious, and we lucked out with a sunny day that made for a great picnic for staff. This was a really generous offer by the folks at the Gurdwara, and it was great to be able to break bread with the outdoor crews in such a casual setting.

The Local HUB Cycling chapter invited me to their monthly meeting to talk about what the City is doing for active transportation, and to let me know what they see as the big priorities in the year ahead.

Like many Local Government folks around the region, I attended the UBCM Housing Conference in Vancouver. I don’t remember there ever being an event like this, with so many elected folks and planning staff from local governments, provincial government representatives (including the leaders of all three Provincial parties) and housing providers in the same room, talking about the need for different and more aggressive approaches to getting housing approved and built. The panels were great learning, but the networking and connections were the most valuable part, especially for the new members of Council.

One of the Conference days, I slipped out for an hour to run across the street and see the UBC SACRP Studio student project presentations, including one sponsored by the City of New Westminster on the topis of public washroom services.

I also dropped by the opening of the New West Artists pop-up gallery space at the Community Space at Columbia Square,

A few members of Council attended the Fraser River Discovery Centre Hall of Fame induction of SRY and SeaSpan. It was great to meet more of the people who work on the river, and bend the ears of the Port and marine carriers about our common interests.

And finally, Earth Day came and went, which brought a lot of activities to the City. I joined the Family Bike Ride organized by a couple of local “Rad Moms” and Babies for Climate Action with some support for the local HUB chapter. A few folks there were unsarcastcially thankful of City of New West for building safer bike infrastructure, though they do still need work to do to make the network complete.

Council – April 24, 2023

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

Our Council meeting this week started with a Public Hearing, as is pretty typical for last-meeting-of-the-month. But that wasn’t the only item on the agenda, so join me on a journey.

Official Community Plan Amendment Bylaw No. 8374, 2023 and Zoning Amendment Bylaw No. 8375, 2023 for 102/104 Eighth Avenue and 728 First Street
This project would see 10 townhouses built in two buildings where there is currently a single family house and a duplex in Glenbrook North. The overall FSR would be 1.03 (0.87 above grade) and all units would be three-bedroom family-friendly (1,700 -1,800 sq ft) with a single parking spot which meets the parking requirement for this type of development. The project would exceed energy efficiency required by the BC Energy Step Code, achieving Step 4.

This requires not just a rezoning (from RS-1 single family residential to RT townhouse) but an amendment to the Official Community Plan to change the land use from RD (single family detached and duplex) to RGO (Ground-Oriented Infill Housing). This designation was considered as part of the OCP update 6 years ago now, but Council in its wisdom chose to not designate the entire block, and instead to allow piecemeal applications if they come up.

Since 2021, this project has gone through the Land Use Planning Committee (which led to minor modifications), the Advisory Planning Commission (supported) and Design Panel (supported), and there was consultation with First Nations and the School District (as required for an OCP amendment). There was also active and passive public consultation, including virtual open house and communications through the Glenbrook North Residents’ Association. Most of the feedback was positive, noting the lack of family-friendly townhouse building form in this part of New West, with the main concerns being lack of parking (natch), the desire for more affordability, and infrastructure not keeping up with growth.

We had two pieces of correspondence and about a half dozen delegates speak to council, including the proponent. We heard opposition to any change to the OCP, and we heard some concerns about parking, rodent control and construction impacts, which were directed to staff.

Overall, I am in support of this kind of infill missing middle housing, as it fills an important gap in our housing supply – family-sized ground oriented units in a high-service neighbourhood so close to schools, shops, parks, and everything families need. This is the kind of infill housing I hear residents in New West asking for more of.

Council voted in favour of the application, and in the Council meeting to follow, gave the Bylaws three readings.

Following some announcements and proclamations, we go our first Report for discussion:

Train Whistle Cessation – Update
Staff have started a practice of making quarterly reports on train whistle cessation. They are attached as information reports on the end of Council Agenda (as there is no decision for council to make, we are just being informed), but as with all information reports, a Councilor may ask to have them raised to the next council meeting for discussion. This one was raised from April 3. Most of the information here is also freely available on the City’s public website about Whistle Cessation.

The new part here is the renewed activity in the Rail Technical Working Group, and a few more details about timelines for the rail crossings where we are currently working on cessation and clarity about the funding sources for that work.

There is also a notion in here worth calling attention to. There has been political conversation about the desire to end “unnecessary whistling” in the community. This report takes the time to point out that “unnecessary whistling” is already illegal by federal law, and there have been no reports of “unnecessary whistling” being a problem in the City. The whistling we hear is a regulatory requirement, and it is that regulatory requirement we are trying to address.

We then approved the following items On Consent:

Construction Noise Exemption: 651 Carnarvon Street – Signia Construction Ltd.
The Provincial Court House is being renovated with new cladding and roofing, increasing its energy efficiency. Because of the nature of other operations, construction work during court hours is not preferred, so they need to do some of their work outside of court hours. This means evening and weekend work that exceeds our construction noise Bylaw, which is why they are asking for an exemption.

Recruitment 2023: Appointments to the Accessibility Advisory Committee
We have an Accessibility Advisory Committee, to which we appoint people. Here is one of those appointments.

Salmonbellies Municipally Significant LCRB Resolution
There is a quirk in the LCRB rules about how you sell beer at a beer garden involving their fixed prices and sizes of containers and such where, in rare occasion, an event can get around some of the rigidity by the City deeming the event “Municipally Significant”. I’m not sure we have ever done this before, but if hosting the Most Famous Team in Lacrosse*, 24-time Mann Cup winners over a proud 130+ year history isn’t “Municipally Significant” for New Westminster, I don’t know what is. So in deeming them so, they have some new partnership opportunities that are theirs to announce not mine. Or, you know, check my Instagram.

We then had the following items Removed from Consent for discussion:

2023 Tax Rates Bylaw No 8395, 2023
With the budget Bylaw prepared last meeting, staff can now set the Tax Rates to recover the required $102 Million in property taxes from the roughly $30 Billion of assessed real estate value in the City.

There are also reminders here that homeowners need to apply to the Provincial Government for the $570 grant to help offset property taxes, $845 if you are over 65. Also, anyone over the age of 55 can defer 100% of their property taxes, which means the Province will pay them for you, and you pay them back at some point in the future (presumably when you sell the property, but that’s up to you). The current interest rate for deferral is 4.45% simple interest.

So doing the math on this, if you are a 65 year old living in a house assessed at $1 Million, your Municipal taxes will be $2,500. Less Homeowner grant, that is $1155. If you defer your taxes, it will cost you about $51 in interest per year until you (or your heirs) decide to sell the house. As this interest is applied against your house, it is important to note that the value of the typical $1 Million house in New West went up 11% last year, or about $110,000. So for less than 0.05% of the amount the typical house value goes up every year, you could never pay property taxes again. Just saying.

City Hall Community Art Exhibition Program
This is the result of a Motion from former Councillor Mary Trentadue, and some work staff have been doing with partners in the Community since. The walls in the area outside Council chambers are kind of dull, and looked pretty uninviting. The thought was, as we are trying to invite more people into City Hall, it would be an opportunity to liven the space up while providing more space for local and regional artists to display their work. Staff coordinated with the Arts Advisory Committee and Arts Council of New Westminster to use these spaces to let folks know what works are happening at the other Arts Council locations.

City Hall is old historic, so we need to do a Hazardous Building Materials survey and install some appropriate hardware, but we should see Art in City Hall soon! Arts adds to conversations, it leads to deeper thinking, it fills our souls and gives us inspiration, and all of those things should happen in the entrance to Council Chambers.

Economic Impact Model Scope of Work
The idea here is that staff want to put together a new economic analysis tool. This way existing programs (in this case, the Anvil Centre, but it could be applicable to the Library, to the Queens Park Arena or Pier Park) could be evaluated for their impact on the local economy. The idea is that it could inform future civic initiatives.

I like the idea of an economic Input-output model, but I wonder about its usefulness as a decision-making tool unless it incorporates more than economic factors. We are not a business, we are a local government, and the economic lens can act like blinders limiting our analysis of social impacts of our work, of climate and environmental impacts, of cultural and community connection impacts, of health and happiness impacts. Little of what we do in the City serves only an economic goal. We could also get into a deeper discussion about the role of a Local Government in driving Fiscal Policy in a Monetary Policy epoch, but that way leads to rabbit holes.

Anyway, it is a small relative cost, and I do generally like staff to have good data to help guide our decision-making, so I am comfortable with Economic Development staff being given time and budget to do this work. However, like any tool, it is more important that we be judicious in its application.

Queen’s Park Farm Master Plan Adoption
This has been discussed a few times now in council and workshop, and this final report and ask for endorsement of the plan comes after a year-long two-phase community engagement and iterative design process. The results of that are a model to replace the old “petting zoo” with a new set of program elements and activity spaces for all ages. The theme is “habitat + grow” – a mix of learning and experience spaces around forest habitats and around the sources of our food. This will be a new jewel in the Queens Park space, and I am really proud of the work staff and the design team did in bringing a diverse set of elements together.

Rezoning and Special Development Permit (810 Agnes Street and 815 821 Victoria Street) – Application Consideration
This project downtown has been in the planning process for a couple of years. It includes a space that was an informal community centre for the Chinese community in New West more than 100 years ago, which was gifted to the City about 50 years ago by the Chinese Benevolent Society. The plan is to develop part of the site (that currently has older warehouse type buildings on it) for a residential tower, and create an outdoor public park that honours the history of the site and its importance to the history of Chinese people in early New Westminster. This has been on the books for some time, so much of the public consultation and design of the park amenity space has already occurred.

The development itself has been shifted from what was originally going to be market condos to 350 Purpose Built Rental suites in a 33 story building. This project saw the Land Use and Planning Committee and a Preliminary Report to Council in early 2018, has been through public open houses and consultation before the pandemic and again in 2022. As the results of that consultation were positive, it is consistent with the OCP, provides a much needed form of housing (market rental adjacent to a SkyTrain Station) and a well understood public amenity package, is consistent with City’s stated policy direction for housing development, Council agreed to waive the Public Hearing and will consider giving the Rezoning three readings in an upcoming council meeting following circulation of notice in accordance with the Local Government Act..

We then adopted the following Bylaws:

Building Amendment Bylaw No. 8388, 2023
This Bylaw that amends our Building Bylaw to align with changes to the BC Building Code was adopted unanimously by council, because we all love alignment.

Five Year Financial Plan 2023 – 2027 Bylaw No 8392, 2023
This Bylaw that formalizes our Consolidated Financial Plan for 2023 through 2027 was adopted by Council. The Budget is in the books. Bring on 2024.

Then we had one final piece of New Business

2023 Summer Heat Response Update
This report set out the various initiatives that staff in the Emergency Management Office and other departments in the City (working with partners at Fraser Health and in the community) have put together to prepare for heat related events. It includes expanded accessible public spaces to cool off, outreach to building managers, seniors, people with disabilities through a new communications strategy, a program to rent air conditioners out on a means-tested basis, and outdoor misting stations, and more.

This is good, but I have asked for us to look at going a step further. I have discussed with several people from being on a panel at UBCM with Dr. Bonnie Henry to recent meetings with Fraser Health, and organizations in town that support vulnerable people and seniors the idea of us applying regulatory tools not dissimilar to our fire preparedness legislation to address heat emergency preparedness. As such, I asked that staff explore our ability to regulate a heat response plan requirement for all Multi-unit residential building in the City.

I don’t know if we have the tools we need, or if we need to advocate for them from the province, but with the scale of the deaths New West faced in the 2021 Heat Dome, I don’t want our connect and prepare response to be one driven by and relying on volunteers. We don’t let building operators volunteer to have sprinklers or fire alarms, nor do we rely on volunteers to assure these systems are operational. They are fundamental life safety measures, and we have learned now that a heat emergency plan is also a fundamental life saving measure.

This first request is just to help us understand what tools we may have, there will no doubt be deeper discussions after to determine the viability of applying those tools, this is just information gathering at this time.

And that was the week that was, I can’t believe it’s almost May. Go outside, enjoy some spring sun. Or go see a lavish musical. I’m going to do both!

Council – April 17, 2023

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

We had a special Council meeting on Monday, where the only item on the agenda was giving three readings to the Budget Bylaw – approval of the 5-year financial plan. We had an Opportunity to be Heard before the Bylaw was read.

This type of Opportunity to be Heard is just that, and opportunity for members of the public to tell us what they think. It’s not really a time for debate with the public, so two-way dialogue is not encouraged. Council has a pile of data in front of it, people are able to provide their ideas on that pile of data, Council makes a decision based on those inputs.

It is important to note this is not the only input the public provide to the budget. We have had on-line engagement for a while, and we have received emails and delegations in previous meetings regarding different aspects of the budget. We have had a fulsome discussion in workshops and in Council, and I appreciate the many voices I have heard in delegations, in emails, and in the many community events over the last few months. Even on my Mayor’s walk last week, residents were telling me what they see as priorities for the community.

I also appreciate the work Council have done to get themselves up to speed on the state of the City’s finances, and their active participation in the workshops we have done coinciding with budget preparation and development of a new strategic plan. Having 4 new Council Members and a new Mayor put an extra burden on staff to assure we had the information we needed to make these decisions, and impacted our timelines. It is great we can sum this work up and start working on the plan ahead.

Following my comments on the evening, there are three big parts of the budget I spoke to, and maybe I’ll follow up with a blog post with more numbers and graphs and such (when I find time), but for now I want to hit on these three points at a high level.

The first is the unprecedented Capital budget we are looking at. This means investing in a spectacular new aquatic and recreation centre, replacing 50 year old facilities with the most modern aquatic facility in the Lower Mainland, and the most efficient one ever built in Canada. We are doubling our recreation capacity, our fitness areas, and much more flexible aquatic space to support everything from Aquafit to competitive swimming to finally having the kind of fun all-ages pool young parents in our community have been longing for, all with Carbon-free energy systems and a building accessible to all. We are also investing in the Arts by making a generational commitment to save and restore the Massey Theatre not just for big shows, but a place where people can learn new skills, can rehearse, and can perform. At the same time, we are leveraging senior government supports to undertake a massive revamping of the critical infrastructure that makes our City resilient – electrical substations and modern metering technology, $11Million in water system upgrades, more than $20 Million in sewer separation program. Even the $1.5 Million we are spending on tree planting and maintenance – we are making the generational investments that our growing city needs. They are not inexpensive projects, or easy projects, but they are building a stronger city. This is what people have asked us for.

The second is how this budget addresses our real operational needs. We heard people worried about livability downtown, and are investing in the Livability Strategy that will address the most pressing concerns for residents and businesses, while we partner with the province and outside agencies to reduce the suffering resulting from overlapping housing, addiction, and mental health crises. Our community partners (the Downtown BIA, the non-profit support providers, the residents downtown) deserve to be supported by the City, and our front line staff need the resources to provide this support. This budget provides it. We are also investing in staff positions to accelerate permitting process, to help with our long-term HR needs and employee resiliency, and to support our emergency response capabilities at a time when the climate emergency is knocking on our door. These investments will let new homes get built faster, will mean more resilient emergency response, will improve the customer service experience at City Hall.

The third part is the aspect of sound fiscal management. We are making these important investments at a time of economic uncertainty. With less stable interest rates and inflation, we, as managers of the public purse, need to not think only about the needs of the day, but about the long-term needs of the community. Balancing the need to invest with debt tolerance and the need to maintain healthy reserves has never been as important as now. We cannot burden the next generation – the young families moving to New West in record numbers and the kids they are raising here – with bad fiscal decisions now, nor can we burden them by not investing in Climate resiliency.

One motion brought to the table proposed cutting $1 Million from our projected surplus to reduce the tax increase by 1%. Problem is, there is no projected surplus due to our major capital investment, so this $1 Million would be added to our debt (something one of the delegates who came to speak to council specifically warned us against) or erode our capital reserves (something our CFO has been warning us about for four months of council discussions). That is exactly the kind of kicking-the-can-down-the-road thinking that created the infrastructure deficit we are currently trying to address. Fortunately, Council did not support this change.

We have new revenue sources like the Low Carbon Fuel Credits, and have further revenue opportunities though District Energy and the trend towards increased electrification, but at the same time are not immune to the same inflationary pressures businesses and residents in our community are feeling. On the optimistic side, we have Provincial and Federal governments ready to invest in the kinds of things that we are trying to build here: Climate resiliency, livability and affordability, housing and childcare, active transportation, and urban forest. We need to be ready with the shovel-ready projects to get access to those senior government funds, and the 5-year capital plan gets us there.

So I supported the budget as proposed, as did the majority of council, and look forward to getting to work building the community New Westminster elected us to build.

Council – April 3, 2023

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

I am so late putting this report out. The week was a short one, but very long, with a UBCM Housing Summit and Metro Vancouver meetings, but I finally have a chance to sit down and write this us up while watching Edin vs. Gushue 2. We had a relatively short agenda, starting with a Presentation:

Pattullo Bridge Replacement Project – Project Update
The Pattullo project team presented to Council for this first time in a year, with an update on their progress, and some news about upcoming road closures related to the construction. No surprise that there will be some road closures as they re-align the on- and off-ramps and put overpass spans over Front Street and Columbia. The closures of Columbia will only be at the Elliot end, but that impacts traffic patterns on the rest of the road, and temporary closures of parts of Royal and Front at different stages will mean lots of change coming over the next year. This diagram is a good indication of the timelines envisioned:

Council and the Pattullo team are aware of the construction weariness being felt be Downtown businesses and residents, and we are asking the Ministry of Transportation and the Pattullo Team to be very conscious of their outreach and transparency with the Downtown community. The re-alignment of truck routes during some of these closures is something the City is going to work with the Ministry to determine the path that best protects the livability of our community.

The following items were then removed from consent for discussion:

Building Amendment Bylaw No. 8388, 2023: BC Energy Step Code Alignment – Bylaw for Three Readings
The Province has changed the “Step Code”, which is the part of the provincial building code that regulates building efficiency and emissions. We are updating our Building Bylaw to align with this change.

New Westminster Secondary School (NWSS) Cycling Connector – Mitigation of Business Concerns
The Bike Lanes connecting the Crosstown Greenway to the new high school are not yet complete. Weather will determine when the final lane markings and signage work can be completed. There were some concerns raised by a few Uptown businesses when the lanes were being installed. Recognizing the impacts they were feeling were more likely related to construction than a completed street improvement, Council asked staff to report back on mitigation measures, in part to help with this project, and in part to inform the next time this type of change is implements, as forecast by Council’s adoption of the Active Transportation Network plan.

The resultant report is a good one, worth a read. In reaching out to other municipalities that have historically managed this type of change (Edmonton, Calgary, Portland, Burnaby, the City of North Vancouver, and others) the clear message was that the engagement process we undertook before the work began was “comprehensive… relative to what other municipalities have done in similar situations”, though there was some good advice on specific engagement approaches. This extra step of direct outreach during the construction phase is another example of this commitment.

We then read some Bylaws, including the following Bylaw for Adoption:

Engineering User Fees and Rates Amendment Bylaw No. 8386, 2023
This Bylaw that amends the Bylaw to temporarily suspend Street Occupancy Permit fees for block parties was adopted by Council. Party on, Blocks.

We then had a few Motions from Council

Parks and Recreation registration process
Submitted by Councillor Henderson
BE IT RESOLVED that Council direct staff to explore opportunities to improve the equity and accessibility of the Parks and Recreation registration process and report back to Council with options to address the current challenges./i>
This issue arose from some concerns from parents around the challenge of getting registered for kids programs in the City. It has been likened to trying to get Taylor Swift concert tickets. And of course it is related to a very similar phenomenon: demand for great programs that far exceeds availability. The changes wrought by COVID are part of this, but there is also challenges with shifting to on-line registration. Not a couple of days after this motion was passed, there was a story on CBC radio about Surrey having very similar issues with the aquatics programs, so we aren’t alone here. Part of a region growing faster than services can keep pace.

The availability of programs (and cost related to expansion, including as təməsew̓txʷ comes on line next year) is another conversation we need to have in context of a budget discussion, but this motion is looking towards our equity programs to determine if there are structural inequities in how we do registration, and ways to address that, which is an important first step in alignment with our equity goals as a City.

Preserving, protecting and enhancing the Samson V museum for future generations
Submitted by Councillor Fontaine
BE IT RESOLVED THAT staff report back on the costs, potential sources of funding and operational impacts associated with temporarily placing the Samson V in dry dock to repair and restore the vessel for public viewing; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that staff report back on options to find a permanent indoor home for the Samson V adjacent to or on our waterfront as part of a possible pier expansion and/or long-term tourism strategy; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that staff consult with the Fraser River Discovery Center and other key stakeholders and report back regarding the opportunity and costs associated with undertaking a pilot program that would permit short-term pleasure craft usage at the moorage vacated by the Samson V
The Samson V is under repair. It is 90 years old, and is (notably) “the only completely intact and floating wooden sternwheeler in North America.” As discussed several times during Council onboarding, there is a maintenance plan to keep it so, fully costed in our Capital budget ($60K for maintenance and repair this year, $38K for dredging this year to keep it floating, $72 total over the following 4 years for maintenance and repair). The current roof repairs need to be performed in good weather, so boat wrap is being used to keep the rain and pigeons out until that is done. That said, there is nothing dire about it that regular maintenance can’t address. There is no pressing need to dry dock it, to buy or build a 6,500 square foot 5 story building in which to house it. Indeed, doing these things would take away one of the key heritage aspects of the museum, would cost millions of dollars, and likely add to the maintenance costs of the boat, as we would now need to maintain and operate a building. This is not a priority for me right now with so many things pressing for staff time and limited resources in the City right now. Council seems to agree with me, and did not support this motion.

Hearing from the communities regarding their priorities for the new Growing Communities Fund
Submitted by Councillor Minhas
BE IT RESOLVED that Council hold a special open meeting at City Hall at the earliest opportunity to obtain feedback from the public regarding what the priorities should be for the Growing Communities Funding; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that staff develop an online survey opportunity for the public to provide their feedback regarding what priority areas Council should consider as part of the Growing Communities Funding

Through discussion with Council, this motion was amended to the point of replacement with another motion that is further-reaching:

BE IT RESOLVED: that early in the 2024 budget process, Community Engagement staff lead a structured consultation including an online survey component with the goal to involve a representative sample of the community in determining priority areas for future Capital budget spending.
BE IT FUTRTHER REOLVED no decision will be made regarding the Growing Communities Fund until Council has received the report back on the engagement consultation process, per the motion above.

The mindset of the original motion is one I felt the need to challenge, and that is of the Growing Communities Fund being money we need to spend like a lottery win, in that it represents a large amount of money in the scope of our Capital budget. $15.85 Million seems like a lot of money for capital investment, except that it is only 9% of the $173.2 Million 2023 Capital Budget coming forward for approval next week, and only 4% of our $410 Million 5-year capital plan.

Of course $16 Million is still a lot of money that must be spent wisely, and we need to be transparent about how it is spent. The point is we need to be transparent about how we spend all of our Capital Budget, not just this part. This is why Council expanded the discussion to expand public consultation for the next budget cycle to help us set priorities for our capital budget. In the broad scope of things, does the public want us to use this $16 Million to reduce the debt related to our current Capital Program? To bolster our reserves, recognizing the infrastructure deficit we are facing? Or do they want us to spend it on new capital items? If we want to spend it on new items, how do we prioritize what to add to the already extensive capital program?

The language of the motion introduced by Councilor Nakagawa was intentional – “Involve” is the level of consultation we are aiming towards on the IAP2 Spectrum, which is important as staff need to understand what type of consultation we are looking for. It is also important that the consultation be structured to consult a representative group of New Westminster, as we know many forms of consultation result in a skewed and often privileged view of public opinion. Questions around this were asked of the original mover, but I did not hear the member offer any answer.

I was not happy with the second clause of this motion, as it again reinforced the false perception that this was a “lottery win” and not a part of a more important broader discussion of the capital budget. Indeed, a Councilor clearly tried to reinforce this perception while arguing for the original motion with some incorrect ideas about how the capital budget is structured (which were corrected on the record by the Director of Finance). This is especially important as I have seen some members of council putting out videos and encouraging people to delegate to council with ideas that have already spent this money three times over (that is not a joke), but overall I am satisfied that we will have an opportunity for deeper public consultation leading to the next Capital budget.

This Happened (23.4)

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

It’s been a busy week, a busy month. Lots going on. I hope I don’t sound to frantic!. I do occasionally like to write these blog posts to give brief summary of some of the things I have been up to, but have some catching up to do, so this goes all the way back to March 8th when there was…

The Downtown BIA AGM and Social! I wasn’t able to stick around for the entire AGM, but it was a well attended event at the Terminal, and fun and smiles were all around.

I left early as that night I took part in the annual Metro Vancouver Homeless Count. Over the two days of March 7 and 8, teams across the Lower Mainland attempt to estimate the number of people without secure housing, and do a bit of a survey to help determining the factors and causes that led to them not having secure housing. The stories you are told, the diverse histories of people living rough in our community, and the systemic failures that often lead to a form of societal abandonment are both shocking, and banal.

Along with MLA Jennifer Whiteside, I was able to provide some welcome remarks and attend some of the Bottom Line Conference at the Anvil Centre. This conference was organized by the Canadian Mental Health association and was a gathering to talk about workplace mental health.

I also had a chance to have a pretty informal meeting with Mayor Lahti of Port Moody to talk about some regional issues, dog sports, and the nexus of conditions that led to Brewery Row.

Bosley’s Pet Store held a Bollywood Fundraiser to celebrate their 12th anniversary, and to raise money for the New Westminster Animal Shelter, where elected officials were offered the chance to embarrass themselves in a Bollywood Dance off. And we did so.

New West Pride also held a Pride Pub Night that raised some money for their organization, brought folks together and allowed us to celebrate Don’s 60th Birthday!

I was asked to drop the Puck for the final game of the Al Hughes Tournament for U-13 teams hosted by the New West Minor Hockey Association. The Royals fought a valiant battle for silver in the tournament, matching the silver medal won by the U-11 team in the same event.

When a group of Reporters-in-Training from BCIT’s journalism program shows up at a Council meeting, they were hoping to interview me after the Meeting. As the meeting went pretty late (alas) I agree to meet them later in the week at City Hall, and they had a chance to do an old-fashioned scrum, peppering me with questions about the Council Meeting. And mug for a few photos.

The Royal Westminster Regiment held their first Annual Dinner since the COVID thing shut this type of event down. I had some great conversations with the CO and the Chief Warrant Officer about the impacts of COVID, changes in the forces related to NATO support for Ukraine, and some potential increased collaboration between the Regiment and City.

Speaking of doing your duty as a Canadian, I was one of a small elite team of volunteers who took the CAO of TransLink (who was born and raised south of the Curling-NASCAR line) to the Royal City Curling Club and taught him the basics of the Roaring Game. Have to say, dude got the knack of it fast!

Yes the meeting with Anita Huberman happened. And… I think I’ll have to write a blog post about that.

I was able to have sit-downs with the two newest members of the New Westminster Police Board, and you will be hearing more about their contributions in the years ahead.

Finally, I was able to sit down at City Hall with the new Minister of Municipal Affairs. We were able to talk about some of the City’s ongoing initiatives around housing and livability, discuss our support for regional calls for better accountability of local government elected officials, and thank her for championing the Growing Communities Fund through cabinet.

Budget Amendment

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 5 Comments.

Last meeting we approved a provisional budget. After several months of work by Council and much, much more by staff, a 5-year financial plan was presented that included Capital and Operational budgets for both the General Fund and the Utility Funds. The next step is for staff to forge these into Bylaws that can be read and adopted by Council – a process that needs to be completed by the end of April by regulation. But first Council has to approve the 5-year plan in principle.

In a move that is no longer surprising, an Amendment motion was proposed late in the discussion that sought to derail much of this work. Not in a way that allowed staff or Council to meaningfully deliberate the changes proposed, but in a way that appeared to be (and I’m not saying this was intent, I’m saying this is how it appeared to me, recognizing one cannot really know what is in another’s mind) more of an attempt to score talking points. And I’ll detail why I got that impression, but first, I want to talk about the Amendment.

The Amendment that arrived in front of Council at almost literally the 11th hour is a list of 12 different shifts in line items, projects, and plans in the City, with little rhyme or reason. All were framed as initiatives to reduce the burden on property taxpayers by reducing the proposed 6.4% tax increase. I cannot bury this key point, so I’ll underline it:

*Not a single item in this list, if approved, would have any effect on the proposed 6.4% tax increase. Not one.*

It is also worth emphasizing that many of the items sought to undermine years of work by different departments based on long-standing strategic plans and sometimes years of community engagement, advisory committee work, and partnerships in the community. This is not good governance.

So beyond the headlines, here’s some detail:

The biggest line item was “Eliminate $46,337,399 in funding allocated for the District Energy Project in Sapperton”, and this is emblematic of the entire Amendment.

The District Energy Utility (“DEU”) is a project the City has been working on for some time, similar to successful projects in Vancouver and Richmond. It is still conceptual, because it needs several things to come together for it to be successful, some of them outside of the control of the City (like pace of residential development and global energy prices). The City has been carefully evaluating market conditions, and has been building partnerships and raising external funding to support the financial modelling and design work. When the business case is right, when the known risks are managed, we need to be ready to move.

As we have received external funding support in anticipation of these factors coming together, we have a line item in our Capital budget to support the capital cost of building the DEU. That is the number that appears above. Cutting this from the budget means the DEU doesn’t go forward, now or ever. It seems to me good governance would include a deeper conversation about that (including with our funding partners) before we throw away years of work by striking a red line through it during budget deliberations.

Perhaps the more important aspect of this is that the DEU will not be funded by property taxes.  The “U” stands for “Utility”, and it will be operated as such. The people who will pay for the DEU are the customers of the DEU – the people and businesses of the new buildings that hook up to the DEU and receive the benefit of resilient, carbon-free, and affordable space- and water-heating provided from sewer heat recovery. The entire point of the DEU is that the capital cost (somewhere around $50 Million now, it may be more or less depending on how it is built and when) will be covered by rates paid by customers, supported by some external grants and value gained in the carbon credit market.

Cutting this out of the budget now and spiking the project on a whim will do nothing to change property tax rates, now or in the future.

There is also a line item here that suggests we “Eliminate $15,321,089 in funds earmarked for the installation of advanced ‘smart’ meters”, effectively ending the Advanced Meter Infrastructure (AMI) project.

Again, this is a capital project paid through Electrical Utility rates, so it will not impact Property Tax rates, but that is not the most baffling part. The City has already invested in the IT work to support integration of digital meters, and we have already signed the contract to purchase 40,000 next-generation electrical meters. Taking away the Capital budget for their installation and integration now is a strange request, as we already own the meters. They would become very expensive doorstops.

But let’s talk about the Advanced Meter initiative, and why we are doing it, because not all of you have the benefit of lengthy onboarding that the Councillor moving this Amendment had access to, or serve on the Electrical Commission like the Councillor who seconded the Motion does.

The City’s electrical meters are old and overdue for replacement. The mechanical meter technology we rely on is harder and harder to get inspected and certified by the regulators, because of their age. They are becoming less reliable, and repairs are challenging. At the same time, Utility customers have been asking the Electrical Utility for more information about energy use, more consistent billing, and even more innovative rate structures to support EV integration, building electrification, and conservation. We can do none of these things relying on 1950’s technology meters. Even if you don’t think digital meters are a good thing, and don’t value those benefits, I don’t think throwing away the investment already made in new meters and keeping the failing older technology in place provides any benefit at all to utility ratepayers.

There are other items in this list that are out of left field like cutting $2M from the BridgeNet capital plan (another thing not paid for by property tax payers, but by service users and ISP partners, who maybe we should talk to before we toss away our development plan?) to a random cut of almost $5 Million in the Capital budget to make long-needed improvements to the sidewalks and commercial streets through the Great Streets program. Some other line items point to familiar grievances like the Queens Park Farm upgrades (not sure why a motion to not update the farm area after two years of consultation and design work that failed earlier in the day during workshop ended up back here only hours later to fail again?) or adding a few hundred thousand dollars to the whistle cessation line item (when staff have repeatedly made clear it’s not lack of money that is preventing faster implementation of whistle cessation).

It is important to note that none of the numbers in this laundry list have been verified, nor has there been any analysis of the impacts of these cuts on existing programs, on long-term strategic plans, or on the people and businesses of New Westminster. No public consultation, no business analysis. Just randm numbers on a sheet of paper.

This is why several Councillors, surprised and confused by the suggestions, fell to using language like slapdash, knee-jerk, and crazy when referring to the content of the Amendment, and why Council, in its wisdom, voted this down.

There is another conversation to have here about intent, and that is harder. Especially when one sees the first proposed change: “Establish a $1 budget for the City’s rebranding for the rebranding process aimed at eliminating the Royal City moniker”. We didn’t debate this in Council, but it is not difficult to infer intent here. But I am going to hold off on talking about that for now, because I don’t want that necessarily-political discussion to distract from the cold facts above about why the Amendment was misdirected, misinformed, and unsupportable.