Tag: New Westminster

Meandering about Jerry

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

Here is an issue where I just don’t know what to think yet.

It appears that the proposal for redistribution of Federal Electoral Ridings will bring to an end the two ridings New Westminster shares with Burnaby (on one side) and Coquitlam and Port Moody (on the other). This is nothing unusual, something the Federal government does every decade or so, in a quasi-non-partisan way.

The current proposal sees the number of MPs going up to 338, and for New Westminster to comprise its own single Electoral Riding, except for Queensborough, which will be globbed as an after-thought onto the Eastern (and dominantly rural) part of Richmond (more on that below).

For those with short memories, New Westminster has only recently become a two-riding City. It was only 9 years ago (see what I mean by “decade or so”?) that the Burnaby-New Westminster-Coquitlam riding represented by Reform-vaa-Canadian Alliance-vaa-Conservative MP Paul Forseth was split into more manageable bite sizes, opening the door for Peter Julian to take the Burnaby side and (eventually) Dawn Black to take back the Coquitlam side. It wouldn’t be a surprise to most, however, that aside from Forseth’s inexplicable 11 year reign, New Westminster has been mostly federal NDP territory since the burgeoning of the Party itself.

Here is a short summary of New Westminster federal politics over the last 50 years (orange=NDP, Red=Liberal, Reform-Conservative=blue):

For someone more cynical than me, the plan to split New Westminster down the middle in 2003 might have been an attempt to split up the NDP stranglehold on the riding, by splitting the vote in half to be watered down by the more Conservative (or Liberal) Coquitlam and South Burnaby. The same cynic would suggest the re-amalgamation is an admission of defeat, with the hope that all of the NDP support can be concentrated in one Riding. But I’m not that cynic.

My first reaction to the entire redistribution project is that the last thing Canada needs is more MPs stuffed into the current system. The unrepresentative first-past-the-post system, combined with a new era of hyper-partisanship and the morphing of MPs from representatives of their constituents to representatives of the Party, removes any practical or realistic value to having MORE MPs. If there was a 10% increase in MPs related to some sort of proportional representation system, then there may be a cost-benefit issue worth exploring. As it is, we are just entrenching the current system deeper. Alas, maybe I am a cynic.

That said, I think New West is well served by our two MPs. If this change goes through, I suspect that Peter Julian would migrate to the New Westminster riding, as Fin Donnelly is more closely associated with Port Moody (where he was a City Councillor for several terms) and Coquitlam (where he lives and his office is). So my comments below are working on the assumption that it would align that way.

First the good:

• I can vote for Peter Julian! Peter is a great critic, a good representative, and a hell of a nice guy. I have had the opportunity to chat with him a couple of times, socially a few times, and once on a significant issue (Bill C-38 and Fisheries Act changes), and have found him knowledgeable, concerned, and helpful. On the national stage, he has been a force in the Commons and out, one of the most outspoken and well-informed critics of the Harper government. He is not currently my MP- by about 150 feet, but I would vote for him given the chance – and that is nothing against Fin (see “bad” below).

• I can vote against Paul Forseth. During the last federal election, Forseth was the least appealing candidate. A Reform lifer who couldn’t get out of the “us against the socialists” rhetoric long enough to have an actual conversation. His final-week campaign literature, accusing the NDP of facilitating the abduction/rape of children, was disgusting, indefensible, and cynical. I will proudly vote against that type of politics every chance I have.

• Having New Westminster’s interests represented by a single MP, without needing to balance New West’s interests with that of the “other half” of the riding, might mean a constituency office in New West, and a stronger New West-centric voice in Ottawa. I have met with Peter and Fin on issues, and have found both approachable and attentive, so perhaps this not as significant concern, but New West is a relatively cohesive community, it would be nice to have one community Representative in Ottawa, without wondering which side of 8th Street your issue is on.

Now the Bad:

• Less representation for New West. This may be the other side of the last paragraph, but perhaps two MPs from New West is better than just one. Does this “increase our voice” in Ottawa? Provide better access to constituent services? I might be tilting at windmills here.

• Not being able to vote for Fin. He is a bright light in the party: well spoken, likeable, clear on issues. A relative new-comer to the fed politics, he has lead some good campaigns. As an advocate for fisheries ecology and the fishing industry, Fin is a great representative for a City on the banks of the Fraser River. He has also taken an active role in a couple of issues of local interest that are only peripherally “federal”: he met with the NWEP over the UBE issue (trying to “bridge” the communications between his two constituencies), and spoke to the press on the topic of the Pattullo Bridge. Fin may even be in a bit of battle in more conservative Coquitlam without the NDP-friendly New West vote, having only beat Diana Dilworth by 6 points last election, and that would be a loss for Ottawa, not just New West.

• Not being able to vote for Diana Dilworth. She is friendly, smart, personable, and a great listener who seems to have a good grasp of issues and how to relate them to people. I was very impressed with Diana last election, and think she would be a great representative of the riding to any party that actually allows their MPs to represent their constituents (in other words, her talents would be wasted in the current Conservative party). Maybe she should run for the Liberals.

• Fewer Candidates for our Meet & Greet. Last federal election, we had 9 candidates show up for the NWEP – NEXTNewWest meet-and-greet event. With just one riding, that will cut the number in half, making for a less fun event. OK, a minor complaint in the grand scheme of things, but we just got that format worked out, and want to see it continue!

Notice I did not mention Queensborough in the discussion above. I think the “Queensborough question” needs to be addressed separately from the rest, with its own goods and bads. I would love to hear more from Queensborough residents. It seems they are often feeling separated, “cast off” from the mainlanders, getting the short end of the tax and services stick, and perhaps suffer from a bit of a persecution complex about being off the minds of the “Rest of New West”.

At the risk of paraphrasing an old Liberal slogan “My New Westminster includes Queensborough”.

I wonder if this will further increase the real or inferred rift. It might depend on which way East Richmond goes, as it is likely to have a new Representative (the exisiting MPS going to the other re-adjusted ridings). I can see an argument that in areas of federal jurisdiction (ports, agriculture, fisheries act, etc.) Queensborough may have more in common with East Richmond that it does with the Rest of New West, so perhaps their interests are better served having a more in-tune MP? What happens if East Richmond elects a rep from a different party than the Rest of New West? That might be a good thing, or might deepen the rift. Too many uncertainties here, but I want to make the link between Queensborough and the Rest of New West stronger, not weaker.

I hope many of the regular Queensborough community voices will sign up to comment to Elections Canada about this change, for or against it. The City has taken an official position (against it), but I sometimes wonder how in tune they are with Queensborough, based on the tone of the conversation I hear from over there.

If you have an opinion, and would like to present it officially to the Electoral Boundaries Commission, you will have your opportunity on Wednesday, Sept. 26 (7 pm at the Inn at the Quay) but you need to sign up ahead of time. You have until the end of day tomorrow to submit this form.

I have already signed up, in the event I come up with a coherent position on the issue in the next month.

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.

Show and Shine – a trip through Car History

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 2 Comments.

Showing how behind the times I am, here is another post at least two weeks late…

Yes, I went to the Show and Shine here in New West. Sapperton Day(s), FraserFest, SummerFest, the 12th Street Festival: they all have their charms, but the Show and Shine is really the biggest one-day event we have in New West. The sheer numbers of people downtown and the scope of the whole affair is daunting. Kudos to the Downtown BIA for a great show.

I can’t avoid the irony that the biggest “Car Free Day” we have in New Westminster is, in fact, and Ode to the Car, in all its forms. However history of Columbia Street and Downtown New Westminster is, in many ways, drawn from the history of the automobile.

Columbia was built in the 1850s for horses, wagons, and pedestrians. It hosted electric streetcars for local service from 1891 to 1938, and Interurban electric passenger rail from 1892 to 1950. During this time, the rails shared space with increasing numbers of cars, and it was the increase in cars that brought Columbia to the fore.

The building of the Pattullo in 1937 brought more cars (and the end of local streetcar service along Columbia), and around the same time a bunch of what we would now call “stimulus money” was used to expand Kingsway from a small rural road to a major urban throughfare. Thus began the “Golden Mile” era of Columbia Street, as it became a major regional shopping, business and entertainment district, peaking at the time when Car was King.

Clearly, traffic wasn’t a problem in 1953. Nothing but free flow here in the good old days.
(photo courtesy the Province, via KnowBC)

Like most Kings, the Car giveth, and the Car taketh away. First the Interurban was gone, leaving an almost 40-year gap in train service. Then by the late 1950s, another phenomenon began to rise: the car-oriented shopping centre (soon to evolve into the Mall). If American Graffiti told you everything you needed to know about North American culture at the end of the ‘50s, then Mall Rats told you the story of the end of the ‘80s. The “Golden Mile”, after only a few decades, started to tarnish. Drivers went to places like Oakridge, and Lougheed, and Lansdowne; shoppers drawn to their massive free parking lots and climate-controlled browsing opportunities.

Not that Downtown gave up without a fight. They built a Parkade in 1959 to compete directly with the burgeoning shopping centres. In 1964, the Trans-Canada Highway was built way over on the Port Mann Bridge, stealing yet more attention from Columbia. Downtown New West doubled down on parking, increasing the size of the Parkade.

Alas, there seemed to be no stopping the forces at work. It wasn’t the lack of parking that was killing Columbia Street, but change in lifestyle and shopping patterns. New Westminster’s Golden Mile was yesterday’s news.

The first sign of resurgence came 20 years later with the arrival of SkyTrain and the Expo-86-funded Westminster Quay. Along with a waterfront Casino, a new hotel and the relocation of Douglas College, but for whatever reason, the momentum didn’t hold. Maybe poor City planning, inexperience on how to exploit the growth, the damn NDP, who knows? Maybe it was because despite the new improvements, Columbia Street was just not that nice a place to be in the 80s. Fast forward another 20 years and a few well-timed and well-placed developments, along with a significant road diet have changed that. A major shift came when Columbia Street once again turned from a place for cars that barely tolerated people, to a place for people where cars are tolerated. Things are booming again.

Still, one day a year, we turn the street back over to the cars, with a vengeance. And this year, the crowds were phenomenal. The beer gardens were full, the food carts had line-ups, the streets were just less than uncomfortably crowded, and the sun was out with bare midriffs everywhere (unfortunately, mostly expansive and belonging to middle-aged men). Somewhere around 100,000 people on Columbia Street easily make this the busiest day of the year downtown. It was a great opportunity for the Downtown BIA to show off Columbia Street, and they did a great job.

Of course, to support the visiting crowds on the busiest day of the year in Downtown New West, the Parkade was free. It was advertised as being free, there were cops manning the barriers at 6th Street and 4th Street so that people could drive easily into the Parkade, with signs showing just how free it was. So was I the only one not surprised to find it was not only free: it was mostly empty.

All 4 photos above taken between 1:00pm and 2:00pm on July 8, 2012.

Again, I ask the merchants of downtown, if on your busiest day of the year, when all of Columbia is turned over to public space and you could not comfortably fit more people downtown; when the Parkade is free and duly advertised as such; when the free Parkade remains is mostly empty: isn’t it time to recognize the Parkade for the white elephant it is? Can we now accept that it is time to move past the Parkade, and recover the potential human space it supplants? Can we now stop saying it is necessary to support business growth in the City?

Oh, yeah, the Cars. As much as a I appreciate the level of effort that goes into keeping them valve covers so brightly polished and chroming those headers, American muscle cars and over-wound rice rockets don’t do much for me. My personal best-of-show choice was this perfect combination of design, agility, and elegance: Porsche 356 Speedster.

Cruising the Golden Mile in 1959 – this would have been my chariot of choice.

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.

Plaza88: the Sandwich Maze

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 2 Comments.

A few months ago, the Plaza88 retail development opened to some fanfare. The new pedestrian mall wrapped around an old SkyTrain station represented an exciting new phase in the renewal of downtown New Westminster.

I blogged my initial impressions at the time, with a post that got picked up by a long-forgotten regional blog portal, and received both positive and negative feedback, mostly because my post at the time was both positive and negative. My impression at the time was: so far OK, let’s see what happens when they open the rest, and bring on the Theatres!

Since then, I actually went to the Theatres on opening weekend, saw some Avengers beat people up, and I had a pretty good experience. Big comfy seats, decent sized screen, and they don’t turn the volume up to 11. You can’t buy a pint in the Theatre, but you can a few steps away at Hops Pub, so that’s good enough. Nothing but good stuff there.

There is also a smattering of new businesses filling the gaps on the mezzanine and concourse level. The public space in and around is getting more comfortable as it gradually becomes less of a construction site and more of a human space.

The biggest problem now, however, is the sandwich signs. Following a low-burning Twitterstorm led mostly by @matthewlaird, as the numbers of sandwich signs has been creeping up towards corn-maze density and the pedestrian experience has become more daunting.

The City, coincidentally, has been reviewing their Sign Bylaw, and a report to Council this week raised the issue of sandwich boards and their impact on pedestrian space. Problem being, the pedestrian space in Plaza88 is kind of a City street, and kind of private property, there seem to be competing opinions about who is responsible and if this or any future Sign Bylaw would even apply.

Really, I think the best approach here isn’t bylaw enforcement, it is for the potential customers to put pressure on the businesses at Plaza88 to make their pedestrian space more friendly. So this post is in that spirit, with a photo tour of the concourse to see what the problem is.

How bad are the sandwich signs? I dropped by Plaza88, entering from the Quayside Drive pedestrian entrance and walking to the 8th Street exit, and counted no less than 57 sandwich boards (not including the one in the middle of Quayside Drive). Fifty-seven in a ~150m-long concourse. That is close to three times the number of actual businesses open in Plaza88, although admittedly, at least 8 of the signs belong to Safeway alone.

Approaching from the west, the sandwich signs are not too obtrusive, as there are only
a few and there is lots of pedestrian room. 
Strangely, most are in front of the business, like they are trying to catch the eye of passing
drivers… as if walkers would not turn their heads 15 degrees to the side…
Like I said, right out front. But, hey, no real problem to walk around one sign. Still looks cheap, though.

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Moving towards the SkyTrain station, the signs are starting to get denser, some
advertising businesses I cannot see immediately behind them.

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Density going up, at least 8 in this view, three belonging to the Theatres. 

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West entrance of Safeway, almost blocked by a phalanx of sandwich boards…

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…but spin around the other direction, and the real maze begins. So from this point,
4 identical Safeway boards blocking your way to and escape route from the visible front doors.

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Glad to report a hardware store opening in Plaza88. Just kidding.
At the east end, the Corn Maze is complete. Note about 20 boards here, running right through the
pedestrian concourse, and no less than 4 identical Safeway boards blocking your view of,
and complicating your access to Safeway’s Front Door!

Sp please, Degelder Group, Plaza88, Safeway, whoever the hell is making the choices here, can you please do something about this ridiculous sandwich sign arms race? With the new businesses, the concorse is starting to look better and has a lot of offer. There is huge potential here to make it inviting in a more natural way than throwing and obstacle course of advertizing.

Then bring on the Indian Restaurant.

Westminster Pier Park – Open at last

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

a very belated post on the Grand Opening of the Pier Park

Yep, we got rained on, but we still had a great time.

And really, it was apropos. No matter how much you plan, no matter how much contingency you build in to any project – be it a major brownfield remediation and construction project or a grand opening party – you cannot control all variables, sometimes you need to make your best plans, and be prepared to make lemonade if lemons arrive.
I have talked at length about the Pier Park, and have offered lots of semi-informed opinions about how the remediation for the project progressed; most, unfortunately, in response to even-less-informed discussion in the local media about what a brownfield remediation is.

Even I was surprised to learn about some of the challenges faced by the environmental engineers working on the site. Back in late April, I was able to tour the not-yet-completed site with some of those engineers as tour guides, as part of a tour organized by the Environmental Managers Association of BC.

Environmental Professionals at work. Don’t try this at home, kids.

We all know the New Westminster waterfront is historic, and has a rich industrial and commercial history, gong back further than pretty much anywhere else in BC. For heritage buffs or park programming planners, that is great. For engineers trying to clean up an abandoned contaminated site, that sounds like a whole pile of headaches, wrapped in pitfalls, and dipped in a deep pool of budget-straining hassles.

A couple of interesting stories about the New West waterfront especially stood out in my mind, and gave me headaches of empathy. Most have to do with the challenge of how people used to use the waterfront in the days when diesel was sold for five cents a gallon (think about it, how careful would you be spilling something that costs less than tap water?)

We all know the story of New Westminster’s great fire of 1898. Not many of us know that at the time of the great fire, the waterfront was somewhere just north of the current Front Street. The rest of the land between there and the river is mixed landfill material, and the first layer was the bulldozed debris of the great fire. Pushing twisted metal and scorched wood debris into the river seemed to make sense at the time.

Of course, society went through a pretty libertarian phase with the industrial revolution and the development of the colonies, and we never imagined we could cause harm to something as big as the environment. The river, although it was the source of much of our water and food, was also seen as a great place to let nature take away our trash. (“The ocean is the planet’s liver”, a good buddy of mine says, explaining why he won’t eat seafood). A good example of this is the piles of metal turnings found under the old pier.

Apparently, there was once a machine shop on the pier, and machine shops turn out a lot of metal shavings (back before it was cost-efficient to recycle them), most of them immersed in cutting fluids. At the time, it made perfect sense to cut a hole in the floor of the pier and let those shavings fall into the river. Until they accumulated up to the level of the pier. Then you cover the hole and cut another one a few meters over (well, back then, a few yards or furlongs or cubits over, I suppose), and start again.

In 2012, those piles of metals shavings immersed in hydrocarbons are called “contamination”, up to the point where they could be considered hazardous waste. Just removing them from the river sediments is a technical challenge, as you must first stabilize them or isolate them, so they do not spread around in the river sediments as you are cleaning them up, all the while working in water with a 3 knot current, and avoiding fisheries windows so your work does not impact migrating salmon.

The Cities where I have seen Wilco Play: Champaign, Illinois; Las Vegas, Nevada;
Vancouver, BC; and (this upcoming September) San Franciso, California.
Love me some Wilco.

Ten there is the infamous “Toxic Blob”. This is a small plume of chlorinated solvents (essentially drycleaning fluid and related compounds) that was discovered at depth along one edge of the property. The source of the contamination was not on the Park property, but some of it was migrating with groundwater under the property, and in order for the Park to receive a clean bill of environmental health (called a “certificate of compliance”) from the Ministry of Environment, that blob had to be stopped. Problem being it was 22m below the surface, and those cleaning up the park had no access to the source area, as it wasn’t on the Park land.

The only practical option available is to install a barrier wall to stop the flow, but how do you install a waterproof wall 22m below the surface while trains are rolling by a few meters over on one side, and piles are being driven for soil stabilization a few meters to the other side? Digging up the ground to that depth would require some serious shoring up the rails to hold laden trains up, stopping nearby soil stabilization work, and pumping out a whole lot of groundwater. The first creates a lot of risk, the second puts the rest of the pier park project off schedule and threatens the tight deadline required to get under the federal funding window, the third requires you do something with all that potentially-contaminated groundwater without violating the fisheries act or waste management act. Digging was not an option.

Sub-surface walls can be built without digging by driving sheet piles. this is just like driving regular piles, but with interlocking sheets of thick steel plate: Horribly expensive interlocking sheets of steel plate when they are 25m long. This is also a time-consuming process, and with all of that unknown fill material down below, not guaranteed to be feasible. Sheet pile is often like the unstoppable force vs. the impenetrable surface problem.

Sheet piles used for shoring in another location on the Fraser River

A better solution was found in an innovative approach involving jet grout. Essentially, they drilled a line of holes, and put a device down each hole that shot concrete grout out the sides of borehole. Given enough holes and a powerful enough jet to bridge the gap between holes, an entire impermeable concrete/grout wall can be injected. There were still some significant technical challenges with assuring the holes remained aligned all the way down (drill holes tend to deviate over 22m!) which were solved using an innovative down-hole GPS system. Inject the wall, install a couple of monitoring wells to make sure the groundwater (and chlorinated solvents) are not leaking through, and Bobs Yer Uncle. Best part was that it could be done while the rest of the work on the Park was being completed.

That is the most remarkable part of this project, actually. Besides the technical challenges, it was simply not possible to do it in the “normal” Brownfields way. That would be: investigate first, complete remediation, then plan and construct above the cleaned-up site. Because the Federal portion of the money came with a tight deadline to completion, there was simply no time to wait for the preliminary and remediation work to be done before the soil stabilization and deck refurbishment work had to start. So the remediation work was ongoing during pile driving and pier construction: Two or three teams working independently on the same site. To use a sports analogy, it would be like having a baseball game and a football game happening simultaneously on the same field, while someone is mowing the grass: An organizational nightmare.

And how much work? According the (publically available) remediation reports, 6,500 tonnes of contaminated soils and 3,000 tonnes of contaminated sediments were removed from the site. At least 100 tonnes of that was contaminated enough to be considered “hazardous waste”, requiring special handling and disposal measures.
I cannot count the number of times on the April tour when the tour group, comprised of professional peers of the project management team, cursed under their breath or shook their heads slowly side-to-side, expressing amazement about the complexity of this project.
Suited up and suitably impresssed Environmental Professionals.
There is a reason this project won awards from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and the Canadian Urban Institute. It is not the great amenities above the deck, it is more about the remediation challenges, the engineering efforts and the project management success story under the deck: the part you will never see, and the part that made what seems a simple park project cost $25 Million to construct. Of course, it was those challenges that made the $16 Million from senior governments available for the project, yet it was the tough conditions set by the senior government agencies and the tight deadline attached to that funding that made it so challenging. Tom Waits: The large print giveth, the small print taketh away.
That is a part many of the park critics failed to acknowledge when talking about the Park: this was a horribly contaminated site; an industrial wasteland abandoned many years ago by the (mostly) private enterprises who contaminated it. Money invested to build this amenity was contributed by all three levels of government, and was spent to clean it up, so the contamination would no longer pose a threat the human health or the environment. It wasn’t free, but it was a good idea, and worth doing. Where there was toxic groundwater, soil, and sediments, there is now a cleaned-up site, and a beautiful public amenity.
It was a bold project, and the results are spectacular. Judging by the crowds I have seen at the park over the last two weeks, I have to say a lot of people agree with the results, even if they will never know about all the work that took place below their feet to make it happen.

Even the Grand Opening was well attended and cheery – despite the pouring rain.

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.