The 2005 race for Vancouver Municipal Council, School and Park Board is over. The NPA scored a stunning come-from-behind victory, all but decimating the COPE civic party. The election of four of five Vision Vancouver councillors sets a new direction for the progressive forces on Council. What all of these changes mean at the end of the day, it’s too early to say. But development in the City will most certainly take a different direction, and municipal issues will be re-prioritized. And it was always thus.
In the coming days, VanRamblings will publish our take on the meaning behind the change in direction for civic politics, in Vancouver and across the Lower Mainland. In the meantime, we can take heart that the people have spoken, and over the course of the next three years we will receive the kind of civic governance for which a majority of Vancouverites voted.

l-r: Spencer Herbert, Anita Romaniuk, Omar Kassis, Jenn McGinn, Mel Lehan, Loretta Woodcock

Last week, VanRamblings published a story endorsing COPE — Vancouver’s Coalition of Progressive Electors civic party — as the only municipal party that champions a sustainable programme of development that balances economic and environmental interests, towards the creation of a more livable city for all of us. Have already wholeheartedly endorsed the COPE slate of candidates for City Council and School Board, VanRamblings turns its attention today to the robust COPE Park Board slate.
Over the course of the past three years, a COPE Park Board, while enhancing public participation and access to the Board, has …

• Championed the inclusion of 26 acres of park, and a 30,000 sq. ft. community centre at the future southeast False Creek development
• Expanded wheelchair access in our parks and introduced universal design principles to accommodate all members of the public, regardless of physical and mental ability
• Established skateboard parks beneath the east end of the Georgia Viaduct, and in the Strathcona and Quilchena neighbourhoods
• Expanded the Champlain Community Centre, including new child care facilities; rebuilt and expanded the Killarney Pool; undertook an extensive renovation of Renfrew Pool; completed the Millennium Lawn Bowling and Gymnastics facility at Riley Park; established a new artificial turf playing field in Kerrisdale embraced by the community; and established new, or renovated, parks including Emery Barnes, Sahali, Tea Swamp, Strathcona, Heather, George Wainborne, David Lam Phase Two, and Kingcrest
• Extended off leash hours for dog parks, while promoting public education for dog owners
• Promoted and facilitated community gardens throughout the city, and
• Improved environmental practices, including the diversion of rainwater into daylighted streams, as well as the re-use of rainwater for irrigation; expanded the use of green building technology and energy conservation; expanded the recycling programme and the re-use of materials; and continued our commitment to the Cool Vancouver Climate Change plan, with the goal of reducing greenhouse gases

In only a few days, you will be asked to cast your ballot for a new Park Board. Sitting COPE Park Board commissioners Anita Romaniuk and Loretta Woodcock, and new candidates Mel Lehan, Spencer Herbert, Omar Kassis, and Jenn McGinn are deserving of your vote. If a majority COPE Park Board is elected to a second term, a COPE Park Commissioners team would …

• Continue the renewal and expansion of community centres, ice rinks, swimming pools, and fitness centres
• Move Park Board meetings into community centres, and create an open dailogue with the community
• Approve a plebiscite for the 2008 civic election on whether or not to phase out the containment of whales and dolphins in Stanley Park
• Continue the development of guidelines for waterfront and shoreline activities through the new Waterfront Planning Study
• Engage in a consultative process with young people to enhance youth programming in parks and recreation centres
• Adopt the LEED gold standard for new facilities, thus reducing future operating costs as well as reducing environmental impact
• Keep annual operating expenses and annual inflationary fee increases for facilities and programmes within the target inflationary increases set by the City, while rolling back the NPA-approved 7% increase in seniors fees for golfing, swimming, and fitness centres passed for the 2003 budget

These are good people. Hard-working people. Caring people. On November 19th, when you cast your ballot for a reinvigorated Vancouver Park Board, VanRamblings urges you to support the COPE team of Park Board candidates — Spencer Herbert, Omar Kassis, Mel Lehan, Jenn McGinn, Anita Romaniuk, and Loretta Woodcock — all of whom will work towards the creation of a more livable city for each and every one of us.

Noel Herron was the Principal at my children’s elementary school (University Hill) in the 1980s, and after that Principal at another half-dozen Vancouver schools. Since that time, and before, Noel has continuously advocated for public education, speaking out and publishing for the betterment of the education system.

Over the course of the past couple of years, VanRamblings has had the opportunity to become re-acquainted with Noel, in his capacity as Chair of the Personnel and Staff Relations Committee of the Vancouver School Board, and as a liaison with the employees of Cardinal Transportation Vancouver who, this year, achieved successful CUPE bargaining unit status.

The work of the COPE trustees on the Vancouver School Board has been invaluable this past three years in preserving the integrity of our education system, even while suffering the slings and arrows of a provincial government and Ministry of Education seemingly hellbent on ideological warfare with teachers, trustees, parents and children.

The following e-mail arrived in my computer yesterday, a missive from the desk of valued public servant, COPE School Board Trustee Noel Herron. Today, VanRamblings passes on to you an edited version of the e-mail …

Dear Friend of Public Education,

The civic election is just around the corner — Saturday November 19.

As people who care about kids and public education — the COPE School Board candidates are asking you to vote for people who care about kids and public education, who believe in the potential of all children. We will do everything in our power to make public schools work for every child.

Before casting your vote on November 19th, we would ask that you check out the record of the COPE School Board trustees.

In just 3 years a COPE Vancouver School Board has:

• Stopped $3 million in provincial cuts to inner city schools and our region’s most vulnerable children, and introduced a successful consultative budgeting process
• Played a key role in winning $150 million in provincial funding for public education in BC
• Worked closely with the province to develop a programme to make all schools across our province seismically safe
• Re-hired multi-cultural workers laid off by the previous NPA controlled Board, while reaching out to Vancouver’s diverse communities, and making our schools safer and more welcoming with new anti-racism and anti-homophobia programmes
• Dedicated increased monies into text books, restored teacher librarian hours and achieved lower class size at the elementary level
• Supported student input into district decision-making
• Worked tirelessly to repair relations with parents, students and staff — relations that had been damaged under previous NPA Boards
• Expanded all-day kindergarten
• Hired one of the country’s most respected educational leaders as our Superintendent of Schools — without resorting to use of an expensive headhunting firm
• Expanded literacy programmes, and increased spaces for French Immersion
• Worked with both the SFU and the UBC Education departments to educate the community about the value of public education

l-r: Allan Wong, Allen Blakey, Angela Kenyon, Conrad Lew, Jane Bouey, Kevin Millsip, Noel Herron, Sharon Gregson

There remains much that needs to be done. We still have a lot of work to do. We need to protect these achievements and build on them.

If re-elected, a COPE School Board will:

• Continue to advocate effectively for proper resources for public schools
• Fight to keep local educational decisions in the hands of our community
• Work for smaller classes for all children enrolled in the Vancouver school system
• Provide increased support for ESL, and children with special needs
• Get junk food out of our schools
• Work hard to build strong and respectful relationships with local aboriginal and First Nations organizations while working towards making our schools more inclusive and relevant for aboriginal students
• Continue to participate and support joint initiatives between the School Board, Park Board and City Council such as the Joint Council on Childcare
• Make each school a centre of environmental sustainability

The COPE Vancouver School Board has made decisions based on sound educational principle — not Fraser Institute fiction. We need all caring Vancouver citizens to help make sure that the positive accomplishments of the COPE Vancouver School Board to support children and make public schools work for every child will not be undone by the NPA.

The Vancouver School Board — a great reason to vote COPE!

l-r: Anne Roberts, David Cadman, Ellen Woodsworth, Fred Bass, Tim Louis

The time has come for VanRamblings to weigh in on the current municipal election in the City of Vancouver. Without any hesitation or reservation, VanRamblings wholeheartedly recommends the entirety of the current COPE slate — for City Council, School Board and Park Board — good people all.
Over the course of the past three years — since electing majority COPE Council Members, School Board trustees and Park Board commissioners to civic government — Vancouver has become a more livable city for all citizens of our fair city, the whole of the community has gained greater access to (and participation in) civic governance, and fiscal responsibility tempered by caring and a commitment to social justice have come to define governance in the City of Vancouver. Therefore, we’re recommending COPE in 2005.
For VanRamblings, the key issues in the campaign are this: development of the south side of False Creek, ensuring a mix of rental and subsidized housing, parks and community gardens, and greenways; re-development of the Woodward’s building, and the resulting salutary impact that will occur in the surrounding neighbourhood; the provision of subsidized transit passes for students and persons on low incomes; keeping our libraries open and accessible; and the continued revitalization of neighbourhoods. Only COPE, and their unity partners Vision Vancouver, can deliver on these key issues.
In the coming days, VanRamblings will explore each of the civic issues outlined above, and express why it is that we believe only a majority COPE / Vision Vancouver City Council can deliver on these and other issues, while working towards the creation of a fairer and more livable City for all of us.