Tag: Acting Locally

Signs of Protest

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.
I was driving along Highway 3 this past weekend, along one of my favourite roads. I have driven and cycled this road more than a hundred of times in my life, the 600km from my first Home to my adopted Home. It seems I know every curve, every hill, every summit (can name them off the top of my head, and picture each clearly: Allison, Sunday, Richter, Anarchist, Phoenix, Paulson), every place where the Police hand out tickets.

One of the spectacular stretches for a geologist is west of Richter Pass, as you drop into the wide, flat Similkameen Valley, bounded by the vertical wall of the Catherdal Range of the Okanagan Mountains. The valley floor has a classic underfit meandering river flanked by the shallow drapes of alluvial fans leading up to much steeper scree slopes of colluvium. Traditional ranching and hay fields on the slopes are increasingly being turned over to viniculture, while the orchards of Keremeos continue to pound out unreasonably good cherries, apples, and stone fruit.

Aside from the human uses, these grasslands represent a rare ecosystem in British Columbia: A sagebrush desert. With rapid development up the mountains in the adjacent Okanagan Valley, these ecosystems are under a lot of pressure. To call it a desert makes it sound, well, deserted, but this area has the highest concentration of threatened or endangered species of any similar-sized region in Canada; at least 23 different listed species, from Pacific rattlesnakes to Flammulated owls, and one-third of the red-listed species in the Province. Protection is spotty, development is encroaching, and the ecosystem is threatened.

With this in mind, the (Liberal) Federal Government signed a memorandum of understanding with the (Liberal) Provincial Government in 2003, to do the appropriate feasibility studies towards developing a National Park or National Reserve Lands (the first in the Okanagan). The MOU includes the statement:

“On February 11, 2003, the Government of British Columbia announced in its Speech from the Throne its interest in exploring the potential for establishing a new National Park Reserve in the Okanagan area, and its “Heartlands Economic Strategy” by which economic development plans will open up new opportunities for tourism, resort development and recreation, among other things, in the Province of British Columbia”
Sounds good; a Park plan which will balance out economic growth in an area of intense tourist interest and very unique geography and ecology (currently unprotected by any National Parks), to provide recreation opportunities while limiting impacts. In a region full of seasonal hotels, campsites, fruit stands, and tourists, who could possibly oppose?

People who like to shoot things and burn hydrocarbons for entertainment. That’s who.

A local “No National Park” movement began, led by a small but determined group of hunters and ATV enthusiasts out of Oliver, BC, who were offended that their chosen recreation activities may be even slightly encroached upon in the name of protecting ecological lands or endangered species.

Long story short, after 9 years of consultation, the Province caved. With her characteristic ability to solve problems, bring people together, and provide leadership you can believe in, our Premier was unable to voice support for a Park that had broad local and First Nations support, with backing from a broad range of people and groups across the country. Apparently recreational lead-shooters and gasoline-burners have a lot of voice in one of the last remaining BCLiberal strongholds in the Province. The Federal Conservative Government, citing a lack of interest on the part of the BC Liberals announced this spring that they would no longer explore the Park. Even while they announce a big park up North that will apparently feature spectacular mining expanses.

The fight may be over (or not…), but the signs are still up all through the Similkameen Valley. To me, this entire story has been about a 9-year sign war played out across the Cawston countryside. That small, organized group did a good job plastering Highway 3 with red-on-white signs, stating “No National Park”, confusing the hell out of thousands of RVs from Alberta and Germans in rental cars every year. Really, it does not present the most inviting message to passing drivers: “Wer ist gegen einen Nationalpark?!?”

It has only been the last year or so that a counter-protest sign campaign has started, using much more positive, if derivative, imagery:

And even some more creative approaches:

And now, with the entire thing in limbo, maybe the time was right for the ultimate modern slacktivist movement:

Now there is a protest I can believe in.

?

From the jaws of defeat

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 2 Comments.

It appears, as many suspected, that the campaign to collect signatures and force a referendum on a controversial borrowing bylaw failed to get the numbers required. Initial reports are that they didn’t even get half the number of signatures required.

Contrary to what some may say, I think this demonstrates, more powerfully than a successful campaign would, that the Alternative Approval Process is seriously flawed.

Remember, this process was started when the City decided to request authorization to loan up to $59Million from the Municipal Finance Authority. To do that, they were required to pass a Bylaw, and because of the nature of the loan authorisation, the City was required by the Community Charter to get approval from the electorate to pass that Bylaw. As a referendum is potentially expensive and time-consuming, the Alternative Approval Process allows the City to just send the idea out to the community without the hassle of a full referendum, and see if there is even any appetite for having a referendum about the issue. If no appetite is found (by not getting enough people to sign their disapproval) then a referendum can be skipped and approval is presumed.

Except in this case, the alarm was raised on what is usually a dull procedural process, and there was a coordinated campaign to force the referendum, a campaign that clearly struck a chord.

James Crosty is a hell of an organizer, and proved again that he can raise a ruckus like no-one else in this town. Sometimes I agree with him, sometimes don’t, but I’ll always respect his ability to rally the troops and get the media attention when needed. He makes me think of the Woody Guthrie lyric:

“I ain’t the world’s best writer nor the world’s best speller,
But when I believe in something I’m the loudest yeller”

So when Crosty took the charge in this campaign, he managed to put an organizing team together in short order, dominate the local media and editorial pages, create an ongoing Twitterstorm, and gain radio time on CBC and CKNW, all about a little local bylaw issue in New Westminster. The volunteer team no doubt invested lots of time and some donated money to make the campaign happen, including buying ads in the local newspapers. When City Hall would not provide enough ballots or long enough hours for people to collect them, Crosty first shamed them into putting the forms online, then opened his office space to serve as a proxy City Hall.

The way the campaign framed the issue, it was broad enough to encompass people who hated the Tower idea on the face of it, those who had a distrust of the current Council verging on conspiracy theory, those who were concerned about the sustainability of local government debt and the impact on Taxes, and those who just thought referenda were a better way to make decisions like this. A former Mayor and several former Councillors spoke in favour of the campaign, as did current and past School Board Trustees and business leaders in the community. FOI requests were generated, casting more suspicion around details of the Tower and the pull-out of the private partner. Even the Canadian Taxpayers Federation got their unaccountable two bits in on the topic.

So I ask you, if this campaign was unable to hit half the minimum amount of signatures, will any campaign ever hit the mark? Does anyone seriously think an overwhelming majority of the people in this City are happy with this process? Or is the bar set too high, with too many restrictions in place to make it achievable?

Talking to people on either side of this campaign, no-one thought that 4500+ signatures was possible, (note: I never actually asked Crosty if he thought it was possible, so don’t include him or his team in this generalization) and no-one thought that if a referendum was actually called, the Bylaw would be approved by the populace. People were not going to line up to vote “for” the City borrowing $59 Million on behalf of the Taxpayers on a business venture, but a hell of a lot would line up to stop it. In other words, the Alternative Approval Process seemed almost guaranteed to get the opposite result that a referendum would have. That isn’t right, and we can thank Crosty’s campaign for making that obvious.

It is legal, completely legitimate, and something that has happened before in the City. The Community Charter and the Local Government Act allow this process to happen and set the terms for it. The City, I have to emphasise, did nothing illegal or outside of its rights as a Local Government. Maybe the result is for the better good and all is well, but I still hate this process, as it seems by design or by chance, it was set up to fail.

So what can we change? The City could just step up and take accountability on its own behalf and review whether the AAP process should be used in future, and if so, how it might be adapted to get a fairer poll of the populace (remember, the Community Charter only sets minimum standards for the AAP, the City is free to exceed those standards in quest for greater accountability). Perhaps a better idea would be for the Provincial Government (who writes and administers the Community Charter) to acknowledge that this is an accountability problem, and change the Charter to reflect that problem. Perhaps this is a better task for the Municipal Auditor General to undertake than the nitpicking of library or recreation facility accounts.

I don’t know the solution. Hopefully, now that it is out in the light, we can have a rational discussion about what this process means, and how to balance the need for public input and consultation with the need for a Municipal government to operate efficiently and effectively.

The Campaign is over, let the conversation begin.

Politics

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 2 Comments.

As the days count down for the Alternative Approval process, and the citizenry of New Westminster sits in a cat-like state of readiness, anticipating what comes next, it seems as good a time as any for me to noodle on about what we’ve learned, and haven’t.

It has been an interesting campaign to watch for many reasons – almost as many reasons as there have been given for the campaign itself – because no two people seem to agree on what the campaign is even about.

Ultimately, it is all about the Office Tower that the City wants to built atop the New Multi-Use Civic Facility. Since the Uptown Property Group bowed out last winter and the City decided to charge ahead, everyone has been Monday-morning quarterbacking the decision. People bully about the future of the City, including a lot of Real Estate types I have talked to, think it is a good idea, a sound business decision that shows confidence in the downtown revitalization. Others have questioned whether a Municipal Government should be taking business risks with taxpayers’ money.

It is this second group who have been most vocal about the referendum campaign. Most of the talk around this campaign, and the balance of Letters to the Editors, have been of the opinion that the City should not be building the Tower. Many of these opinionists wrongly think that 4528 signatures will stop the Tower from being built, after the hole had been dug, the foundation has been poured, and $12 Million has already been spent on the building. Some go so far as to call the City’s refusing to stop building now regardless of referendum is a display of “arrogance”. This is silly, as the only way the City is sure to lose is if they stop building now…

However, the campaign is not really about the Tower, it is about the $59 Million long-term loan guarantee for which the City is seeking approval, in order to finance construction of the Tower, MUCF, and attached parking garage. Some say this is too much debt for a City the size of New Westminster to take on, and may cause us to go bankrupt if the Tower business model (gamble?) doesn’t work out.

Except, again, it isn’t really a $59 Million loan. It is asking for pre-approved financing for up to $59 Million over the next three years, if required. It is more like a $59 Million line of credit at 1.7%, there if we need it, no obligation to use it. Some of this money will be used to finance things for which we are guaranteed a return on a known schedule (i.e. the DAC funding we are going to get in 2013, but we must spend before we can get reimbursed for it). Some we may spend on the risky stuff, and we are very likely to get some (if not all) in return based on the value built into the Tower.

It is certainly not “risk free”, but the City is securing $59 Million at 1.7% to build an asset that will be worth $100 Million when completed. I imagine there would be a line of developers who would line up to take that risk (but of course, they do not have access to the MFA loan rates). The City has money and assets elsewhere (some, notably, earning more than 3% interest) that by far outstrip this Tower in value. I suspect that is where the City’s financial folks are saying, I paraphrase, “we don’t need the loan to move ahead”. Even after (when) (if) this loan is drawn, the City will only be using less than a third of the total credit available to them from the MFA. the City can make money here for taxpayer, or they can lose some money, but the risk of bankruptcy, even if this tower is hit by a meteor the day after it is built, is so low as to be indistinguishable from zero.

Borrowing from the MFA to build an asset seems like a strategic investment to me, not a dangerous debt.

There is a third thing this campaign is about, besides the Tower and the Loan. James Crosty has taken pains to point it out (although it just isn’t as compelling to most of the Twitteridiots and letter-to-the-Editor-writers as Towers and $59 Million numbers): and that is the Alternative Approval Process itself. Crosty has said several times that this is all about getting the discussion out into the open; bringing democracy out of the shadows, to make it accountable.

The AAP is perfectly legal, and something the City of New West and other Cities have done numerous times before, but it stinks like a flattened skunk on East Columbia. It is effectively “reverse-billing”, by assuming people are happy with a big decision if they don’t line up to oppose it. To ask people to voluntarily engage in that process in the middle of summer, then not make the process as open, transparent, easy, and accountable as possible is to not respect the democratic purpose or the spirit of the Community Charter.

Crosty has said he just wants to call attention to this process, and I have to say he has been pretty damn successful. The unanticipated side of it was that it drew attention to some of the bigger issues behind the Tower, the deals signed (or apparently not signed) between UPG and the City, and the timely disclosure of when the deal started to go sour. Ugly questions are arising about election timing…

Regardless of how this referendum campaign comes out, the City needs to start talking about this. New Westminster is a small town, with many active rumour mills. There are too many people who are willing to publicly fill gaps in their own knowledge or understanding of a process with assumed corruption or malfeasance. The only way to quash that is to fill those gaps with defensible data. And a new building surrounded by rumour, innuendo, and suspicion is going to be a lot harder to sell when that time comes, effectively increasing the “risk”.

Now, I’m not always the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I know a fair amount about the Community Charter and how Municipal Governments operate. I have been reading all of the City-provided info about this project, including Council reports around the financing and the loan. I have read the FOI-released info acquired by Chris Bryan at the Newsleader, and the other news and opinion in the papers. I even attended the Downtown Residents Association meeting where the Mayor talked about this project, and listened to his comments on CKNW. After all of these attempts at information gathering, I still have a lot of questions about this topic. What went wrong with UPG? Where is the business plan? While there may be good business reasons to keep some info proprietary, there must be a balance to be struck while giving the voting public some idea of what their business plan is like for is tower – the rationale that had most Councillors vote for moving ahead, yet cause Chuck Puchmayr to say no.

I have a lot of confidence in this Council being able to do good for the City (and see a decade of steady improvement in the City as proof of this confidence), but blind trust in their perfection is just as irresponsible as presuming that they’re doomed to screw everything up.

One untrue thing I have heard during this is “this is not about politics”. To that I can only say bullshit. This is all about politics.

The usual Wayne Wright critics have surfaced in the Letters section of the Record and NewsLeader, the local Twitterati (including the @59million sock-puppet handle) has been filling their own gaps in knowledge about the tower with suspicion and suggesting a referendum was the only way to get to whatever you wanted (be it stopping the loan, stopping the tower, finding the “truth”, whatever) while listing off political allies from former Councils, current school boards, and citizens groups. People like me, who have been asking questions, challenging ideas, or pointing out that maybe, just perhaps, everyone at City hall isn’t corrupt to the core, have been called Astroturfers and Goons (which is strange, as I have never had a conversation with Wayne Wright in my life, other then the couple of times I have delegated to council).

Right from the start, this campaign has been pure politics. That is not necessarily a bad thing; you can’t have an effective democracy without politics. Politics is just the art of convincing people that what you want to give them is what they want.

To that end, the City played the politics here rather passively, and if, by some miracle, James Crosty gets his 4500+ signatures, the City will have to look back at how they may have communicated better through this all. If the campaign is not successful, then maybe the City played it right. Maybe.

I was with a group of friends talking about this last week over beers, and there was quite a variety of opinions about the Tower, the Loan, the referendum. We couldn’t decide if this was a good thing or not – is this just making chaos for the purpose of making chaos? Is there’s higher ideal here we can get behind? What are the outcomes? A friend shut me up with a simple question: “what do you want out of this?” I couldn’t answer, which is probably why I hadn’t yet given James my signature on a form. I need to have some idea what the outcomes will be of my actions, I don’t like to act first and ask questions later, just not my style in life.

Over the last two weeks, I have decided that all I want out of this process is for that light to be cast on the process: on the Community Charter and the Alternative Approval Process. It is the same thing I wanted last year when the New West electrical utility used the same process to get your approval for a $25 Million loan to support a new deal that guaranteed revenues to BC Hydro at the Risk of New Westminster utility users. We agreed to that deal through the Alternative process, even if most of us didn’t even know it happened.

I’m OK with the Tower (and the inherent risk), because I’m bully about the future of Downtown and like the path we are taking in this City. I’m OK with the creative financing that allows the City to leverage a 1.7% lending rate to its maximum advantage, because I want the City to use it’s financial advantages like a good business would. I’m OK that the City needs to have the ability to negotiate the terms of complicated construction and cost-sharing contracts, and that those negotiations sometimes go sideways. What I don’t like is that the City (in complete compliance with the law) attempted to push through the largest loan in its history through a reverse-billing option on a short timeline in the middle of the summer with the minimum of notice to the public, and apparently hoped and prayed that no-one would notice.

They didn’t count on James Crosty, and his remarkable campaign skills.

They got caught out, and now the process, if nothing else, is in the light. So in a way, it doesn’t matter if James gets his 4500+ signatures. He has already won. And the electorate of New Westminster is better for him having put up the fight, regardless of whether you agree with his position.

If there is a referendum, I am voting FOR the Bylaw.

Bicycle Lane Obstacle Course #3

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 3 Comments.

In light of comments from someone whose opinions matter, I thought I would clarify the purpose of these posts a bit.

I am always first to point out that my bike route to work is pretty good, an example of what should be available to more people in more places. I don’t get all that concerned about the few little issues that pop up – because I am cognizant of how difficult it is to operate a City, and manage all of the little things that crop up, not to mention the hassles that typically go with living in a big urban area with 3 million other people.

So when they are tearing up a road to replace a water line, that doesn’t bother me. When they need to drill holes in a road and close a lane, and have lots of signs and flag persons, and I have to wait a minute to get on my way, that’s part of the deal of getting to use the infrastructure. Most drivers roll with that, and so do I when riding.

Sometimes commercial vehicles, for whatever reason, need to block a lane for an extended period of time to do their jobs. When that happens, they apply to the City for a temporary road closure permit, and set up appropriate safety flagging, signage, etc. The City I work for does not charge for this: the permits are free, a service your tax dollars provide. When driving or riding, you see these things as necessary and accept them as part of City life.

That’s not what I’m talking abut here. What I’m talking about is things we find in the bike lane that would never happen in a driving lane, or at least would be met with outrage by drivers, but is commonplace in the bike lane, or as it is typically viewed “the shoulder of the road”. Daily dodging people pulling into the bike lane to pass on the right is par for the course. Until they kill me, I’ll just get used to it.

So when I complained about this commercial vehicle blocking the bike lane during rush hour, it was not just him being there, it was because we know he would not block the car lane during rush hour, and it is not like he had no alternative: this is the commercial loading zone less then 20 feet away where he chose not to park, because the bike lane was just too convenient:

But here is the best example I have found yet, one I griped about earlier, but fits as probably the model example of the Bicycle Lane Obstacle Course, one worthy of BLOC post #3:

damn cyclist, swerving all over the place, and not even wearing a helmet!
Can you imagine a lit sign in the middle of the driving lane asking people to “Ride Safely!” that cars had to swerve around? What if it forced you to get out of your car (“dismount”) and push your car around the obstacle, or maybe to hop onto the sidewalk and dodge pedestrians, to get through safely – hey, its only a few seconds of your time… then you can get on your way!
So I hope to show examples of how good cycling infrastructure (all photos so far show good, well planned bicycle lanes) goes terribly wrong by missing the details, or through general lack of acknowledgement that it even matters.

The MUCF-Tower & Section 85 of the Charter

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 3 Comments.

After my last post where I expressed some distaste for the way these faux-referenda operate, I have had a few conversations with people over the process, and tried to understand it more. This was partly prompted by the comments added to that post by the man in the centre of the issue, James Crosty, and questions raised by the person who is commonly becoming New West’s lone voice of reason, Jen Arbo.

First, Crosty was clear to point out he is not opposed to the MUCF, as long as it is fully funded by DAC, or the office Tower, as long as it is privately funded. He is rightly concerned about a mounting pile of debt the City is accumulating. He is not opposed to the Bylaw, just that the electorate’s ability to vote on this issue is being bypassed with this quasi-referendum system. Although it seems pretty clear he is opposed to the Bylaw – because he doesn’t want the City borrowing $59Million, and that’s what the Bylaw is for.

I am pretty sure I agree with Crosty on many of his points, if not all of the facts. However, the rub here is not just facts, but outcomes. Part of the problem (as Jen astutely pointed out) being we have little access to the facts, and even less understanding of outcomes, throughout this process. How can we possibly be expected to make an informed decision?

Just to be clear: nothing I am writing below has been verified by any staff member at the City, nor any elected official at the City, so even the “facts” below should be treated with a big bag of salt grains. I have chatted to a few people more knowledgeable than I, and have read over the relevant legislation, but this is my interpretation of what is happening or could happen. The opinions and ideas below are worth exactly what you paid for them. I encourage you to go out and get your own info, and to challenge me on anything I write below that is factually incorrect. I think you should approach Crosty’s information with the same healthy skepticism. Three points to start:

DAC Money: The City is not sitting on a pile of DAC cash to build things with. There is no DAC vault below the Mayor’s Office or a DAC bank account from which the Mayor can write cheques. DAC funds are provided on an annual basis up to 2019 based on gaming revenue. This money is “guaranteed” to the City, as long as the Casino hits its revenue targets (the Casino has shown no signs of not hitting its revenue targets).

With the agreements in place, various projects can be built using the DAC funds, the MUCF being one of them, to the order of $35Million (well, more like $43 Million, but that’s another discussion). However, for the City to get their hands on that $35Million $43 Million, they first have to spend the money, then apply for reimbursement after the project is completed. This is a hassle for the City, as it is not so good for the guys pouring cement in onto the hole on Columbia Street on Monday morning. The cement-pourers want to get paid now, not in 2013 or 2014, so the City needs to borrow money from the Municipal Finance Authority to pay today’s bills in order to complete the project so they can get the money from the DAC funds upon completion. Alternately, they can take money from their reserves, but that money is already earmarked for other purposes (see below), and locking it up now would limit future flexibility in its use. It may even run the reserves too low, and may hurt us in the interest earned on any reserve funds (for example, the City has an MFA Bond fund earning over 3%).

This raises the question: is that $35Million $43 Million really “debt” just because we are borrowing it until the day, a year or two down the road, when the cheque from the Casino clears? It is clearly “borrowing”, so it invokes Section 178 (short-term borrowing) or Section 179 (long-term borrowing) of the Community Charter, depending on how the City’s finance department structures the repayment. That said, if there is a clear, foreseeable, and guaranteed payback scheme not involving taxpayer’s money, and out of it all we get a big asset, I have a hard time calling this irresponsible debt.

Referendum: The implications of the referendum are hard to comprehend at this point. Section 85 of the Community Charter refers directly to Part 4 of the Local Government Act. The legalese gets a little dense, especially as it talks more about elections than referenda, but the process is about 80 days (presumably, once they get and elections office up and running). I imagine it would cost $100K or more, which is not budgeted money, so you can call that operational cost right out of the taxpayer’s pocket. As for more specific questions (how much would the City be able to spend on the “Yes” campaign? Could they buy $1 Million in advertising? ), I frankly have no idea. Anyone out there know?

If the Bylaw fails: If the referendum was to be called and people vote for the lending Bylaw, then I guess we just wasted a bit of time and money, but Democracy is rarely quick or cheap.

If the people vote against the lending Bylaw, then I suppose it is back to the drawing board when it comes to financing the MUCF building and other projects in the City.

The Report to Council that outlines the accounting strategy is available online, for your perusal. Although I suspect they did not anticipate this was very likely, they did include a contingency sentence:

“If the Alternative Approval Process is not successful [translation: if Crosty collects 4500 signatures], the City would need to consider alternative funding solutions, including deferring projects in order to ensure City reserves are available”

So I don’t feel bad not knowing what happens if Crosty gets his 4500 signatures, and a referendum fails. I don’t think the City knows.

Friday’s newspaper article suggests that the MUCF and Tower would proceed, they would just need to find another way to fund it, likely drawing down reserves or from money in other parts of the budget. They are not going to stop building the Tower, not because Council chooses to ignore the people, but because the concrete is currently being poured: at this point, they really can’t stop building the tower.

The idea, once floated by Councillor Puchmayr, of building the MUCF and “capping it”, until a partner is found for the Tower might have been a good one at the time, but I doubt it could happen now. A large building like this is an integrated unit, built from the ground up as one piece. While it is possible (at an increased costs with significant engineering challenges) to only build half a building, bring it up to code for occupancy, then add on the other half later, you really need to have that as your plan on day one. Everything from how you manage groundwater removal in the base to how you construct your elevator shafts, sewage systems, HVAC systems, building envelope, and electrical infrastructure are based on a single integrated design. It is highly unlikely the building was designed to be built half-at-a-time, so it may be neigh-impossible.

The public discourse has to acknowledge that point: regardless of the number of signatures received, or the results of a referendum that may arise, the Tower is going to be built on the MUCF. If the City’s money supply is cut off, then it will not be the MUCF-Tower that gets hurt, it is other infrastructure spending.

It should also be noted, the $59 Million is not all going to the Tower. The Bylaw we are as of yet not getting to vote for includes lending for roads and parks maintenance and other things. This (as Crosty pointed out in his comments) is a bit of bookkeeping. The Municipal Finance Authority lends money at very good rates (currently 1.73%) for Municipal capital projects. The fact the City can build the building based on those rates makes the business case better for the City than any developer who didn’t have access to these rates. Problem is, the City cannot use money lent at that rate for commercial purposes. So they need to use reserves funds for the commercial part of the building, and the MFA lending will be used to finance capital works projects, like roads, parks and sewers, that would usually be paid from those reserves. For people who wish government would be more business-savvy and run more like a private enterprise, here you go.

Even then, the $59 Million is not just for the Tower. The total budgeted cost for the Office Tower part of the project is $33 Million. It is hard to imagine the City will never recover any of that money, and more likely than not, they will recover all of it and make more. That is the risk the City is asking taxpayers to take. So don’t get baffled by $59 Million, or $88 Million, or other numbers bandied about.

And finally, that $59 Million is a maximum number, there is no guarantee that the entire amount will be needed. If a partner is found for the Tower sooner than later, if DCC funds increase (and therefore more reserve money arrives), or if efficiencies are found at any step in the MUCF-Tower project, then the City may not borrow the full $59 Million (as they ended up not borrowing the full amount they were allowed to for the Moody Park Pool, leaving $1.5 Million of potential credit on the table).

Through my reading and discussions with people, I am not really all that concerned about the lending Bylaw itself. I would like to see more of a business case made by the City, but talk to any commercial realtor, and Class-A Office space on top of a SkyTrain line is looking like a sure thing, investment-wise. This building should be a real winner.

But (here is my big But getting in the way): I still can’t shake the feeling that I hate the “alternative approval process”, and the way the City, by need or by design, has launched it during the summer, with very little fanfare (note, the only reason you have heard about it at all is that Crosty raised the alarm), and then have made it difficult for people to distribute and collect signatures, from refusing to provide the blank forms requested to refusing to disclose how many signatures have been dropped at City Hall, making the goal post hard to see.

That said, before I fill out a referendum form (we have until August 7, and you can get the form here, print it off, and drop it at the City Hall Mailbox, addressed to “Legislative Services”), I want to know the outcome either way. Does anyone know?

Agendas and Mandates

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 3 Comments.

I’ve been thinking a lot about representative democracy lately.

It is easy to feel, to quote Kent Brockman, “Democracy just doesn’t work”, when you are an Environmental Scientist and you watch Stephen Harper systematically destroy Science and the Environment.

Ms. NWimby, once again, is the voice of reason, and is only incredulous at my incredulity about how far the Harper Government has gone, and how fast. “What did you expect?” she says, “He’s doing what he was elected to do.”

Is this what he was elected to do? In theory, we elect a government to lead by setting policy that is well informed, balances needs, and achieves the goals that the people want to see achieved. (Idealist, yes, but stick with me here). The alternatives are to run a populist party (give the people what they want, whether it is good for the nation or not) or an ideological party (one based on a set of rigid principles that cannot be bent for any reason regardless if the results are what was intended, damn the facts ).

If you listen to Reform Party Strategist Stephen Harper, he was all about people wanting open, accountable government, and all he wanted to do was make Ottawa follow the will of the “the people”. Reform were the ultimate populists when he was drawing up policy in the 80s.

But he isn’t a populist now, and it is pretty clear that his decisions are not made out of a desire to develop good effective policy based on the best science or analysis of the situation. You cannot do that and at the same time cut yourself off from information.

That leaves ideology, and he has, at least since taking power in 2006, worn his ideology on his sleeve: business good, taxes bad. “European-style socialism” the worst. He hates all forms of communism except the profitable Chinese style. He is an open admirer of the United States, and sees the current slow disassembly of their civil society as path Canada would be well served to follow. (<—opinion)

So we shouldn’t be surprised, nor should we expect him to change course even if all of the doctors in the country protest his position on health care for refugees, if all the scientists in the country gather at the gates crying about the death of evidence, when a group of former Conservatvie minsters line up decry the decimation of environmental laws. He wasn’t elected to represent health care professionals, scientists, former Ministers, evidence, or even public opinion. He was elected to support his openly expressed ideology.

Everyone was so worried about Harpers “hidden agenda” that the weren’t paying attention to his declared agenda. And here we are.

So although I disagree with almost every position Harper has taken, and lament the loss of science and data the future leaders could have used to guide good policy, I cannot blame him for doing it. It is his job in representative democracy, and he was elected by us, knowing that was what we were getting. Shame on us.

What I can criticize him for is showing no respect for the electoral system through which he receives his mandate. It is clear there was, at the very least, a systematic dirty tricks campaign during the last election. It was probably not enough to change the overall result, but enough to demonstrate a profound institutional disrespect for the ballot box within the Conservative party.

Again, we should perhaps not have been surprised, as when it was clear the electorate was ready to turf the conservatives from office a few years ago, he prorogued parliament over the Christmas break when it would create the least fuss. Technically, this was not illegal according to parliamentary law, but it was a serious violation of the spirit of parliament, the spirit of representative democracy, and a shitty thing to do.

But I’m getting pretty tired of pulling my hair over the Federal Conservatives. They are a bunch of jerks. Time to move past and make best. However, there have been a couple of recent events in New Westminster that may better relate to this tension between popularity and ideology, and the spirit of representative democracy.

I haven’t said much about the Elizabeth Fry development in Sapperton. I think Will Tomkinson covered the topic very well for 10th to the Fraser, and outlined effectively the political quagmire that it became.

I think this is a situation where there was lots of blame to go around for it becoming such a difficult situation.
The Lower Sapperton neighbourhood took a strong position against EFry, but didn’t seem to have time for any compromise. Nothing wrong with having a strong opinion, and they ran quite a campaign, but they really had a hard time defining exactly what their main issue was. Yes, they sounded “NIMBY”, but their message was confused by using a whack-a-mole technique or issue raising. They were apparently concerned about crime, parking, shadowing, commercialization, the integrity of the OCP, parking, Kelly Ellard, noise, parking…

EFry, on their own account, did not make a strong public case to directly address the concerns raised by the neighbourhood. Whether they felt the concerns were legitimate or not, an OCP amendment is a BIG DEAL, and they needed to go the extra mile to try to get a number of neighbours on board. No doubt EFry does good work, and area vital part of the social fabric of a community, but there is also no doubt the programs they offer have less favourable impacts, and their decision to develop in a way that challenged the OCP should fitfully come with responsibilities to meet the spirit of the OCP in neighbourhood impacts, even if you don’t meet the letter of the OCP. Hopefully, EFry will take this opportunity to prove their detractors wrong and become the best neighbours that Lower Sapperton could have.

That is all past now, the only question left is: what is Council’s responsibility here? There is little double the majority of lower Sapperton residents opposed the EFry application. There is also little doubt that the vast majority of delegates at the marathon council meetings (at least those who do not work at EFry or use their services) were opposed to the project. If you are the type who thinks Council’s role is to represent the whim of the majority on every topic, then clearly they made the wrong choice.

There are at least two other sources of information that Councillors can use in deciding how to vote: information and ideology.

As I said, I was only a passive observer of the events around EFry, but it is possible that council were convinced by evidence that the programs are so needed, that the overall good of the community will be so well served by having them, and the impacts on lower Sapperton can be so mitigated, that they were compelled by the evidence to approve the project in spite of public outcry. That is an important part of representative democracy – electing someone with the foresight and leadership skills to do what is best for the “Greater Community”, even against hyper-local, short-term, or uninformed opposition.

I don’t know if this was the case in the EFry situation, I’d like to think so. However, I think it is safe to say that the other “i” did have a role in how council made the decision.

Without picking names, some of the members of New West Council have ideological positions that they wear on their sleeves as proudly as Stephen Harper wears his. You can call it socialist, or Marxist, or liberal (all terms that can complimentary or pejorative), and you either like them or dislike them for this very positions. Simplified, it is the idea that Government has a role in improving the lives of people, especially those on the margins of society. Like it or not, council candidates that espouse this opinion do very well in local elections. They do not hide this ideology, and they get elected, suggesting that representing that ideology is part of their mandate in Council. When called on to demonstrate leadership against possible public backlash, that is the mandate they have to fall back upon. Really, that is the “representative” part of democracy.

Was The EFry decision based on information or ideology? I don’t know, as I didn’t follow the case that closely. I suspect it was a little of both.

There is another decision that may not have (yet) received the vocal public backlash of EFry, but speaks to mandates and democracy: the MUCF funding and James Crosty’s burgeoning campaign to force a referendum on the issue.

I should say, I am generally in favour of the MUCF. As much as I would have liked the office tower to have been built with private money, I understand the position Council was in when the development deal fell through. I share their opinion that the building is too important to the ongoing renaissance of Downtown to let it fail. With the promise of Class-A office space on top of a SkyTrain line, a central location in the region, and the sweet terms the City can negotiate from the Municipal Finance Authority makes the business rick seem pretty minuscule.

However, the Community Charter creates some pretty specific rules about how Cities manage their finances. One rule is that any Municipal Council cannot borrow money for any term longer than 5 years without a specific mandate of the populace, unless for a prescribed purpose. This sensibly limits any one Council from forever indebting a City, before an election can come along and the teeming masses can toss them out.

So if your City needs to borrow, say $59million over 20 years, they are to seek a mandate from the populace, the most obvious way of doing that is through a referendum.

Cities are reluctant to hold referenda every time they have a long-term project, especially in the anti-tax anti-risk financial era in which we currently reside. Referenda are a hassle, expensive to run, and limit the ability of Councils with specific mandates (be they based on information, ideology, or both) from getting things done. So a City can take the opposite tack: assume everyone agrees unless they take effort to oppose it, kind of a “reverse-billing” referendum. And that is where we are at today in New Westminster, much to James Crosty’s chagrin.

This is not the first time the City has done this reverse-billing thing, and it is not even the first time I have raised an issue about it, but I clearly don’t have the issue-raising prowess of James Crosty.

I’ve said it before, and I will say it again: the current system of putting notice to the public and asking them to, essentially, fill out a ballot if they oppose the lending, is a legitimate one under the Community Charter, but (and I strongly agree with Crosty here), the City is going about this in a crappy way.

The City has put a couple of notices in the City page of the local newspapers, buried between local zoning variances, park events, and safety notices. There are a few thousand words of random legalese, which very few people are likely to read, followed by an invitation to come to City Hall during business hours, read a six-page legal form, then fill out a form, declaring your opposition. A mandate for opposition requires 4,500 individual electors to each come to City Hall during a one-month period in the middle of the summer (a usual dead zone for public consultation).

Demonstrating that this is not a true referendum, there is no funding for organized opposition to the initiative, nary is there time to get one organized in the middle of summer. In fact, according to Crosty, the City will not even provide and adequate number of the 8×11 sheets required to be filled out for any such group who wished to organize around it. If anyone wants to go to the Quayside or to Royal Centre and try to sign up electors, actually spread the word to the electorate who may oppose the long-term borrowing of $59 Million (almost $2000 per taxpaying household) they need to self-fund, and then print their own ballots!

Council only had one meeting between when these notices entered the local papers and when the “voting period” closes, and when Mr. Crosty attended that council meeting to raise these issues, he was (according to Crosty… and the streaming video evidence is not around to counter his claims) cut off after a short period of time, and was denied the opportunity to have his concerns addressed by Council or by Staff in a public forum –the only public forum available for a private citizen to raise concerns about this “referendum”.

You can be for or against the MUCF; with or against the current council: it really doesn’t matter what your ideology is on this one. This is a crappy run-around referendum that surely fits the letter of the Community Charter, but clearly violates the spirit of the Charter.

Canada Day Saturna Style

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.
As has become a tradition, Ms.NWimby and I spent Canada Day in a fireworks free zone: The Saturna Island Lamb BarBQ. 
This is a great small community event where a couple of thousand people descend on Saturna Island (population: about 300) to enjoy local lamb roasted over an open fire, music, entertainment, craft booths, a book exchange, kids games and sports, et al. 
We have been going often enough that we actually have an assigned task (a shift at the Ice Cream Booth), and a reserved spot on the grassy knoll in the beer garden, from where we can watch the bands.
Happy Canada Day, all.
  
Nothing saya Canada Day like a beer garden and a Mountie.
A small town festival so well estabished, it runs like a swiss watch.
The latest in Saturna Ice Cream Booth fashion.

????

The team, from right to left: Sales, Heavy Lifting, Scoop Master, Scoop Apprentice.

??

What we are all here for, 20+ locally raised sheep, roasted around the open fire.

?  

Ms. NWimby rocking the front row on the Grassy Knoll.
POV from the Front Row, after the Great Tent Install…
East Point on Saturna, where I think someone was filming a Rush album cover…
I was at the beer garden for a while, then had dreams of chasing a seal
while riding bareback on a sandstone sea lion…
It must have been a crazy dream, because I also ran into my current favourite Canadian.. on Canada Day!
and my head had turned into a van de Graaff generator!

The Air Care Landmine

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

I work in Richmond, but do most of my actual living in New Westminster, so I am reluctant to get too involved in the politics on the downstream end of Lulu Island.

However, when I read a recent Editorial Piece in the Richmond Review (sister paper to our own NewsLeader and the Peace Arch News, where there is a electronic version available), I had to react. I wrote a longer piece on AirCare way back when the current public relations campaign to get rid of it started up, as part of a longer rant about the myopic old-school viewpoint of one Harvey Enchin.

Long and short, AirCare is a successful program that is cost-effective and will be until at least 2020. The only argument against it is that it is inconvenient – in that once every two years, less than 50% of drivers have to take 15 minutes out of their day and pay $45 to demonstrate that their car has an operating emissions control system. Boo freaking hoo.

So here was my response letter to the Richmond Review Editor.

I recognize the Editorial section is where opinions are expressed, but isn’t journalistic opinion supposed to rest on a foundation of fact?

In your editorial, you make statements that sound like fact, such as “Air Care hasn’t really been necessary for some time” or “There simply aren’t enough older vehicles on the road to make the expensive and bureaucratic program necessary”, or “random enforcement is best”, but indicate what these opinions are based upon. As a multi-agency program review of AirCare completed less than two years ago concluded the system was effective, efficient, and would continue to provide measureable air-quality benefits to the region until at least 2020, it seems the facts available are the opposite of your assertions.

When you characterise AirCare as “nothing more than a cash-grab from the government”, it is at odds with the fact AirCare is self-supporting, uses no tax dollars to operate, and transfers no money to its lead agency (TransLink). Compare that to the “random enforcement” strategy you propose, which will require taxpayer-funded officers to issue tickets, enforceable through the taxpayer-funded courts, to collect fines that will go to General Revenue.

Cancelling AirCare is a bad decision based not on good policy, but election-time pandering, because protecting our airshed is “inconvenient” to a portion of the population. I am, of course, editorializing; but I would love to see some facts to change my mind.

The fact that AirCare will not be cancelled until 2014, and that the proposed commercial vehicle “replacement program” has not been described in any detail suggest to me this is, in fact, a landmine being dropped by the BC Liberals. It has a bit of curb appeal, might get them a few votes, but in reality, it just puts the winner of the next election in a difficult situation. They will need to dismantle the system (which will be costly, and result in worsening air quality) or try to keep it running against public outcry (because the current government has poisoned the well, despite AirCare being good policy). This is, in many ways, no different than the recently announced limit to BC Hydro rate increases that bypassed the Utilities Commission.

What other landmines lie in waiting before we get to May, 2013?

Notes on a Rally (updated)

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

Even with hindsight, it couldn’t have gone better.

As Karla, one of the organizers, said to me the night before, “I feel like I’ve planned a party but don’t know if anyone is going to arrive.” That’s the nervous feeling we all had the night before. A Rally of only 10 people would have hurt.

I am glad to report the crowd that showed up was larger than I expected. If we had known, we might have made a few more signs. Lucky, many people rolled their own. 

It was also great to see a lot of unfamiliar faces, not just the regular dozen or two rabble types who show up for every transportation event in New Westminster. This is an issue that brings the breadth of opinion in New Westminster together: evidenced by the Board of Education and the District Parents Advisory Council speaking with a unified voice on the issue.

When the group arrived at the Sapperton Pensioners Hall, TransLink were there, ready to receive us. I am happy to report that this was a positive event – we had a clear message for TransLink, but we were not belligerent about it, didn’t block traffic or disrupt their Open House. Instead, we encouraged everyone who showed up to enter the hall, sign in, fill out the questionnaire and add their comments to the posterboards. We also received some signatures for a set of letters addressed to the TransLink Board, summarizing the message of the Rally.

I have to give the TransLink staff at the hall credit. The communications staff took it all in stride, had a sense of humour about it, but also treated the message with respect. They also were quick to offer us coffee and cookies. The feeling over the entire event was positive, consensus building, respectful. Let’s hope the process stays this way going forward, and TransLink comes back to the Cities with a more comprehensive consultation.

TransLink brought the cookies. The little guy looked nervous, but he got one.

I am also glad that the media message was well presented. We were there to say not just that a 6-lane bridge was bad for traffic in New West (it is easy to paint New West as being “nimby” about this), but was a poor way to invest $1 Billion in transportation infrastructure. Let’s build Surrey the transit it needs.

Here was some of the regional media impact (Flash required – works best on Chrome. Our segment starts at 13:50, right after the traffic report and Ford advertisement – irony not doubt unintentional):

If I was to comment on that report, I would only correct the part where The Voice suggests TransLink’s position is that 6-lanes is “the only way to provide space for transit, trucks, bikes and pedestrians”. Notice what is missing from that list? The 95% of users (according to TransLink’s own stats) that will not be transit, trucks, bike, or pedestrians. Not sure how they can talk about lane count and not mention that 95%.

OH, and I would make myself look less of a goof, but I’m asking for miracles here.

Update: more extensive video and interviews here: newwest.tv/videos/web
Thanks to Deepak and the NewWestTV crew!

There was other video shot. Here David Maidman for community TV is trying to
make me look less idiotic, and NewwestTV was filming.
Mostly, I want this post to be about thanking the people who made this happen. I was asked to be a spokesperson for this Rally, and many people came up and thanked me before, and congratulated me after – Which is nice, but it was not my doing! The people who should be thanked and congratulated is a long list, and this is part of a grassroots community movement that started with a couple of coffee groups in Queens Park. The same people who worked to get the word out for the City’s open house last month. There are about 20 people who took some role in making this work, and if I tried to thank them all, I would miss some. They all deserve the thanks and the congratulations.

I will point out a few real standouts, though:

Karla: for putting way, way more energy into this thing that anyone should expect from one person. You seemed to get the details that most of us forgot, you kicked the occasional butt that had to be kicked, you listened to others, and made others listen who were not always as receptive (including me!), and you never stood up to take credit for your contribution. You rock.

Karla (again), Ginny, Luc, and the Andrews for each contributing your bit to putting together a few signs: Ginny had the paper and paint, Andrew had the staplegun and staples, Luc donated the wood bits all the way from Quebec, I contributed tape and work space (Tig brought the cookies!). You all provided ideas and drawing/painting skills. The ideas and energy fermented during the 4 hours in my back yard assembling and painting was the energy that carried through the event.

People who put the word out: The local and regional media (thanks Theresa for letting us stretch your deadline!), purveyors of the #newwest and #PattulloBridge hashtags, the Residents associations, School Board, DPACs, City Council, 10thtotheFraser, those who promoted the event at the Farmers Market, and everyone who just mentioned the event to a neighbour or friend. Andthanks to Marcel for most of the photos here, I was too busy flapping my jaw to take any.

To Steve and the other folks I talked to from the other side of the Fraser, I will keep reminding people over here that your voices are as important in this as New West’s, and I hope this is the start of a long, and productive collaboration.

And finally, the 100+ people who showed up, thanks for taking time from your busy lives on a Saturday morning, for keeping things cool and respectful, for providing your comments to TransLink, and for not littering up the Park and road! I’m proud to be living in a community where the people take part in events like this, and care about its future. Here are some pics of the comments you left on the posterboards, some intended for sticky comments, and some not so much (click on them to zoom in). Good work everyone. 

And you know what? Barring remarkable news, this is going to be my last Pattullo post for a while. TransLink: the ball is in your court. Have a good summer, hope we can talk in the fall.

May you live in Interesting Times

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

That infamous Terry Pratchett curse seems to have fallen upon us.

It started on Monday, when a letter delivered to New Westminster Council from TransLink’s Director of Roads was discussed at the Council Meeting. The letter includes the following quotes:

TransLink is prepared to establish a collaborative process with the Cities of New Westminster and Surrey to undertake a comprehensive review of the following:
• All practical solutions for crossings and crossing locations;
• Bridge capacity and lane allocations;
• Implications of current and future projects (including South Fraser Perimeter Road/Port Mann/Highway 1 connections) and rapid transit projects;
• Through traffic, particularly truck traffic, in the municipalities;
• Consistency with local and regional objectives and consideration of priority relative to other regional transportation initiatives.
[snip]
The objective of all of this work would be to produce one or more agreements between TransLink and the two cities as to how the current situation with the Pattullo Bridge is to be rectified. It is suggested that reasonable and achievable target for completion of this work is early 2013.

This has been characterized as an “olive branch” in the paper version of this local news story, and it may be such. My first reaction when reading it was “TransLink just blinked”.

However, it was hard to square that thought with what I saw at the Stakeholders Open House held by TransLink on Monday. At that event, the message was (and I paraphrase): we hear you, but we are moving ahead.

This was reinforced at Thursdays Public Open House in Surrey. The poster boards from that event are available for your review here. The message was, again, we are moving ahead with the 6-lane bridge, and further, you prefer the Upstream A option.

So with that mixed message, we are heading into this:

A few notes on the Rally this Saturday. First off, I am not the leader of this group. I have been working with a group of engaged citizens, and agreed to have my name on the press release, but I am just one of the many people working on this. So my fat mouth gets me quoted in the local papers. The group right now has no leader, no name, no website (although this website was put together by some members of the group) , and no formal organization. It is a grassroots movement. There are some members of the NWEP involved, but this is not an NWEP-led event. That said, the NWEP supports the message of the Rally and will be there.

One question asked by an astute local reporter was how TransLink’s letter to Council caused our message on Saturday to change? At the time, I had not seen the Thursday Open House materials, and I said, “well, I hope it becomes a Rally of Support for TransLink in re-opening discussion about the myriad of options for the bridge”.

The reporter replied: “You’re an optimist!”

“I have to be”, I said. “Why else would I spend so much time on this?”

So I remain optimistic. And hope to see you on Saturday morning.