We had an uncharacteristically short council meeting this week, at least the open part. There was a fair amount of good info and important stuff in the reports we read and received along with the Agenda, there was just not a lot of detail discussion among Council about it.

We started with this item Removed from Consent for discussion:

COVID-19 Pandemic Response – Update and Progress from the Five Task Forces
This is our weekly reporting out by the task forces put together in the City to address the pandemic response. If you want to know what the City is doing, read this report for the latest summary.

Of course, these are just the extra things City staff are doing. There is still much “regular” business going on in the City. Buildings are being inspected, Bylaws enforced, police doing police work, fire department responding to calls, grass being mowed, planters being tended, financial reports being prepared and audited, trash being removed, etc. etc. All of these things still go on even as staff are having to adjust how they do them.

So when you look at this list of Task force works – it is above and beyond the usual work load. This includes coordinating food distribution by the Food Bank and other service agencies to assure the most vulnerable in our community at least have the dignity and security of a regular meal. There was a recent announcement that the Vancouver Foundation provided a huge grant to local food security in New West, and thanks to this work, 80 families will receive a weekly food hamper every week for three months to help get through the crisis time.

This means working with BC Housing to assure that those without a roof, or in threat of being without a roof have access to a safe, dry place where they can be connected with other resources they may need. This also means assuring that isolated seniors in the community who have been separated from their usual community supports due to physical distancing and their higher risk status have a friendly voice to talk to and someone who can ask them about their needs.

The City is also connecting with every business in the City to assure they know about the supports available to them from senior governments, to talk about their security or social distancing concerns, and to help them determine what kind of supports they are going to need in the recovery phase after this crisis passes so the City is ready to help with those supports. It means coordinating a Support Local campaign to assure residents know what businesses are operating, and need customers to support them now.

Then there is the education and enforcement part of managing physical distancing and the use of City spaces. There are staff reviewing daily the federal and provincial announcements, so that we are on top of the changes, and can change our operations and the info we provide to the public appropriately. There are City staff re-assigned to getting out into parks and public spaces to talk to residents, creating signage, adjusting our Bylaws so that enforcement was possible, making determinations about what uses are still OK, and which need to be adjusted, closed, or adapted. Staff have identified pedestrian areas that need to be improved to permit physical distancing and have made that happen. They have also been managing inquiries from the public through a special hotline, both to educate and to follow up on concerns the public may have.

None of this was in anybody’s work plan in February, none of it built into any departments budget. Our staff have, in my opinion, done a spectacular job adjusting to a new reality that is changing every day, and our community is coming through this strong. It isn’t over, but we can start to put some resources towards looking towards that time. We will be talking more about that next meeting.

The following items were Moved on Consent:

Development Services Fees and Rates Amendment Bylaw to Reflect COVID-19 Interim Development Review Process: Bylaw for Three Readings and Adoption
Last meeting, we talked about some changes to the development review process in light of the ongoing physical distancing requirements and limitation on meetings in City Hall. The cost of internal processes for reviewing developments falls on the developer on a fee-for-service basis, which requires a bylaw, which needs to be edited slightly due to some of the changes we approved last week. This report outlines the edits to that Bylaw which we adopted below.

618 Carnarvon (Urban One Project): Request for Construction Noise Bylaw Exemption
The property at 618 Carnarvon was given approval for development last year, and includes some work immediately adjacent to the SkyTrain guideway. Some of this work needs to happen at night when the SkyTrain is not running. Right now that is just a night or two of work to install a fence to keep the guideway and construction site separate. This requires a Construction Noise Bylaw exemption to permit the night work.

2020 Tax Rates Bylaw No. 8196, 2020
As we approved a financial plan last meeting, we must now establish formally the property tax rates for 2020 to match that financial plan. Property taxes will increase 3.1% this year, plus the 1% Capital Levy will be redirected to a reserve to specifically pay for COVID-19 emergency measures. As always, your personal tax experience will vary based on how your property value changed this year relative the average property value in the City. The average residential property value in the City dropped 7.1% last year. My own property dropped 0.3% last year, so I will be paying about 10% higher municipal property tax than last year.

Electrical Utility Amendment Bylaw No. 8197, 2020
We had previously established some Electrical Utility rate increases this year to mirror BC Hydro rate changes, along with a shift from mirroring the old BC Hydro “Rate Rider” model to putting part of that into a special levy to help pay for some Climate Action plans within the utility. Due to the change in how BC Hydro is rolling out rate changes in light of the COVID-19 emergency, we are putting off those plans for now, and maintaining the same rates for 2020, which means we need to change the Bylaw again to go back to where it previously was.

We then adopted the following Bylaws:

Tax Rates Bylaw No. 8196, 2020
As discussed above, this Bylaw that sets our Property Tax rates for 2020 was adopted by Council.

Electrical Utility Amendment Bylaw No. 8197, 2020
As discussed above, this Bylaw that re-adjusts our Electrical Rates for 2020 was adopted by Council.

Development Services Fees and Rates Amendment Bylaw No. 8198, 2020
And again as discussed above, this Bylaw that changes the language in our Development Fees Bylaw to match the recent changes in process was adopted by Council.

And that was a meeting, short & sweet. I promise there will be more exciting conversation next week, as I plan to start talking about this.

We had more of a regular longer-agenda meeting this week, though of course many of the topics were not “normal”, and we did things on-line, so normal as normal can be. Again, if you go here you can read the agenda and reports, and even listen to a recording of the meeting to see where the conversations went.

We started with two presentations on the City’s budget:

Financial Plan, 2020-2024
As discussed last week, we have a 5-year Financial Plan ready to go to Bylaw. This is a slightly pared-back budget compared to the earlier version presented before the current chaos arrived, with a somewhat less ambitious capital plan and all new spending suspended other than funds already committed, reflecting the uncertainty of the times. People asking for a “property tax freeze”, this is about as close as we can get while maintaining legal and contractual obligations.

The City’s Financial Sustainability and Changes to City Services and Major Projects – COVID 19 Implications
This report is a broader discussion of the City’s potential financial position as this crisis unfolds. We have had many discussions in both open and closed Council as we have worked to better understand revenue impacts, human resources effects, and the service changes that are resulting from the state of emergency. It is clear this is uncharted territory for us, and for every local government. City staff have been doing heroic work (and they are all humans like you and me, feeling the same stresses about their families, their livelihoods, the future of their community, which has not made this work easier) trying to assure we have the necessary information to make our best estimates about where we are going, so we can make as informed decisions as possible.

Staff have developed a few revenue models based on how long the current public health restrictions go on, and how fast the economic recovery is. There is a best case and a worst case, and staff further developed the “medium” case. This scenario would see about a $50 Million drop in cash flow in the second quarter of 2020. Some of these revenues would be lost forever, some only deferred until later in the year or 2021. We expect (again, in this moderate scenario) that we would be missing $35M in cash flow over all of 2020, and a little more than $11M of revenue would be gone forever.

We have already done some work to prepare to operate with the reduced cash flow, the overall lost-forever revenue will take significant changes in plans. The report outlines where $11M in reduced expenses might be found: reduced shifts to auxiliary staff, freezing hiring for vacant positions and reducing overtime spending primary among them. We would also be putting off some contracted work, and seriously reducing our supplies and materials budget.

As far as the Capital Budget goes, staff have worked through the capital plan and prioritized projects scheduled for 2020. Some will have to continue because they represent business continuity, life safety, and core operations. Some are possible to delay three months or longer to assist with the cash flow situation, and some are going to be punted down the road further.

Each of the 10 departments in the City have presented some cost savings plans to reflect the above, and a short report is attached from each. There is a lot of detail here about programs that are considered essential, and those that are being delayed.

The following items were Moved on Consent:

TransLink/SkyTrain Guideway (22nd Street Station to New Westminster Station): Construction Update
This is just a note to update Council that the delayed work being done on rail and rail pad replacements between 22nd Street Station and New West Station is finally going to start up, and occur in April and May. This may mean some noise at night for nearby residents.

2020 Spring Freshet and Snow Pack Level
This is our update on snowpack in the Fraser Basin as is usual for this time of year to allow us to plan if freshet floods are more or less likely this year. It looks like snow packs are higher than average and quite a bit higher in the mid-basin areas. The flood risk is higher than usual, but the weather for the month ahead will be the determining factor. Our emergency services have done a bit of prep work (dike inspections and sandbag procurement), but no-one is panicking yet.

Statistical update from the New Westminster Police Department
This is an interesting statistical report on the impact of the pandemic on crime rates. Counts of reported offences of most types for March 2020 are below 2019, and property offences for 2020 are below the 5-year average, though persons offences are slightly above the average. Bucking the trend, thefts from vehicles are going up, as are break-and-enter offences.

The following items were Removed from Consent for discussion:

COVID-19 Pandemic Response – Update and Progress from the Six Task Forces
This is our weekly update on what the six working groups on COVID response are doing.
Again, I encourage you to read these reports, and I don’t want to transcribe them here. There is a lot going on in the City to address the impacts of the crisis, and it is interesting as they are starting to transition from the figuring-things-out to the get-things-done phases.

Parks Regulation Amendment Bylaw No. 8193, 2020 – A Bylaw to Amend Parks Regulation Bylaw No. 3646 in response to the COVID-19
A few may have noticed that not all residents are taking the closures and limits to use of some parks infrastructure as seriously as others. Some equipment and areas, such as tennis courts and playground equipment, have been closed because their use was not consistent with physical distancing requirements. Unfortunately, some people have taken to ignoring these closures, even going to far as to remove fencing and cutting locks to access some facilities. As is not unusual, 95% of people will respect community safety measures if they are provided good information as to why and how; for them education is the key. The other 5% need enforcement or at least the threat of enforcement.

We can use trespassing laws to enforce closures, but they are harsh, and are therefore more difficult to enforce. We are instead adapting the Parks Bylaw and ticketing bylaw to clearly define the offence and make it easier for Bylaw Officers to issue tickets for scofflaws. There will also be new signage installed informing of the fines and the increased intent to enforce them. We also had a bit of a conversation about assuring the fines were not used punitively, but were reserved for serious scofflaws that were clearly not interested in respecting the public health concerns of the community.

COVID-19 Pandemic: Food Security Planning and Responses
This crisis had been hard on people in the City who are food insecure. The Food Bank and other organizations have had to change how they operate to address physical distancing protocols. Fortunately, there are a great number of organizations providing for the food security of those in desperate need, and the City is helping them coordinate their programs. The Salvation Army, the Gurdwara Sahib Sukh Sagar in Queensborough, Prupose society, Union gospel Mission, and even a few businesses are helping out with hot meals and food hampers, along with the Food Bank operating out of Tipperary Park alongside the Farmers Market every Thursday. This was a report for information, but we had a bit of discussion about upcoming opportunities for the City to further expand this program during this time of need.

Covid-19: Interim Development Review Process
The development review process has slowed down in the City. This is a problem for several reasons, not the least being the ongoing housing crisis and rental availability crisis, but also is a problem for homeowners wanting to do significant renovations and other projects in the City for things like childcare and services. There is also the concept of procedural fairness – if you own a property in the City, you have a right under provincial law to fair process and the City has a responsibility to do whatever they can to provide it.

Staff have still been working these processes internally, but some need to come to committee or Council for their next steps. Not a problem for Council 9we can do this work in our now-regular virtual meetings), but many committees are not meeting, and public engagement is difficult. Public Hearings are especially difficult as provincial legislation was developed with personal appearance in Council Chambers the default Public Hearing participation method. We can debate (and have!) whether this is the right process in the internet age, but we are kinda stuck without better guidance from the provincial government.

This report outlines a few adjustments, including some of the City Advisory committees meeting virtually, and putting the onus on developers to demonstrate ways they are performing Public Engagement through mail, media, or other methods during the physical distancing era. We have a few very active Residents Associations with long contact lists, which may help in this case, but there is more work to be done here. Finally, staff will be reporting back in May on potential new guidance on Public Hearings after consulting with the provincial government.

Waste Reduction and Recycling Community Engagement Results
The closing of the recycling centre next to the Canada Games Pool and integration of some of our recycling services with neighboring communities has resulted in a lot of conversation about recycling in the City. This is happening at a time when regional and global recycling systems are going through major transitions, resulting in the “bottom falling out” of most recycled material commodity markets. Still, people want to recycle, and it is difficult right now to re-negotiate contracts with product stewardship agencies that would take recycled materials, or set up new or temporary collection systems.

That said, over the months before the pandemic, the City ran a series of community events to collect info about peoples recycling needs and desires. This is the reporting out of the results of that engagement. Glass, Styrofoam and soft plastic are the three top identified materials that were challenging to recycle. No surprise those are the three materials that are most difficult to recycle once collected by the City. Some concerns were also raised about green waste.

For green waste, the City allows unlimited curbside collection (in kraft paper bags) and the City covers the cost of depositing green waste at the Coquitlam transfer station until the new facility on the New West/Coquitlam border is opened. Curbside and free drop-off are both available, take your choice.

The report outlines the potential for adding curbside glass pickup. This would require new containers, and a bit of additional labour cost. Glass is worth very little in the recycling market (the ~125 Tonnes we would expect to collect per year would yield something like $10,000), so the resultant cost per single family home is estimated at about $11 per year. Council asked staff to look into this a little more and develop a detailed proposal for Council to consider.

Staff is also going to look into more options for soft plastic and Styrofoam, beyond the three current locations in the City where they can be dropped off. I am less optimistic about this, as these products have no value right now, and the cost for us to collect and get them to RecycleBC is probably prohibitive.

I see a structural problem here in how the “Extended Product Responsibility” (EPR) model run my RecycleBC works. Recycle BC is an industry-led consortium that is empowered by provincial law to facilitate recycling, and the cost of processing recycled materials is meant to be borne by industry and worked in to the purchase price of products. When you buy this packaging material, you pay for the recycling of it; that is how the EPR system is meant to work. But if you are expected to pay more (through property taxes or utility fees) to get the material to the recycling centre, you are effectively paying twice for recycling.

This become a political discussion between the City and the provincial government, and cannot be disconnected from nascent efforts to limit of ban single-use plastics and non-recyclable materials in the province. More to come here, but probably no-one had bandwidth to dig too deeply into it until after the COVID times.

2020 Property Tax Payment Due and Penalty Dates
The City is recognizing that many residents may be in a difficult financial situation this spring, Council is approving a waiving of late penalties until October 1st. The due date for your taxes is still July 2nd, and if you have the ability, please pay them then, as it reduces the risk that the City will have to borrow money to cover temporary cash flow. If you are not able to pay until October 1st, the penalty we usually charge (5% on July 2nd, another 5% on September 2nd) will not be applied in 2020.

We then Adopted a few Bylaws:

Five-Year Financial Plan (2020 – 2024) Bylaw No. 8183, 2020
As discussed at length for the last 4 months, and detailed above, the Financial Plan Bylaw was approved by Council.

Parks Regulation Bylaw Amending Bylaw No. 8193, 2020
Bylaw Notice Enforcement Amendment Bylaw No. 8194, 2020 and
Municipal Ticket Information Amendment Bylaw No. 8195, 2020
As discussed above, these Bylaws that provide ticketing and fining power to Bylaw Officers for scofflaws ignoring parks closure signage and warnings were adopted by Council.

Finally, we had one piece of New Business

Graffiti Removal Councillor Puchmayr

BE IT RESOLVED THAT during this pandemic crisis, while many local businesses are closed and not able to provide a higher degree of vigilance, that the City of New Westminster waive the current graffiti remediation policy and deploy a graffiti remediation crew to deal with new graffiti as quickly as possible.

This idea was referred to the two task forces that are operating to support Business Continuity and the Education and Enforcement aspects of the pandemic response.

And that ended the new strange (face it, this is not normal) meeting for the week.

Yes, we had a Council meeting this week. It was again on-line using video chat software, and we have a recorded version if you want to read the agenda and follow along at home. Here is my recollection of what we did.

Draft 2020 – 2024 Financial Plan
Well, here we go again. The City spent an unprecedented amount of time and effort this spring doing public outreach, holding meetings and open houses, inviting residents and businesses in to talk about the budget. We provided tables, spreadsheets, lists of priorities, and visions for the future. Then we asked New Westminster to respond – tell us what we got right, and where we were missing the mark. We go a lot of feedback, and were ready to put together a budget that provided not just the normal financial plan, but a vision for how the City was going to do things differently on important files like Climate, Transportation, Childcare and Housing.

Then a month ago, all hell broke loose. Grumpy face emoji.

By legislation, we are required to provide a 5-year Financial Plan to the province in May, and to get there we need to write it into a Bylaw, and pass that Bylaw through the appropriate process. The Financial Plan is a complicated document based on well-established accounting principles and best practices established by the Public Service Accounting Board and reviewed by independent auditors every year. That said, it is always (by its nature and purpose) the best available estimate of the City’s financial position over the next 5 years. Some revenues and expenses in this budget we have complete control over, some we don’t.

All that to say this year is a very difficult year to make those estimates. We are preparing this financial plan in the middle of a crisis, likely at the cusp of a significant recession. It is challenging to project what the impact of this will be with the conservative certainty that needs to rest in a financial plan. Compared to what we looked at early in 2020 and sent for early public consultation, the biggest change now is to reduce the amount of money we are committing to new initiatives, and to pare back on capital expenses until we have some more certainty. The tax increase will not be as big as originally proposed, but we are not yet able to account for many of the other lost revenue in 2020, because we simply don’t know yet what it will be. Odds are that there will be further reductions in expenses (i.e. there are a lot of auxiliary staff not working as of this week, and we will be hiring fewer contractors in the coming months as work priorities change) and significant reductions in revenues (Casino, recreation fees, parking fees, etc.).

As a major part of financial projections like this are projecting past trends into the future, the disruption we are seeing now throws that for a loop. The only thing we know for sure right now is that that things will be different than we guessed, and this Financial Plan will no doubt be updated as that certainty arrives. Until then, we need a 5-year Financial Plan to hang the Bylaw on, and this is the best one we have at the time.

As proposed (and this has yet to me formally adopted by Bylaw), the tax increase for 2020 will be 3.1%. That means the average Strata apartment household will pay $33 more in 2020 than in 2019, and the average single family house $74 more. We are also shifting focus to move the 1% Climate Action Levy over to an Emergency Fund to address unanticipated costs related to the pandemic response. That is an extra $14 (apartment) or $29 (Single Family house).

Projected utility increases for water, sewer, and solid waste are not going to change from what was announced earlier. These utility funds cover their own costs purely through rates, don’t earn any profit or dividend for the City, and the balance of their costs (utility rates from Metro Vancouver) are not changing, so that part of the financial plan will stay the same for now. The electrical rate increase has been pared back to reflect the situation at BC Hydro, so out increases are in line with theirs.

These are the numbers that will go into the Bylaw language. If you have feedback to Council about it, drop us an e-mail.

The following items were Moved on Consent by Council:

Closing Open Council Meetings to the Public
These council meetings have been held on-line, but there has always been a staff member present in the Council Chambers taking part in the call, transmitting it to the chambers, and the chambers has always been open to the public – because that is the law. This means we have to have staff overseeing access to the chambers and present during the meeting, and it may be little surprise that no-one has attended.

Under the Emergency Powers the province has giving the City the ability to hold open meetings without the public present, and we are exercising this. Meetings will still be available online, and streamed on the City’s video archive. Agendas will be available on-line and at City Hall.

This effectively means the “public delegations” part of council meetings will be suspended for a while. This does NOT mean that we will hold Public Hearings without public input. We are required for some Bylaws to have these hearings, and staff is working on the technology and processes required to allow public input that meets the requirements of the Community Charter. More will come on this in future meetings.

The following item was Removed from Consent for discussion:

COVID-19 Pandemic Response – Update and Progress from the 7 Task Forces
This is our regular report on the 7 working groups addressing the priority response areas for the City. If your question is “what is the City doing?”, this is where the answer is. Again, I don’t want to go through line by line, it is worth reading to see how multi-faceted the response is, and if you want to hear the discussion around these items, please listen to the recording.

I do, however, want to call attention to several businesses and organizations that are working with the City and together to help people who need help at this time. The Food Bank and Farmers Market have been working together to get people food at Tipperary Park every Thursday. The Sukh Sager Gurdwara in Queensborough has continued its long tradition of providing free meals to the most needy, and both Greens & Beans and Truffles Catering have been contributing meals to seniors and others in need at this time. It is heartwarming to live in a community that cares with its actions, not just its words. Thank you.

Resolution to Support Transit
Finally, the following resolution was passed unanimously by Council in support of a call from the Canadian Urban Transit Association:

That New Westminster City Council endorse CUTA’s request to the Government of Canada for emergency funding to provide immediate liquidity to transit operators and on-going funding to alleviate revenue loss as ridership rebuilds;

I have already probably said enough about this, but if you feel like you want to add your voice, I would encourage you to check out the efforts of the SaveTransit coalition and Abundant Transit BC. You can follow those links to ways to can amplify their voices and help keep transit solvent.

Yes, we had a Council Meeting last Monday, and it has taken me too much time to put this report out. For all of the details, you are best to look at the agenda and listen to the recording here. The sound recording is not great (it starts spotty, but gets better). Here is my version of that we talked about, as much as I can trust my notes and memory at this time:

COVID-19 Pandemic Response – Update and Progress from the 7 Working Groups
This is a reporting out of the work being done by the 7 working groups formed as the City’s response to the ongoing crisis. I don’t want to transcribe them here, but you can open the report and look if you are keen to know about the breadth of the City’s response. There is a lot going on, and the ground is constantly shifting. We discussed some of the efforts, but at this point, I mostly want folks to recognize the work that City Staff and partners in several non-profit service agencies are doing to help people at these uncertain times.

Use of Previously-Awarded Grants and Criteria for Spring Grants 2020
The City grant program has been somewhat disheveled by the pandemic crisis. Some organizations that received grants will not able to do things we awarded grants for, like summer concerts or festivals, including some multi-year events.

Staff have reviewed the situation, and have made some recommendations. First, they do not want an organization that is not able to to activate a program in 2020 to count against an organization being able to try again in 2021. Some programs may be able to be deferred until the Fall when hopefully we will be past this situation, and the grant process will already allow this, and we are introducing some flexibility there.

We had a bit of discussion about organizations that may be able to shift from a planned activity or event to one that serves the community during this time, for example, creating an on-line event as opposed to a crowd-gathering event. For the most part, staff want to o encourage this, and allow organizations the flexibility to use their grant funding to build community at this difficult time.

The re-purposing of grants already awarded is a delicate balance. The City has some very difficult budget decisions coming up, but we don’t want to make it onerous for applicant who have already gone through an approval process to adapt their program if they have a great idea. So, how to streamline, but still recognize that we can’t be throwing money around right now without some oversight?

We will be asking revisions of already-approved grants to be brought to Council after they have been reviewed and approved by staff. This reflects the big change we have made in the grants process this year to remove the vague politics of Council making direct approvals, and replacing that with Council providing policy guidance to staff who recommend approval based on that policy guidance. After a robust discussion, we agreed to let staff review and recommend, but that the final approval needs to come to Council again, with direction to staff to make the process as streamlined as possible and not onerous for applicants.

On-Street Parking Management During COVID-19 Pandemic
No crisis is so severe that debating where people can and should store their cars isn’t a constant refrain. Of course, a great number of businesses are closed, and there are fewer people out on the streets, but still, parking is still a problem. The Hospital has, essentially, no visitors at this time, and all parking has been made free to help staff get to and from work in this important time when hours are uncertain, everyone is under strain, and transit is seen as undesirable due to physical distancing requirements. Of course, some car users who are NOT hospital employees are going to take advantage of this, but what are you going to do? We are always talking about parking because free car storage is the one thing we are all jerks about.

These has been some suggestion that Cities should not charge for car storage on City streets at this time. But I simply cannot find a reason why we would be encouraging people to put their private automobile on public space for extended periods of time for free, especially as all of our other revenue is going away. Hospital employees have a free parking place (hopefully it will be usefully enforced and people taking advantage of this will be fined, towed, and/or publicly shamed). Our neighbourhoods have a complex multi-tiered system of parking permits, time restriction, locals-only areas, and pay spots, all put in at some time because they addressed some problem around car storage space allocation at the time, and I see no compelling reason to disrupt this right now.

If anything, we should be closing some parking areas and opening up more space for people to walk, roll, and cycle so that people can get outside and exercise while maintaining physical distancing and while there are so fewer cars on the road…

The report from staff recommends no changes in pay parking at this time, and I agree.

The following items were Moved on Consent:

Queensborough Modular Housing: Request for Construction Noise Exemption
Council is providing a Construction Noise Exemption for work on the temporary Modular Housing project in Queensborough. We generally do not permit construction noise on Sundays, but the project is being challenged on timeline and is going to be providing a valuable community service. The work on Sundays will be indoor work (plumbing, drywalling, cabinetry, painting, etc.) and will not be loud outdoor machinery, so not the kind of construction noise that keeps a neighbourhood awake.

2020 Spring Freshet and Snow Pack Level
Every spring we get these updates on snowpack across the Fraser River basin and ENSO predictions to determine the risk of flooding come freshet season. Right now the snowpack is above normal, especially for the upper Fraser, and the forecast is for cooler weather in April – these are both bad things if avoiding a flood is your goal. Nothing to panic about yet, but flood risk is higher than average this year, and the City is taking some early precautions in April (dike inspections and updating supplier contacts in case we need to procure sandbags and such).

Temporary Borrowing for 2020
As I’ve commented before, cities are in for a financial shock as this pandemic response drags on. Required to run balanced budgets, and with limited non-restricted reserve funds, we simply don’t have the liquidity to take a significant hit to our revenue and still provide the services you need every day, from keeping the water flowing and trash disappearing to important protective services like fire and police. Almost every revenue source outside of property taxes is taking a serious hit. Casino revenues, recreation fees, filming revenues, and such have gone to zero. At the same time, things like permitting fees and parking revenues are going down.

As this is likely to run into a short-term cash crunch, we can draw on a line of credit. We prepare for this every year around this time with a pre-approval to borrow up to $3M as the month before we get our big tax revenue input is when we are close to having no cash on hand, by design, and need to assure we can make payroll. We hardly ever use this actual authority, but it is better to have and not use than to need and not have.

But this year in not normal, so staff are asking Council to approve a one-time borrowing of up to $12M from the Municipal Finance Authority to assure we stay solvent if the cash crunch goes on longer and is deeper than usual. Again, nothing says we have to use this borrowing, but it is there to make sure our bases are covered.

At the same time, staff are preparing a medium-term cash flow model with a few different scenarios to determine where and if we need these funds. More to come on that in future meetings. A lot more, I expect, as we are being inundated with requests to provide everything from property tax deferrals to utility credits, and every one of these ideas needs to be tested against the ability of the City to remain solvent. To be honest, this is the topic that is causing me the most sleepless nights right now.

We gave the required Revenue Anticipation Borrowing Bylaw No. 8192 three readings and adopted it. Let’s hope we don’t need to use too much of this.

We then had a couple of items of New Business added late to the Agenda:

Parks Operations
There are a few issues in parks operations that need to be adjusted. Tennis courts and lacrosse boxes need to close, as people are not respecting physical distancing, and as surrounding communities close their courts, ours are attracting crowds. So we have to officially close them to give Bylaws and Parks staff a lever to enforce their use.

Staff is going to put a little work into figuring out if there are ways to better support dog owners, and at the same time step up enforcement of dogs off leash in parks in general as off-leash areas needed to be closed because of issues with social distancing. There is more work to do here, and no quick answers yet.

Finally, there have been some concerns raised around trails and park use in general. New West is an urban area, and many of our parks are compact, making social distancing is a challenge when we want people to have the access to open spaces and sun at least enough to maintain some sanity. We promote awareness, try to educate and use soft enforcement, but for some “tighter” areas like the waterfront trails, we are going to be stepping up and perhaps making some areas one-way to give everyone more room. Watch for signage when you are out for a walk, and try to pay attention to your personal space (plus 6 feet!)

Pedestrian spaces
On a similar vein, we need to support physical distancing in the rest of our public spaces. As commuting traffic has been remarkably reduced, there are still a lot of people trying to get outside to walk, roll, cycle, or otherwise get exercise and fresh air while maintaining distancing. This is creating challenges for people when sidewalks in the city are generally 4 or 5 feet wide, and when navigating our pedestrian realm is already somewhat constrained for space compared to the abundance of road space.

There are a few identified areas where space is very constrained, like the McInnes overpass and some greenway connections that engineering are prioritizing. We had a bit of discussion around this, and there are many examples from other cities across the region and North America where road space is being re-allocated. We have asked staff to find opportunities to immediately and temporarily re-allocate road space from car use and (especially) car storage to give pedestrians more room to circulate safely, especially in constrained high-pedestrian traffic areas like Carnarvon Street or the Central Valley Greenway connection on North Road. This is more complicated that you might think, as intersection treatments need to be considered to keep things safe, because drivers generally need strong controls to keep from driving over people on foot. But it van be done, and Council asked staff to get to work on it.

Staff is also working on adjusting crossing signals to reduce the reliance on pedestrian activation buttons and increasing crossing time allocation for pedestrians, in light of the shift in road use that is happening right now.

This was Monday, which in the current scale of things is about a year ago. Several things have changed since Monday, including New Westminster Electric rolling out it’s pandemic response program that essentially matches the program offered by BC Hydro, and of course, continued calls from local governments for support for the Provincial and Federal governments. Local governments are still the “front line” for emergency response, and we still only collect less than 10% of the taxes paid by Canadians. We are doing a lot with little right now, and that is thanks to the hard work and dedication of the staff at the City. Some are still going into City Hall, some are still doing park maintenance, and doing all the tasks that keep your electricity flowing, your water clean and safe, and your sewage going away. Many are working from home managing the City’s finances, helping with relief measures, and addressing concerns that are arriving every day by phone and e-mail. They are all dealing with the same family and community stresses you are feeling. We are all in this together, and we are getting through it together.

Now it is a “long weekend”. I hope you get to connect with people that are important to you, get a bit of sun, and more importantly, stay safe and help our community get through this as quickly as possible.

We had a most unusual Council Meeting on Monday. An emergency meeting just to get Council caught up on the various actions the City is taking to the pandemic situation. We did not meet in Council Chambers, but did a video conference. For technical and modesty reasons, the video conference was not recorded as video, though an audio recording was made for the record. So you can’t watch the meeting, but you can read the agenda and listen to the audio here, if you are so inclined. The audio isn’t great, and we were all working it out as we went along, but it is there for the record.

There were two agenda items, both framed around the Working Groups developed in City Hall to get us through this unprecedented situation.

COVID-19 Pandemic Response – Action Items from the 7 Working Groups Seeking Council Approval
The City has (as previously reported) put together 7 working groups to manage aspects of our pandemic response. The reporting structure right now will be for them to update Council in these meetings, and more specifically ask for direction or approval if and when needed, for actions they are proposing.

This week, there were two Working Groups asking for specific direction:

Business and Working Economy:
With many businesses closed, there is some concern about lack of eyes on the street and resultant heightened security concerns. There is a call here for more on-street police patrols, or a change in patrol patterns, perhaps some redeployment of City Staff such as parks operations or engineering operations staff who are otherwise undertasked to provide extra eyes, or helping coordinate private security operations if needed. The Working Group is going to work with the BIAs and neighborhood business groups to develop this idea, and come back to Council if there is a funding request attached.

Some discussion arose here about other aspects of policing that are deserving of extra attention at the time when people are housebound and under increased stress, including domestic violence and power-based crimes. We need to be clear here that Council does not direct police in their operation, but we are able to allocate further resources if needed to achieve community goals.

The Working Group is also establishing a sub-group to look into supporting the arts/culture sector, and how the City can best support them. The impact of this crisis on not-for-profits is similar to that on small businesses, even if they have fewer tools to call attention to the issue.

Education and Enforcement:
The provincial government is issuing variety of orders to protect public health, and are asking local governments for help to enforce them. This is, of course, an expanding demand on City resources. We can hire some extra staff trained in this type of work, and potentially be reimbursed through the provincial emergency funding program.

It is hard to hire enforcement staff in a hurry. Becoming a Bylaw Officer requires specific training courses such as those offered through the Justice Institute, as there is a fair amount of complex interacting legislation and enforcement powers, so getting a bunch of them on-board in a short period of time (when every other City is no doubt in the same situation) will be challenging.

However, a big part of progressive enforcement is education and responding to concerns, and there are likely a bigger pool of folks who have experience being in “public facing” jobs at the City, and have training and knowledge of what the City does and how it operates. Some of them are not able to do their regular jobs – recreation program staff, library staff, lifeguards, etc. – so we may have more luck on-boarding these folks with less training and preparation required.

However, when education shifts to enforcement, we are going to need some expanded local Bylaw powers and ticketing/fines to make enforcement possible. That requires edits to a couple of our Bylaws. This will be addressed in upcoming meetings, and I hope we can see significant fines for serious offenders of those violating the rules for profit, and smaller fines/tickets for those doing it through simple stubbornness.

Finally, the City has established a single contact number if people have questions about the restrictions, supports, or anything related to our local response to the pandemic emergency. This will make it easier for City staff to track complaints, concerns, and inquiries, and will allow you to have a tracking number for your concern to make it easier to follow up.

That number is 604-636-4343 or you can e-mail
covidcompliance@newwestcity.ca

COVID-19 Pandemic Response – Update and Progress from the 7 Working Groups
These reports are simply the working groups reporting out, and if you are interested in the breadth of work the City is doing, you can read them in the on-line agenda.

And there is always the City’s website dedicated to the response which you can find here.

Finally, a bit of a programming report.

I am having a hard time finding non-Pandemic things to blog about, because things that I am usually jawing on about seem out of context right now. I also don’t feel as great talking about the bigger COVID-19 thing outside of the City’s response, because I there is already too much information out there, and too many non-definitive information sources (like this), and I would rather people pay attention to Public Health officials and senior government information channels right now. I’m not sure I have anything useful to add.

This is a really shitty time. Like many of you, I am constantly bouncing between anxiety, hopelessness, and glimmers of joy when I see the positive work communities are doing to hold things together. I just want this to be over, but recognize it isn’t going to be over any time soon. I want to do something to make it better, but recognize there is not a lot I can do, and that sitting at home straining to concentrate on my work is actually the best thing I can do right now.

I’ll probably get around to writing a few things here about what it means to be in this job at a time like this, but I’m not sure I can handle that emotional labour right now. Like the rest of Council, I am hearing from residents, from businesses, and from friends; this thing is hitting a lot of people really hard. The only thing we all share is uncertainty, and that is causing a lot of anxiety. A bit of respite is found in seeing the great work that staff in the City is doing in completely uncertain times, doing things they were not trained to do, and demonstrating great perseverance when they are just as stressed and anxious as the rest of us.

People pulling together – even when they keep their distance – is going to be the key to recovery here. Stay safe, folks.

We held a special Council meeting on Monday, and I’m sorry I’m so late getting this out. It was recorded on video, despite the slightly-strange chambers set-up to accommodate social distancing, you should be able to follow along with the conversation that occurred. Also note that Monday was a year ago with the pace of change here, so some of the below is updated, some is not. Any discrepancy between the following and today’s reality is likely a product of that lag.

There is one question you may have about why we were physically meeting at all, considering that some participants were able to call in. Short version is that the Community Charter and our Procedure Bylaw require us to have a physical quorum (at least 4 voting members) in the Chambers for it to be a legally constituted meeting, but we will fix that with the first item on the Agenda.

Amendments to the Procedure Bylaw No. 6910, 2004 to Allow for Changes in Notice, and Electronic Meetings
The City has a Procedure Bylaw that outlines, among other things, how we meet the Community Charter requirements for meeting notices, and what constitutes Quorum in Council. These proposed amendments will change the language of that Bylaw to match updated procedures.

The current Procedure Bylaw does not allow Council Meetings to be held remotely through telecommunications – there must be at least 4 members of Council present in chambers to constitute a quorum, otherwise the legal work we do (reading and adopting Bylaws) is not valid. Note the BC Government introduced some legislative changes today to change this, but we were meeting a few days ago, and suspect we still need ot enact our Bylaw to keep everything up to snuff.

We are still required to post notice of meetings in City Hall, but with City Hall closed, we are adding the City’s Website to that requirement (which is good idea for the future anyway). We are also replacing the need to put a notice of a Special Meeting in Council Member’s Personal mailboxes with the need to notify Council Members by E-mail, because it is 2008. Finally, as we need to receive Public Input before changing the Procedures Bylaw, we will be asking for this until the April 3 Special Council Meeting. Which I guess means we are having an April 3 Special Meeting. If you have comments or concerns, please send us an e-mail or letter.

Changes to Council Meetings during the period of the COVID-19 Pandemic
This is, by all definitions, a capital-E Emergency, so staff is suggestion some changes in how we meet as a Council during this time, balancing the need to get work done with the need to follow health authority orders and respecting social distancing protocols.

Our upcoming meetings will not include Open Delegations. There is just no reason to bring your concern in person to Council right now. Write us an e-mail.

We are going to ask Council to be very prudent in suggesting Notices of Motions, and the Mayor will act as a screen to assure we only bring up time-sensitive or important motions. Staff is wanting to avoid the situation like we had last meeting where a Council Member brought a motion that resulted in community outcry and a packed chamber of people from around the region to speak for and against it. We just don’t need that hassle at this time. As an aside, that specific Notice of Motion will be tabled until a more appropriate time.

As much public consultation and committee meetings cannot happen right now, but there is some concern that ongoing work that is important (even to the point of being crises – housing, childcare, climate action) will get delayed because Emergency > Crisis. Though we are putting some work aside right now, starting with cancelling next week’s public hearings, I do want us to think creatively about how we can bring some of those things back on-line, as this situation may stretch on for months, and lost progress will hurt.

I am especially interested to see how we can (technically, and legally) accommodate on-line submissions, set up an online submittal form, facilitate recorded video or audio input to public meetings, etc. Staff right now is pretty over-tasked adapting as much as they can to the emergency situation, so this is best thought of as work we can start once we get ourselves established into a new normal.

Scope of Work of Five COVID-19 Working Groups: Council Approval
As City Committees and Task Forces and much internal work in the City is grinding to a halt, there are some areas of specific need in the City. Staff have set up some temporary working groups/ task forces aligned with the biggest priorities right now. They will be working groups of City Staff, Senior Gov’t agencies, not-for-profit partners and business groups in town, depending on where the subject matter experts are.

There are three out-ward looking working group: At-risk and Vulnerable Populations; Seniors and Persons with Disabilities; and Business Continuity and Local Economy;

We also have two inward-looking working groups to address City operations: Human Resources; and Emergency Operations and IT.

Since the Agenda was put together, there have been two new outward-looking working groups: Childcare; and Education and Enforcement.

This will be the framework for future meetings and reports, so I won’t belabour them too much here.

Protection for Renters during COVID-19 Pandemic
As I blogged earlier, the City doesn’t have a lot of cash lying around, and measures to address the unexpected have to be funded. Staff are making some suggestions of how we can free up some reserve funds (money we have on hand already earmarked for specific purposes), and there is more discussions of budget down below. However, right now there are a lot of people worried about making rent on April 1st, because they have been laid off or their regular income sources are shut down. The City already supports a Rent Bank operated by the Purpose Society and supported by the Province and local Credit Unions. It is suggested that there may be a significant increase in need for this service the months ahead, and it is recommended we move money form the Affordable Housing Reserve Fund into this.

This conversation we knowingly a couple of days before the provincial government introduced their renter-protection measures, but we agreed to commit to a $100,000 infusion from our Affordable Housing Reserve in case it is needed, with a general wiliness to explore other supports that the City may be able to provide through that reserve fund.

COVID-19 New Westminster Emergency Response and Provincial Government Support Request
We are going to need senior government supports here. People, businesses and not-for-profits are lining up asking for supports of various kinds. Local Governments need to assure we are clear with what we need to support our communities and the priorities of our communities. We are prioritizing our requests to help with supply chain for our first responders in Fire and Rescue, Police, and Emergency Operations. Things like masks, sanitizer, gloves and other necessities are challenging to procure now, and the Provincial government has the power to control those supply chains to assure they get to those who need them the most. We also need to prioritize first responders for testing protocols, as they are by necessity, in close contact with many people all day. We need support for the Emergency Operations Centre, and for emergency shelter for the homeless and vulnerable people.

We have also identified an expanded Property Tax Deferral program, some help to replace lost local government revenues (like Casino revenues), and for a ban on eviction for renters. We also asked that some similar consideration be given to business lease-holders, those small businesses that are prevented from operating right now and will, ultimately, be the core of our economic recovery when this is all over.

2020 Budget
Obviously, things have changed since we put our draft budget together last month. We have always referred to it as “draft”, recognizing small adjustments may be necessary, but never in the history of the Local Government Act has so much changed in two weeks as the last two. We need to have a Budget Bylaw and 5-year Financial Plan approved by May, and the unprecedented amount of public consultation and discussion occurred outside of this shit show. Best laid plans. (insert grumpy face emoji).

Council moved to pull back on most of the enhancements in the budget for 2020, excepting those that are already “baked in” – such as changes in interest rates, insurance costs, collective agreements, and such. A 0% tax increase is a fanciful notion, as we have already made significant commitments to 2020 that cannot be undone, and other revenue sources aside from taxation (Casino revenues, parking revenues, recreation and program fees, etc.) are likely going to be much lower than expected. Of course, some savings will be found in not providing some services and there may be some layoffs of staff as some programs simply cannot operate. Problem is, our assumptions about the budget are more tentative than ever, as we don’t know how deep into our 2020-2021 budget year this disruption will continue, we have no idea what our emergency responses are going to cost, and we don’t know how much senior government support is coming to help. That’s a lot of uncertainty for what is usually a very tight and conservative budget process.

It is with a pretty heavy heart that I have to accept that some of the enhancements that we anticipated on 2020 will have to be deferred at least until the 2021 budget year. This does not mean we don’t support those programs, it’s just that with the uncertainty ahead, it is prudent for us to tighten the belt as much as we can to not get into a cash crunch problem.

Staff also suggested, due to the uncertainty of what the emergency response is going to cost, that we re-allocate the 1% Capital Levy to an Emergency Fund. I disagreed, as I think the capital program is still going to need to be funded. However, Council voted to support this change, and in the end the difference between the two approaches is more an instruction to staff about how to prioritize spending than a change in how much revenue we will bring in.

This situation is throwing a wrench on our capital plans for 2020-2024. Some projects will no doubt need to be delayed, though much of our Capital budget is mission-critical maintenance and replacement that will still have to go forward. There will be much more discussion of this in upcoming meetings.

There was a bit of closing roundtable after these items were addressed, to raise a few issues that were not on the agenda. I think the takeaway is that this is really uncharted water for everyone. We have an Emergency Plan and an Pandemic Response Plan, but the first is challenging as it may see a typical emergency as a single short-duration event with long recovery (think flood, earthquake, ice storm) which is clearly not the pattern here, and the latter has never been invoked before. Our emergency services and first responders are managing excellently, staff is doing their best to understand what the new priorities are, and how to address them while obviously being concerned about their own health and that of their families. Council is, ultimately, charged with making the budget and prioritization decisions based on best advice, but we have never had to rely as heavily on this advice (thank you Dr. Henry!) and feedback from residents and the business community about what the community’s priorities are.

Everyone is anxious, but everyone is doing their job as best they can. I think the Mayor and our Management Staff have shown great leadership and flexibility, and I left the meeting no less concerned about the impacts of this pandemic, but more assured that there are positive things we can do to help our community, to keep people safe, and to prepare for the inevitable after-effects on our community.

Reach out (metaphorically) to each other, folks. Find out what your neighbour needs, and if you can help. If you can think about those half-dozen small businesses in town that really make you proud to live in New West, now would be a good time to reach out to them and see if they have on-line offerings or delivery, or if there is any way you can help them bridge through this time. And if you need help, please reach out to the City, either through the Council e-mails, or through the City’s website (see a special section here). Take care of each other!