MEDIA RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – JANUARY 29, 2024
Green Commissioner Seeks Legal Advice to Preserve Elected Park Board
VANCOUVER, B.C. – Today, Green Park Board Commissioner Tom Digby announced he is bringing a motion to the February 5th Board meeting entitled “Independent Legal Advice for Judicial Review of Mayor’s Motion”. The motion is to authorize the Board to retain a leading municipal law firm to advise on steps available to preserve Vancouver’s elected Park Board.
“The elected Park Board is preparing to respond to the Mayor’s surprise attack,” said Digby.
Vancouver’s world famous parks and beaches, including the iconic Stanley Park, have been built with direct citizen input via the elected Park Board since it was first established in 1890. Hundreds of supporters of the elected Park Board have sent messages to Commissioners, to the Mayor and City Council, and to Premier David Eby and his cabinet demanding that every effort be made to oppose the Mayor’s December 13, 2023 motion to abolish the elected Park Board.
“I share Commissioner Digby’s concern” said Brennan Bastyovanszky, Chair of the Park Board, and one of three independent Commissioners who were formerly members of the Mayor’s ABC party. “This issue was not on the Mayor’s election platform, and Council has no democratic mandate to abolish another elected body,” continued Bastyovanszky.
One remarkable outcome of the Mayor’s anti-democratic motion is the coming together of 30 former Park Board Commissioners spanning 1972-2022 under the multi-partisan banner #SaveOurParkBoard to defend the value and mission of the elected Park Board.
In related news, City Councillors Adriane Carr, Christine Boyle and Pete Fry have announced a Town Hall meeting to hear from the public on the future of the Vancouver Park Board.
Town Hall | Opposition to ABC Vancouver’s Initiative to Dissolve the Vancouver Park Board
Advance registration to attend the Town Hall is required.
Tom Digby’s motion (see below) will be put to a vote at the February 5th meeting of the Park Board.
Commissioner Brennan Bastyovanszky pulled no punches on Mornings with Simi today, firing back at Mayor Ken Sim's "autocratic" decision to dismantle the Vancouver Park Board.
Despair reigns across our land, as the inexorable move towards the dissolution of an independent, elected Park Board proceeds relentlessly, calamitously forward.
In today’s VanRamblings post, we’ll attempt to reason why Mayor Ken Sim and his super majority ABC Vancouver team of City Councillors arrived at the decision to eliminate the 133-year-old Vancouver Park Board, the role the administration of the David Eby government will play, why the provincial government supports the seemingly arbitrary initiative of the Mayor, and why we believe that it is inevitable that in months, Vancouver’s beloved, elected Park Board will fade into history.
On an episode of the Air Quotes Media podcast, Hotel Pacifico, that aired just before Christmas, former Vancouver City Councillor / Chief of Staff to Premier John Horgan , Geoff Meggs, posited that the move to abolish the Vancouver Park Board was part of a dastardly plot by B.C. United Party leader Kevin Falcon.
Apparently, Mr. Falcon had convinced the Mayor and his ABC Vancouver Councillors — all of whom are members and supporters of B.C. United — that a move to eliminate the elected Park Board would create discord within David Eby’s New Democratic Party caucus, heading into this year’s October 19th provincial election.
Vancouver’s 9 duly-elected New Democrat Party Members of the Legislature in Victoria
Given the likelihood many in the NDP caucus would be opposed to the Mayor’s initiative to have the provincial government amend the Vancouver Charter to allow the dissolution of an elected Park Board — a move that could jeopardize the re-election chances of many of the New Democratic Party government’s Vancouver-based members of the legislature — working hand in hand, Kevin Falcon and Ken Sim devised a plan to turn the tables on the re-election chances of Vancouver’s NDP MLA’s, which very much includes Premier David Eby himself, who is in his 11th year as the elected representative in the riding of Vancouver Point Grey.
Geoff Meggs, Vancouver City Councillor 2008 – 2017 | Chief of Staff to Premier John Horgan, 2017 – 2022
Alas. As much as VanRamblings enjoys a good conspiracy theory, in point of fact, privately, Mr. Meggs was telling his intimates that he had proposed the Kevin Falcon “theory” arising from his concern that, given the polling that has the NDP riding high in the polls and seemingly undefeatable, he is concerned that NDP supporters very well may not volunteer at their MLA’s campaign offices once the writ is dropped this upcoming September, and further that New Democratic Party voters will stay home, and not vote at the advance polls or cast a ballot on election day.
Every vote counts. New Democratic Party supporters will have to work as hard as ever in the lead up to, and during the course of British Columbia’s 43rd provincial election, if we wish to ensure the re-election of the David Eby NDP government.
Mayor Ken Sim announces Park Board transition working group
The story of the decision of the Ken Sim-led majority ABC Vancouver administration to eliminate Vancouver’s independent, elected Park Board goes back to March of last year, when Premier David Eby made a proposal to Vancouver’s Mayor to move B.C. Place from its current home adjacent to Rogers Arena to Hastings Park.
While it is true that David Eby has stated that it is probable his government will spend between $300 and $400 million dollars on a renovation of B.C. Place to meet the requirements of the bodies bringing the Invictus Games to British Columbia in 2025, and the FIFA World Cup to Vancouver in 2026, in fact reliable sources have told VanRamblings that the long term plans for B.C. Place involves moving the aging stadium to Hastings Park, over which the City of Vancouver has jurisdiction.
As you might well expect, development and growth — and an expansion of our transit system — is at the heart of the decision by the Premier.
In addition, in eliminating the independent, elected Park Board, ABC Vancouver’s financial backers’ fondest wishes will be realized, as whole tracts of previous park / open green space will be available for development, to build, build, build …
And, of course, the mega-developer Aquilini family is very much involved, as well.
Here’s the plan: a David Eby government would work closely with the members of Vancouver City Council, and the Aquilini development corporation, to redevelop the B.C. Place site where, conceivably, the 7 hectare / 17-acre site would become home to three or more 70-to-95 storey towers in a newly designated “downtown village”, providing more than 3,000 residential condominium units in what will soon become, as planned, the heart of the downtown core of Vancouver.
The monies derived from the sale of the 3,000 luxury condominium units — in which the government would co-develop the B.C. Place site with the Aqualini family, where the completed condominium units would sell for up to $125 million on the top floors, many of the condominium units sold offshore, with the provincial government realizing billions of dollars in profit — would not only pay for the construction of a new stadium on the race track grounds at Hastings Park — a covenant prevents the construction of housing at Hastings Park, but not a sports facility — but for a new light rail system, as well, from Vancouver’s city core, along Hastings, down Renfrew to McGill / Hastings Park, and over to the North Shore.
Park Board transition working group: Catherine Evans, Gregor Young, Jordan Nijjar, Shauna Wilton, Jennifer Wood
The person on the left in the photo above is Catherine Evans, former Library Board Chair, Vision Vancouver Park Board Commissioner, most recently the senior constituency assistant in federal MP Joyce Murray’s Vancouver Quadra office, and although Ms. Evans is a card carrying member of the federal Liberal Party, provincially she is a staunch supporter of David Eby, and his NDP administration in Victoria.
In the past, Catherine Evans has worked on David’s Eby’s campaigns for office and, in fact, on E-Day, while working in Mr. Eby’s campaign office, has been VanRamblings’ no nonsense Get Out The Vote “boss”.
A story — a digression and and an aside — to help explain why Catherine Evans has joined Mayor Ken Sim’s Park Board Transition Working Group.
George Puil, 14 years as a Park Board Commissioner, then for 26 years, a Vancouver City Councillor
In 2001, B.C. Liberal leader Gordon Campbell won an overwhelming victory at the polls, securing 77 of 79 seats in the Legislature, leaving the NDP with two seats: Joy McPhail in Vancouver Hastings, and Jenny Kwan in Vancouver Mount Pleasant.
As is always the case with a change of government, there are 5,000 or more positions to be filled by the winning party’s supporters, with positions on college and university boards, regulatory authorities, as well as Crown agencies and commissions, and much more. Having retired from his job as an educator at Kitsilano Secondary School, and after 40 years in elected office, Mr. Puil — a man of experience, and a mentor to Gordon Campbell — following his ignominious defeat at the polls in the 2002 Vancouver municipal election, found himself at loose ends.
Within six months of taking office, Premier Gordon Campbell appointed his good friend George Puil to three regulatory bodies in his government, not requiring too much from Mr. Puil in respect of time, certainly much less time than had long been the case when Mr. Puil sat as a Vancouver City Councillor. Annual compensation for these “out of the public eye” regulatory bodies came in at $250,000, a pretty penny that came in addition to Mr. Puil’s healthy teachers’ pension.
Catherine Evans, one of the loveliest persons of VanRamblings’ acquaintance
As Ms. Evans lives in VanRamblings neighbourhood, we run across one another frequently, and chat volubly and at length about the state of the world, and more often than not federal politics (as it happens, VanRamblings is a Justin Trudeau fan).
If you know David Eby, you know that he likes to have “his people” in place — thus, Ms. Evans’ placement on Mayor Sim’s Park Board transition working group. David Eby wants a close eye kept on the machinations of that contentious Park Board working group.
In our various conversations, Ms. Evans has made it clear — arising from a tragic personal circumstance — that she wants out of politics, has no interest in seeking political office, and would find solace and peace travelling with her husband to various locales across the globe, far away from the political maelstrom.
Why has Catherine Evans joined Mayor Ken Sim’s Park Board transition working group? Quite simply, because her good friend David Eby asked her to.
To know Catherine Evans — who is exceptionally bright, one of the strongest, most principled and hardest working women we know — is to know that her role as a low key change maker for the better is how she brings herself to the world.
Enter David Eby, who should he be re-elected to government in October, will set as a priority the appointment of his confidante Catherine Evans to the provincial bodies of her choice, where she can make a difference, out of the public eye, compensated fairly for her contribution, and for her many many gifts.
The word VanRamblings is hearing out of Victoria is that David Eby will not move forward this spring on the request of ABC Vancouver to amend the Vancouver Charter, to eliminate an independent, elected Vancouver Park Board.
Which means that those of us who love the Vancouver Park Board, live Park Board deep in our soul, and cherish Park Board, although we have our work cut out for us this next year, we may have an outside chance of moving the David Eby government away from making the fatal decision to dissolve the Vancouver Park Board.
Vision Vancouver celebrates their overwhelming victory at the polls on November 19, 2011
Developers have long run the City of Vancouver, with various of the elected City Councils over the years acting as their all-too-willing handmaidens.
Joel Solomon, Vision Vancouver founder, standing outside, near his home in Railtown
The godfather and founder of the Vision Vancouver municipal party in 2004 was financier / philanthropist / real estate developer, and heir to a capitalist fortune, Tennessee émigré Joel Solomon, a political organizer who cut his teeth working on Jimmy Carter’s successful U.S. presidential campaign in the mid-1970s.
In the early 1990s, Solomon found his way to British Columbia, as he sought refuge on Cortes Island, while recovering from a serious health issue. In 1993, Solomon met a young organic farmer named Gregor Robertson. Their views aligned, especially on the urgent need to address climate change. The two became fast friends.
In 2002 Solomon made a decision to form a Vancouver civic party, which in time came to be called Vision Vancouver.
Recruiting Mike Magee from Stratcom — a strategic communications company dedicated to progressive causes — working with Magee, Solomon promised the then Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE) Councillors Raymond Louie, Tim Stevenson and Jim Green their political futures lay with his newly-formed Vision Vancouver civic party, committing to them that he would dedicate substantial financial resources to their re-election in 2005’s Vancouver municipal election.
Long story short — following the untimely death of Jim Green, who was Vision Vancouver’s Mayoral candidate in the 2005 civic election — in 2006, Joel Solomon recruited his friend Gregor Robertson to seek the nomination to become the Mayoral candidate for Vision Vancouver in our city’s 2008 municipal election.
The rest is history: Vision Vancouver became government, from 2008 through 2018.
Gregor Robertson, Mayor in the City of Vancouver, from November 15, 2008 through October 20, 2018
Upon assuming government at Vancouver City Hall in 2008, Joel Solomon was quick to establish a secretive, behind-the-scenes “Mayoral advisory Board” — most members of which were not only longtime friends of Solomon’s dating back to his days in Tennessee, but were, as well, extremely successful real estate developers.
During their time in government, 12 development-related lawsuits were filed against Vision Vancouver
Over the course of their years in power, there were a number of development-related lawsuits that were filed against Vision Vancouver.
Perhaps the most egregious — and many thought, corrupt — development-related failing by Vision Vancouver involved a legal petition filed with the BC Supreme Court on May 6, 2014, by the Community Association of New Yaletown, to prevent a mega-tower development on the city block containing Emery Barnes Park.
The legal petition alleged the City, in approving development of the 36-storey tower at 508 Helmcken St. and a related building across the street at 1099 Richards Street violated the Downtown Official Development Plan (DODP) bylaws in in numerous and significant ways, while thwarting the long-planned expansion of Emery Barnes Park “to help reduce the City’s significant shortfall in meeting its own green space targets in the area.”
Emery Barnes Park, in the heart of New Yaletown, adjacent to Davie and Seymour streets
That Vision Vancouver had not consulted with the community, nor even made any mention of their plans to build yet another mega-tower in the New Yaletown neighbourhood — a “favour” to the Tennessee-based developer, Brenhill Development, who just happened to be friends with Joel Solomon, and members of the Mayoral Advisory Board — exacerbated not only the ire of residents of New Yaletown, but esteemed British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Mark McEwan, who ruled in favour of the New Yaletown residents, “killing the New Yaletown development”, even though it was already under construction.
Read the Vancouver Sun article on Brenhill Development’s “sweet deal” here.
Some months later, the City of Vancouver prevailed at the B.C. Court of Appeals.
Peter Armstrong, owner of the Rocky Mountaineer, and founder / financier of ABC Vancouver
Now Peter Armstrong — who we know and very much like, who has pulled our behind out of the fire on more than one occasion, and who refers to us as his “favourite socialist” — will not be happy that we’re writing about him (reasonably, we can expect an irate call from Peter at some point today, as in “Why didn’t you call me to confirm with me what you’re writing about today?”).
But a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do (also, we hate to risk being lied to).
Founder Peter Armstrong’s Rocky Mountaineer offers unsurpassed luxury travel to discerning travelers
Now, Peter Armstrong — a pulled himself up by his bootstraps east end kid made good (we share a history as ‘east end kids’) — for many years was president of Vancouver’s oldest and most successful civic party, the Non-Partisan Association.
That is, until some dastardly folks staged a coup, taking over Peter’s beloved Non-Partisan Association in his absence, as he sailed his yacht to visit his good friend, Lululemon founder Chip Wilson, at his luxurious, well-appointed villa in Italy.
The consequence of the coup? Four of five NPA electeds resigned from the party.
And what became of the now former Non-Partisan Association Board members, who succeeded in killing the NPA, which party secured only, a paltry, unimaginably small 2.3% of the vote, when voters went to the polls in October 2022?
“Raymond, do you really think I’ll win re-election in Point Grey when we go to the polls in October?”
Premier David Eby will be heartened to know that these same far-right-of-centre nimrods are currently running the show with the nascent B.C. Conservative Party.
VanRamblings readers won’t be surprised to learn that ABC Vancouver founder, financier and Ken Sim backer, Peter Armstrong — as was the case with Joel Solomon, Vision Vancouver, and Mayor Gregor Robertson — has also created a secretive, behind-the-scenes Mayoral Advisory Committee, said committee comprised of developers, but mostly Peter and his very good friend, Chip Wilson.
A narrative, related to us recently by a very reliable VanRamblings source …
“Ken Sim ‘disappeared’ for a week this past autumn.
No one, save his family, knew where he was. In fact, Ken Sim was on board Peter Armstrong’s yacht, sailing up the west coast of British Columbia.
When Sim arrived back in town, returning to the Mayor’s office, he consulted with his Chief of Staff, Trevor Ford, after which the Mayor called in the ABC Park Board electeds to inform them of his decision to abolish the independent, elected Vancouver Park Board, leaving his now former ABC Park Board Commissioners in the room with Mr. Ford and David Grewal to explain details, and what would happen going forward.
Soon after, now former ABC Vancouver Park Board Commissioners Scott Jensen, Brennan Bastyovanszky and Laura Christensen made the decision to sit on Park Board as independents.
Subsequently, Sim called a press conference to announce his intention to eliminate the 133-year-old elected body, the much cherished, independent, and beloved Vancouver Park Board.”
The more things change, the more things stay the same.
Whether it’s developer Mayor Tom Campbell in the late 60s, or Joel Solomon and Gregor Robertson for a 10-year period when Vision Vancouver was at the seat of power at Vancouver City Hall, or in these latter days, with an avuncular — but dare we say, avaricious — Peter Armstrong and Chip Wilson, we who call Vancouver home are reminded yet again, and much to our consternation, this is not our city, for Vancouver is owned lock, stock and barrel by the developer class.
The quite barking mad Dr. Penny Janet Drury Ballem, Vancouver City Manager, 2008 – 2015
In 2014, Dr. Penny Ballem, the power mad, often disagreeable and fiscally irresponsible City Manager — moving her office from City Hall’s 3rd floor, in favour of a multi-million dollar renovation of the “closed” 5th & 6th floors at The Hall, giving her mightily expanded staff a new home — Dr. Ballem, hired by the Vision Vancouver administration in 2008 to impose their political and administrative agenda, found herself “fed up” with the operation of the Vancouver Park Board, had enough with what she termed their “tomfoolery”, their inefficiency and “spendthrift ways”.
All this after Vision Vancouver slashed $30 million from the Park Board budget.
Dr. Ballem’s choleric rage about Park Board occurred even in spite of the fact that, in 2010, she had installed Malcolm Bromley as her Park Board General Manager, in unprecedented fashion making Bromley a “city employee”, with direct reporting responsibility to the Office of the City Manager. Read, to her: Dr. Penny Ballem.
Less than a year into her tenure, it was not enough that Dr. Ballem “retired” well-respected, longtime Park Board General Manager Susan Mundick, Dr. Ballem also “relieved” the employment of several other invaluable, longtime, senior city staff.
Dr. Ballem, however, wanted more, much more.
Dr. Ballem wanted complete and utter control of the Vancouver Park Board.
Sadly, people do not realize that the City took over operational responsibility under the Vision regime, perportedly for efficiency and cost saving. They wrongly blame the Park Board, who used to do a better job.
In late 2014, Dr. Ballem had the Park Board led by Chairperson Aaron Jasper move a motion at the Park Board table that would turn over operational responsibility for Park Board to the City, as a “necessary cost-saving measure and rationalization” of the operation of Park Board. From that day forward the City would be responsible for all Park Board facility maintenance, garbage collection and recycling.
“When I was first elected as a Park Board Commissioner in 2011,” John Coupar recently told VanRamblings, “if there was a maintenance issue that needed tending to, through the Chair I could have her or him raise the issue that needed remedy, which “repair” was always responded to quickly and efficiently.
John Coupar, former Vancouver Park Board Chairperson, and Park Board Commissioner
When I became Chairperson in late 2014, I was disappointed to learn that when requests for maintenance made through Board General Manager Malcolm Bromley were forwarded to the City, the City maintenance department often took weeks or months to remediate an issue, if that concern was ever remediated at all.”
Mayor Ken Sim announces pending elimination of an elected Vancouver Park Board (Ben Nelms/CBC)
Since it was created in 1889, the Vancouver Park Board has been a source of discussion and division. But the decision by Mayor Ken Sim to try and abolish the 133-year-old elected body could make its final chapter its most dramatic.
“We are going to take the long overdue step that will ensure our parks and recreation facilities will serve our communities to their fullest potential, in the process saving taxpayers millions of dollars in Park Board operation costs” Sim told those gathered for a press conference Wednesday morning, December 6, 2023.
“I’m a lean-certified black belt, I understand workflow,” said Sim in response to a question about how much the city would save in costs, in a reference that left the media who’d gathered for the announcement flummoxed.
Mayor Ken Sim has yet to explain where the “millions of dollars in savings” by eliminating an elected Park Board will be derived.
In point of fact, top-voted ABC Vancouver City Councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung — a former Park Board Chairperson — could easily have informed the Mayor that his statement was so much codswallop, that the City had long ago assumed fiscal responsibility for the operation and maintenance of the Vancouver Park Board.
“Bad enough that the Mayor misled the public when, at his announcement proposing to abolish the elected Park Board, he stated that there would be millions in savings to be had. Clearly, an untruth,” former Vancouver City Councillor and Park Board Commissioner Michael Wiebe recently told VanRamblings.
Michael Wiebe, former Vancouver City Councillor, and Vancouver Park Board Commissioner
“When I met with Mayor-elect Ken Sim and ABC Vancouver founder Peter Armstrong in the Mayor’s office soon after the 2022 election, I was assured by both of their full and unadulterated support for an independent Park Board. Clearly, the commitment they made to me the day we met, and to a public who voted for them, was a lie.”
Ken Sim. “So yeah, whaddya want to make of it, eh? Don’t like what I’m doin’? Too effin bad.“
On the day Mayor Ken Sim made the announcement that it was his intention to eliminate an elected Park Board in the City of Vancouver, he was clear that amid concerns being voiced that getting rid of the Vancouver Park Board could mean a loss of prized park land in the city, on his watch that was not going to happen.
“I want to be very clear: as long as I’m mayor, parks will always be parks in the City of Vancouver,” Mayor Sim told CityNews in an interview on Friday, December 15, 2023.
Of course, Mayor Sim made no mention that of Vancouver’s 242 parks, only 142 are designated as parks, leaving the remaining “green space” open for development.
Under the current system, a two-thirds majority vote on Council and Park Board is required to remove any parks from the city’s inventory.
Sim told CityNews that he’s going to bring in new protections for green spaces.
“We’re going to change it so it has to be unanimous in the chamber, so all 10 Councillors and mayor of the day have to be in favour, plus it would go to referendum,” Sim said.
All of which begs several questions.
Given that ABC Vancouver candidate for office Ken Sim misled the voting public on a commitment he made during the 2022 Vancouver municipal election that …
A Ken Sim-led civic administration would strengthen and support an independent, elected Park Board;
Given that a newly-elected Mayor Sim employed as partial rationale for the 10.7% property tax increase he announced in December 2022, in stating that “we felt we had to restore funding to and support our Vancouver Park Board;”
Given that Mayor Sim misled the public when he stated that there were “millions to be saved” in eliminating an independent, elected Park Board, when such is clearly not the case; and …
Given that Ken Sim boldfacedly misled former Vancouver Park Board Commissioner and City Councillor Michael Wiebe — not to mention current Park Board Commissioners Scott Jensen, Brennan Bastyovanszky and Laura Christensen when they ran under the ABC Vancouver banner as Park Board candidates — when he stated to Mr. Wiebe and his own party’s candidates for Park Board his unvarnished and ongoing support for an independent, elected Vancouver Park Board …
Can Mayor Ken Sim be believed when he makes the pronouncement that park land will not be sold off on his watch?
And, further, that any talk of development of green spaces should such come to pass would require the unanimous consent of all 10 Vancouver City Councillors?
Mike Howell’s Town Hall report may be found here.
