This Happened (23.6)

The last two weekends have been action packed. Summer events season is upon us, and I can’t possibly blog all of the events happening in town, but here are some highlights from the last couple of weeks.

With the end of May comes the opening of the 2023 Salmonbellies season, with a convincing win by the home team, S&O beer for sale, and Chief Larabee performing the ceremonial faceoff, it was a fun night overall! (no, I wasn’t wearing a jersey, I wore that shirt to celebrate the colour of the legendary QPA wood floor)
The Hyack Parade was as well attended as I’ve seen in a decade, and more than 100 entries. Here I was chatting with one of the Filipino cultural groups in the parade, as we all staged for the walk ahead.
There was a great street fest following the Hyack Parade, with booths, music, food trucks, and the best imaginable weather.
There was a great street fest following the Hyack Parade, with booths, music, food trucks, and the best imaginable weather.
There are several other events that come along with the Hyack Parade, including the planting of a rose in front of City Hall by the Royal Rosarians of Portland to honour (or “honor” as they spell it) the President of Hyack.

The same day as the Hyack Parade and Festival, the May Day celebrations took place in Queens Park, featuring 2023 May Queen Alessia Preovolos (right).

The same weekend, the Greater Vancouver edition of the Walk to Make Cystic Fibrosis History started at Ryall Park. There was a great turnout, and inspirational words from people impacted by CF. You can learn more and help them with their fundraising goals here.
This weekend included the annual Newcomers Festival and Information Fair, organized at the Welcome Centre at NWSS, where Chinu Das (a force behind getting the Welcome Centre built) was the Master of Ceremonies.
The Newcomers Fair, I got to meet groups of youth (and their parents) recently arrived from Ukraine, Eritrea, Columbia, and other places. It was great to hear what they liked about New West/Canada and what they missed from home.
I was also able to drop by the Opening of the new show at the New Media Gallery- entitled “Dust”. The Anvil had youth performing in the theatre, a wedding on the main floor, and other events on a busy Saturday.
Arts New West was also holding their first Craft Market of the season at the boardwalk at the River Market.
The Quayside Boardwalk was also the location of the “5th annual” (after a bit of a Covid pause) River Walk for Hospice. It started brilliantly on a sunny Sunday morning with the Rainbow Chorus.

I love Summer time. Wait – its not summer yet?

THIS HAPPENED (23.5)

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.

This Happened (23.4)

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.

This Happened (23.3)

Another necessarily-incomplete run-down of the things I have been doing that aren’t Council Meetings. It’s a little weird to try to report on everything, because my calendar is stuffed these days, and some things are more fun/interesting/relevant than others. So in no particular order, here are some things I’ve been up to. Besides randomly running into people at coffee shops and posing for selfies:

Met with Aman Singh at Mood Swing Coffee to talk Q’boro transportation, and another Q’boro denizen dropped by.

There are a series of talks and events at Douglas College under the umbrella of the “Changing the Conversation Project” which are exploring different aspects of community, housing, homelessness, and poverty. As February is Black History Month, they led a panel discussion on the Black experience in housing in the Lower Mainland, tying together the history of Hogans Alley to the Swahili Vision participation in an affordable housing project in New Westminster.

The moderator of the discussion “From Displacement to Housing Justice” was Lama Mugabo, Founding Director of Hogan’s Alley Society.

February also brought us Family Day, and there was a lot going on around New West, including an open door at the Learning Lab at the Anvil Centre. This is the hands-on offshoot of the New Media Gallery where people of all ages (yes, adults can learn to 3D print!) learn about new media video and sound, programming, electronics, robotics, and digital creativity. You should check it out.

Kids playing with Little Bits, a learning toy that does for electronics what Lego does for construction.

Some members of Council took a tour of the Fraser River Discovery Centre to see what their new initiatives are, and to learn about their vision in the years ahead.

Members of the FRDC Board and staff guide Council members though their exhibit spaces.

I went to my first wedding in something like 8 years. It was great fun (Congrats Jack and Jason!) but more personal than Mayoral, so I wouldn’t normally report out here. Except that the grooms knew enough to seat me next to a guy who I have mentioned on this blog, but never actually met before, Jens von Bergmann at Mountain Math. So it was half wedding, half geeking out on housing policy, and therefore a perfect evening!

We went to a wedding, and a housing policy discussion broke out!

You may not know that March 3rd is Bulgarian Liberation Day, marking the day in 1878 that the Treaty of San-Stefano was signed, and Bulgaria was liberated from Ottoman rule. For the first time since COVID, this day was marked by the raising of the Bulgarian flag at Friendship gardens, an event attended by representatives of the local Bulgarian-Canadian community, the honourary Consel General, and Senator Yonah Martin, who is co-chair of the Canada-Bulgaria Inter-Parliamentary Friendship Group.

The Bulgarian Flag was raised at Friendship Gardens to the sounds of Mila Rodino.

I also had a visit in the Mayor’s Office from a group of new Canadians that was organized by the Welcome Centre at NWSS. This group have been learning about Canada and New Westminster, and were able to tour City Hall to learn about how local government works. It was great to welcome them, and show them around Council Chambers and some of the curiosities of the Mayor’s office, like the Chain of Office and registry signed by the actual Queen and the King of Pop.

The Mayor’s office is a bit small for this number of visitors!

This last weekend was also busy with overlapping events. The Dancers of Damelahamid were hosting the annual Coastal Dance Festival at the Anvil Centre, and I was able to see several performances, including the group Dakhká Khwaán from Whitehorse who really (in their own words) brought the noise.

Spot the Light Sabre.

Saturday was also Hoobiyee, the Nisga’a New Year celebration. This is a big event both in the Nass Valley, and in the Lower Mainland where a large number of Nisga’a people live, and the celebration is shared with Indigenous people from around the province and beyond. This year, the festival filled the PNE forum with dancers, music, crafts, food and storytelling, and I was honoured to meet the organizers and take part in the event.

Hoobiyee 2023 at the PNE Forum

And finally, I was invited to join the head table at the New Westminster Police Department’s annual Mess Dinner – their first post-COVID. It was a great evening of speeches, memories, more than a few jokes, (“What happens when a member of the NWPD leaves to join the RCMP? The average IQ of both organizations go up!”) with a mix of camaraderie and formality that always kind of keeps you on edge.

The Head Table at the 2023 NWPD Mess Dinner

Now that curling season is almost over, and the days are getting longer, event season is rushing towards us. I hope I will have time to keep writing these summaries. Meanwhile, get out there and enjoy the events of New West. If you see me out there, be sure to say Hi. And remind me to get a photo.

This Happened (23.2)

One thing I have discovered about myself is that I am not very good at the getting the photo. I am having meetings all of the time in this job, and am going to some fun events and many of both really should result in a photo. To prove I was there, to promote the event or person I was meeting with, to fill the space in these update blog posts I call “This Happened” about what I have been up to. I need to work on that.

A good example has been the meetings I have been having at various City facilities with City staff who work there. I have been trying to get out to various departments with coffee to just chat with the folks who are on the “front line” doing the often thankless public-facing work, and those in the offices who do the things that keep a complex organization running. They are really great learnings for me, and a chance to familiarize myself with the different complexities of the City. But I always forget to get a photo.

As a Council, we have been wrapping up our onboarding tours and meetings, which means we have seen the innards of the new təməsew̓txʷ Aquatic and Community Centre, and have seen the working parts of some of our older facilities. We were able to see the ice room for the Queens Park Arena, which is spic-and-span in its newness, as the old ice plant has been recently replaced with a much safer and more efficient plant that not only reduces the risk of ammonia spills, but also is way more energy efficient:

That’s a new ice plant, the compressor part.

I was able to attend the Hyack President’s Tea at Centennial Hall, where I shared tea with President Penny McIvor, met some of the new Executive Members and the 2023 Ambassadors. It was great to be back to meeting in person for these events, and I know the entire community is looking forward to the 2023 Hyack Parade and festival.

Tea with the Ambassadors and the President. I might be out of my element here, with all their poise and elegance. Yeah, that’s a cake in front of us.

I have continued to work with regional leaders on some common interests, including hosting a couple of members of Langley City Council at one of our City’s best meeting spaces:

At S&O with Nathan Pachal and Paul Albrecht from Langley City.

And had several Metro Vancouver meetings, which are generally held at their offices in Burnaby. As there are commonly two meetings a day, there is some lag time when Board Directors from around the regions can network, or just point the back of our laptops at each other.

Area A Director Jen McCutcheon, Bowen Island Mayor Andrew Leonard, and their laptops.

There was also a press event I attended with some members of the TransLink Mayors Council to announce the launch of the new battery electric buses. These Nova all-electric buses are going to be serving the 100 route from 22nd Street Station to Cambie. They have 100+km range, can be charged in 5 minutes with that overhead gantry thingy, and are made in Canada!

Mayor Brad west points to the Electric Bus, Senior government electeds look on with awe and inspiration.

Have I mentioned the meetings? I had a great sit-down with Jay Chalke, the Ombudsperson for the Province about their program and mandate, and their role in assuring citizens are treated fairly by Local Governments. He was also able to share some of the research the Ombudsperson office does to provide guidance to elected officials and others in the Public Service to assure the public interest is served.

I also had a chance to meet with Paul Horn who has the unique distinction of being a fellow Mayor (the District of Mission) and the President of the Senior Salmonbellies, which gave us the chance to talk about “mayor life”, and about how the City and the ‘Bellies can partner more closely.

I not only attended the 10th anniversary Pecha Kucha New West event, but I was invited to be one of the presenters. For those out of the loop – a Pecha Kucha night is when around 10 people give shot presentations on something they are passionate about. The presentation are kept short (Under 7 minutes) by the rule “20 slides, 20 seconds each”, and the slide change every 20 seconds automatically, so you need to keep up. There was a great turnout for the 10th event, some great speakers (my highlights by paraphrased title: “I tried Rugby at 35” and “Talking about shame”), and the MC of the night was a real ham:

Ria was the MC of the night, I was speaker #6. She was way more relaxed about this than I.

Finally, for reasons that were all over the news, Members of Council and some senior staff from the City did a tour of the Shipyards in North Vancouver to see what a transformation of public space can look like, and to hear a bit from the Mayor of North Van of the challenges and opportunities the pace presented:

Some of Council, lighting it up at Shipyards.

And a few of us may have popped into the Copperpenny after, but those memories are fuzzy.

This Happened (23.1)

Regular readers (Hi Mom!) might remember some of my earlier practice of talking up community events I go to and cool things happening in the City. I am going to try to get back into this practice, because there is a lot going on, and because I don’t have time to celebrate it all at the great length it probably deserves. I’m so grateful for all the people doing good things to bring the community together and celebrate New West. Here’s some good moments that happened so far in 2023:

Had a meeting with the one and only Cassius Khan to talk about his experiences as an artist and an arts supporter in New West. He also signed CDs (you can’t really sign a digital file!) for me and Councillor Campbell. As always, he was generous with his thoughts and ideas, and the most gracious person you could ever meet.
New West Firefighters had their annual Tree Chipping, event at City Hall to give folks an chance to recycle their dried out tree, and raise money (More than $5,000 this year!) for their Charitable Society. Every day, NWFF deliver heavy lifting with a smile!
I was able to do a tour of Douglas College, see some of the exciting changes at the New West campus, and talk about their proposed new academic and residence building. I also learned about their “Coat of Arms”, that was recently designed by Carrielynn Victor, an artist from S’olh Temexw who was able to blend traditional knowledge and language from this region into what is typically a very Colonial media.
I was at the Royal City Curling Club to give greetings from New Westminster to the Scottish contingent visiting Canada as part of the century-old tradition of the Strathcona Cup series of  friendlies between Scottish and Canadian club teams.
There is a new photography exhibit at the Anvil Centre Community Art Space on the third floor. These are photos and short essays on “What Housing Means to Me”, prepared by residents of the supportive housing lodge in Queensborough. This is a simple, but really thoughtful, exhibition you should check out!
There was also a near full house for the first evening of the Outside/In program at Anvil Centre, as the BC World Music Collective brought a diverse program of music from around the Americas (with a bit of Africa thrown in) that left everyone thinking on the way home: Who knew you could do that with a tambourine?
And of course, January 22nd was Lunar New Year, and there were a few events around the region, including a traditional big event at the Nikkei Centre featuring the Whos Who of Burnaby and New West, where I was honoured to be invited to Dot the Dragon’s Eye and enjoy the loud and boisterous dance. I also go to hang with these cool kids…
…and we were also invited to take part in a perhaps louder and more boisterous Dragon parade at the Starlight Casino, which really pulled out all of the stops to ring in the Year of the Rabbit. gōng xi fā cái!

This Happened (v.5)

Yikes, too much going on since last time I reported out on my Council-adjacent activities, so I’ll keep this short. One paragraph each (scroll down to see if I keep that promise, kinda curious if I do myself…)

I am on the Lower Mainland LGA executive, and we had an executive meeting to move some business along, which was mostly about making some fundamental program decisions about the 2020 conference we are planning for the beginning of May. It looks like a great program, so if you are a Local Government elected type reading this (and who else would?) make sure you register!

I gave opening greetings as “Acting Mayor” at the 2020 Innovation Expo at Anvil Centre. This annual event is part of the Intelligent New West program, where we bring people working in tech and innovation in the private sector together with people from the public sector to talk about how the two can work together to build capacity and promote investment in science and engineering. One of New West’s innovative businesses – Landcor – was a major sponsor of the event this year, and the event was really well attended.

Last weekend, the City of New West also hosted the semi-annual Council of Councils meeting, where local elected types from accross Metro Vancouver get together to get an update on what Metro Vancouver is up to. I guess I should write a blog post about separately!

On the same day, a few of us from Council attended the annual Royal New Westminster Regiment Mess Dinner, which is an event I have never actually had the honour of attending before. I was lucky to be seated with some members involved in the Cadet programs, and it was great to hear about the work they do, and the role they play in the community.

I am now serving as Chair of two new Council advisory committees: Facilities, Infrastructure, and Public Realm Advisory Committee (“FIPRAC”) and the Sustainable Transportation Advisory Committee (“STAC”), and both had their opening meeting in the last two weeks. It occurs to me now that I need to write another blog post about this, and how we are envisioning our new advisory committees being more effective and efficient.

For reasons too complicated to get into here, I was able to tour the OceanWise laboratory at the Pacific Science Enterprise Centre, which is what we are now calling the old DFO laboratories in West Vancouver. I was there to learn about some of the work OceanWise is doing to better understand microplastic pollution in our marine environment. This is an emerging area of science, as the impacts of residual clothing fibres, tire dust, paint chips, and other microscopic plastic particles are not well understood, even as we are now recognizing they have become ubiquitous in our oceans, air and sediments, and are becoming more common in marine micro- and mega-fauna. We may be some distance from knowing if we have any policy levers to do anything about this, but the foundational science is being done to at least allow us a better understanding of the problem.

I am also the Chair of the Community Energy Association, a not-for-profit agency that helps communities across BC (and increasingly adjacent parts of Yukon and Alberta) set and achieve energy and greenhouse gas emission reduction goals. We had a meeting last week where we approved a 2020 budget and set some priorities for special initiatives for the year ahead (including a new website, so enjoy this one while it lasts!).

I had a brief telephone interview with CKNW’s Jill Bennett on the morning of February 29th to talk about Council’s plans to undertake a master planning exercise for the 22nd Street Station area. It is interesting that a mention of reducing auto-dependency, even as a long-term plan in light of a Climate Emergency, triggers a strong reaction for people. Even as we continue to have a regional vision of less car dependency, the idea that we can create an area attractive to people who choose to not be car-reliant, even in a small underdeveloped area around a 30-year-old SkyTrain station, is treated with the level of incredulity expected if we were planning a moon base.

I was able to attend the small vigil/gathering at Hyack Square last weekend to show support for the Wet’suwet’en people and express hopes for respectful dialogue and a peaceful resolution for the current dispute. It was nice to see some local engaged residents come out, and I had some great conversations with people. Although there has been some positive news coming out of Victoria and Smithers as the two sides work towards resolution, the discussion on that day was mostly around how unhealthy and divisive the conversation was in the social and traditional media on this topic. Having a gathering of people support a more respectful model of discourse left me feeling more positive about our community. Thanks to the organizers for this!

There was also a successful fundraiser event thrown last weekend by the Rotary Club of New Westminster that brought a couple of hundred people to the Royal City Centre atrium to have a some snacks and taste craft beer from around the region as an excuse to raise money for two great organizations in the City, I’s on the Street and KidSport.

Finally, the Royal City Curling Club is winding its season down over March, and Team DeGobbi went into the playoffs in 12th seed, and won our first game against the #5 seed but then lost our second game to the 14th seed, so we have the long row to hoe if we plan to go deep in the playoffs. If you are wondering where I am Tuesdays and Thursday evenings…

This Happened (v.4)

I am really not good at keeping up with these, but here are a few things that kept me busy over the last couple of weeks.

Member of Parliament Peter Julian throws a heck of a Lunar New Year event every year, and this Year of the Rat was no exception. Being at the Nikkei Centre in Burnaby, it attracted more Burnaby folks than New West, but there were a bunch of cultural displays from around southeast and east Asia, mercifully short speeches from the elected types, and general good feelings all around.

The same day, New Westminster was able to cut the ribbon on one of our significant facility investments of the last few years: a new Animal Shelter in Queensborough. The old shelter was small and pretty, uh… lived in. The new shelter has enough capacity to accommodate the cats, dogs, and various smaller animals that find themselves abandoned in New West, and the dedicated staff and volunteers finally have appropriate workspaces to do their compassionate work.

The opening was really well attended with hot dogs (natch) cake, music, face painting, and tours of the facility. The Mayor and I both took our bikes to the opening, and enjoyed a QtoQ ride back on a cold but sunny day. It was good to see the service being used, even a few full boatloads. Not perfect for the few people has to wait 15 minutes for the next sailing, but a good sign for the popularity of the service.

The 2020 Push Festival included a couple of shows at the Anvil Centre, and I was able to attend one called “What you won’t do for love”. This was kind of a play with video montages, but more of a staged read-through of a play still in development. It was the story of David Suzuki and Tara Cullis, told in an engaging format centered around them telling vignettes from their history together at a dinner party. The themes were (of course) about life-long activism and conscience-raising about the environment, but it also talked about a relationship between two life loves, partners, and conspirators.

I have talked about David Suzuki and my mixed feelings about him before in a review of an earlier documentary about his life, and have been at events where he has spoken before, but I have never seen him act as vulnerable or deferential before as when he was sharing a table with Cullis. Perhaps their stories leaned a little heavily on the lateralization of brain function as a determinant of personality (ugh), but the conceit allows them to talk about how they rely on each other and work together. My mixed feelings aside, it was an interesting and informative event with a fair amount of emotional baggage attached, and the almost-full-room crowd was definitely engaged!

In the less performance category, there was a stakeholder workshop for the proposed Hume Park Master Plan. People from (mostly) Sapperton and identified user groups (Lacrosse, Rugby, HUB cycling, etc.) were asked about how they view Hume Park, what they would preserve, and what they would change. I am not a common user of Hume (though I ride my bike through it often!) so I was mostly there to listen and learn about what is most valued in the Park. I also learned that Fred Hume was not only the Mayor of New Westminster, but went on to be Mayor of Vancouver (though he lived in West Vancouver!), founded the radio station now known as 102.7 the Peak and the Vancouver Canucks, and is in the both the Hockey and Lacrosse Halls of Fame. Yikes.

We also had a series of consultations over the last couple of weeks on waste and recycling service. Not sure if you heard, but the recycling centre by the Canada Games Pool has to move to accommodate the construction of the new pool, which is anticipated to start in the next couple of months. This doesn’t mean the City is abandoning recycling, only that we are going to have to change how we deliver recycling. This consultation was meant to help staff understand what the main drivers of recycling are, and what barriers there are to recycling.

At the event I attended, there was a lot of discussion, some people disappointed about the movement of the current yard, some not that fussed about it, and mostly a lot of curiosity about things like collecting curbside glass or limits on green waste. I only wish the participation represented a more representative example of New West residents.

A few of us also attended the announcement at Pier Park that the main contractor has been hired for the Pattullo Bridge replacement project, which I already talked about here.

Aside from that, I had a couple of Task Force meetings, lunch with Councillor Dupont from Coquitlam to talk about Lower Mainland LGA business at a busy River Market, and a meeting over coffee with a couple of members of the New West Fire and Rescue service to touch bases on some of their opportunities and concerns.

I also got a couple of sunny bike rides in!

This Happened (v3)

I think I found the right title for my “community” posts, because this is really just a run-down of things that happened that I happened to be near as opposed to things that happened because of me or things I made happen, though some of those may happen to slip in. Passive voice -me is not what it is all about! Since this is the third in my recent resurgence of this topic, I’m starting at v3. Don’t @ me.

Events this last week had a distinct volunteer-and-community-builder feel.

The annual Civic Dinner is an event where we ask the many volunteers to City committees, task forces, commissions and other roles to come together and break bread. It is a fun night (see above), and one previously known for sometimes too long but nonetheless sincere thank-you speeches from all the councillors. A few years ago when this started to verge towards hours of speeches, the shift was made to councillors recording a short video. This makes it easier for everyone to sit through, but also gives us more time as councillors to circulate during dinner and thank folks personally. It also afforded people one last opportunity to laugh at the beard.

I had to run out right as the video started (my curling team awaited!) but I tried to circulate before and connect with everyone. If you served on a committee with me (or any committee for that matter), and I missed you, apologies, but know I really do appreciate the hours of work and valuable advise the volunteers in that room provide to staff and Council. And many of you I will see again as the new committee season starts now!

On Friday, there was the opening of the new temporary exhibit at the New Westminster Museum, “An Ocean of Peace”. This exhibit celebrates 100 years of Sikh community building in New Westminster, mostly around the Gurdwara Sahib Sukh Sagar on Wood Street. This exhibit was assembled by collecting the stories and artifacts of people who live in our community – not only the leaders and founders, but the everyday people who have for several generations made New Westminster and the surrounding areas home. The opening was incredibly well attended, with generous food provided by the Gurdwara. It is worth while heading down to the museum in the next couple of months to the temporary exhibit space and learn a little more about the history (and current life!) of New Westminster.

Saturday was the annual Festival of Volunteers at Royal City Centre, brought to you by New Westminster Volunteer Connections. This small event attracts a lot of not-for-profit organizations to set up booths and let people know what volunteer opportunities exist in the City ,and generally promotes the good works of local non-government agencies. I had great chats with my friends from HUB (who have a revitalized and active local New Westminster group). Pride New West, the New West Hospice Society, the Arts Council, and many other groups that keep the social and advocacy life buzzing in New West.

Thursday there was a well attended social put on by the New Westminster Chamber of Commerce, hosted by Fraserside Community Services. The Chamber is really stepping up their “making connections” program in the community, and it was great to see an event hosted at Fraserside. They have been working for more than 40 years in New Westminster to help people with barriers to community integration and employment achieve a fuller life, with job placement, housing support, counselling, and more. Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Judy Darcy was there as well to talk briefly about the challenges of her portfolio, and the work ahead, and a brief profile of the many, many programs Fraserside provides from their CEO Lynda Edmonds (who was smiling every second, except when I took this picture!)

Finally, I attended my first meeting with the Glenbrook North Residents Association as their “council Liaison”. It happened to be their AGM, so I got to watch the cut and thrust of RA elections. We also talked a bit about how the RA wants this new “Council Liaison” role to work, and I answered a few questions about the Canada Games Pool, the recycling Centre and (of course) traffic. The GNRA seems to have a strong, engaged executive base, and I encourage folks between Avenues 6 and 10, and Streets 6 and McBride to join them at a meeting (it’s Free!) and learn more about what is happening in your neighbourhood.

Community, Jan 24, 2020

OK, so maybe I already missed the mark on my soft promise of weekly updates on my council-related community activities, but let’s call them almost-weekly, and if we can keep ahead of fortnightly (although I love the term), and we can call this a success. It is going to depend on how many things I have going on, and how much time I have to write about them. Whish will result in this strange curve, because eventually I get to busy to write about them at all. And how much time I spend trying to use MSPaint to draw curves of phenomenon in my life:

Since my last of these community updates, we ran into snowpocalypse or snowmageddon or whatever, so a few events were cancelled. Most notably, I made it to the Queensborough Residents’ Association meeting just as the power outage caused a cancellation, and the New West Collective (a peer-to-peer support and networking group for local small businesses) wisely chose to delay their quarterly-or-so gathering until proper spring weather arrives.

Many may not know I am a member of the board of the Lower Mainland Local Government Association, which is an area association representing 33 local governments (municipalities and regional districts) from Hope to Vancouver to Pemberton. We had an executive meeting last week which was spent mostly on organizing our AGM and convention in Whistler. It looks like a great program is shaping up, and I look forward to reporting out on it in May.

We held the last meeting of the Intelligent City Advisory Committee last Friday. This committee operated for about a decade, and provided some valuable guidance to Council and staff on the Intelligent New West initiative. As Council re-organized the committee structures in 2019, this was one whose role was re-evaluated, as INW is now operational, the City has a Strategic Plan for INW and there are staff responsible for all three “pillars” of INW. The “council advisory” role under INW will now be part of the Economic Development and Advisory Committee’s mandate, but there are aspect of the INW program that will also fall under Public Realm, Public Engagement / Inclusion, and the Electrical Utility Commission. There were a few members of that Committee not happy with this direction, and Council will be reviewing how to assure that the INW Strategic Plan is measured and reported out. More importantly, the City needs to recognize that there is a real braintrust of people who understand the digital economy and how information technology is evolving regionally (and globally) as the Internet of things and 5G networks become our reality. New West has some unique advantages here, we need to be vigilant to make sure those opportunities are not lost.

Last week, the members of City Council and a few senior staff members attended a special training session as part of our ongoing Truth and Reconciliation work. We had Brad Marsden lead us in a workshop around improving our understanding of the history of Residential Schools and Colonization, and its impact on Indigenous and Urban Indigenous Peoples. This was a powerful and emotionally draining session, and I understand New West is the first “Mayor and Council” to take part.

This week I was also fortunate to be able to attend the first in a three-part public conversation about changing the conversation around social housing. Led by the Douglas College philosophy department, this series seeks to explore how we can have better public conversations about social and supportive housing in our communities:

The first session put the conversation in context with an introduction by Elliot Rossiter (who wrote this great opinion in the Record recently), followed by short presentations that talked about the history of housing in New West and Canada, from the criminalization of “vagrancy” in the City’s early days through the complex social programs that virtually eliminated homelessness as we know it in the decades after WW2, to the neoliberal shift and commodification of shelter that made “unhousing” of people a common occurrence for the first time. This was followed by a panel (including Councillor Nakagawa) talking about how we can improve the community conversation about providing housing, and move past the stigmatization of people who are victims of the complex systemic and societal failure that is poverty in Canada.

Sorry, Phil, but the “neolibralism” count I got from the panel was 7. All on mark, from people who actually understand the meaning of the term.

There will be two more talks in this series that are more about exploring potential solutions than naming the problems. If you care about justice, about local governance, or even about how your neighbourhood can have better conversations about housing, you should come out! It’s free!

Finally, in the last week I had a Canada Games Pool Task Force meeting, an Electrical Commission meeting, and a less formal meeting with one of the guiding lights in the New Westminster Environmental Partners, to talk about how they view our current recycling situation, and some great initiatives they are hoping to lead around raising the profile of the Brunette River as an ecological asset in New West.