Tag Archives: vancouver city council

ABC Vancouver | Friends, Loyalty and High Regard Count for Something

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Vancouver City Councillor Mike Klassen, elected to office on the evening of Saturday, October 15, 2022

Vancouver City Councillor Mike Klassen is, and has been for a very long time, one of VanRamblings’ closest, and very best friends.

Not to get too maudlin, but Mike Klassen is an executor of VanRamblings’ will — the other two: current Vancouver School Board trustee, Christopher Richardson, and former Vancouver City Councillor, Colleen Hardwick. VanRamblings’ ashes will be thrown off the side of Peter Armstrong’s yacht, which will be temporarily ‘moored’ just off Locarno Beach. Colleen, Mike and Christopher will be on board.


Mike Klassen. On January 17, 2024 as Vancouver experienced a cold spell and a 20mm dump of snow

All of which is to say three things, if you’re wondering where we’re going …

  • VanRamblings has known and been close friends with Mike Klassen for 30+ years;
  • In the interest of full disclosure, VanRamblings’ readers should be apprised that you will never, ever, ever read material on this blog that in any, way, shape or form disparages Mike Klassen — although we reserve the right, from time to time, to be critical of a policy decision taken by the good and honourable Councillor;
  • As VanRamblings expressed to Mike Klassen during the course of the recent holiday season: “I will not allow a disagreement on the future of Park Board, or any other policy issue that may arise, to disrupt or in any way interfere with our friendship.”

In VanRamblings’ world, loyalty counts for something; for a great deal, actually.


Vancouver City Councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung, who topped the polls on election day, October 15, 2022

For many years now, Vancouver City Councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung has been VanRamblings’ favourite political person in the province: a dedicated, exceptionally bright public servant, who works night and day for citizens (the hardest working pol we’ve ever experienced); and a politician who doesn’t always ‘play by rules’ — which we think, on occasion, is a good thing, a very good thing!

Sarah Kirby-Yung succeeded in having cetacreans — whales and dolphins — in captivity banned at the Vancouver Aquarium during her tenure as Vancouver Park Board Chairperson, despite the fact that the initiative was contrary to the policy of the political party she ran for office with in 2014.

Even in light of the current contretemps surrounding the Park Board ‘abolition’ issue that has caused VanRamblings much consternation, and about which we have been writing endlessly in recent days, our affection, regard and respect for Sarah Kirby-Yung has not lessened one iota — although, in the interest of transparency, we will write that Vancouver Kingsway MP Don Davies has (unknowingly) worked hard in recent days, weeks and months to displace Councillor Kirby-Yung from her august position as VanRamblings’ favourite political person in the province.

Of course, VanRamblings is hoping saner heads prevail at Vancouver City Council, that Councillors Kirby-Yung and Klassen will lead the charge to convince Mayor Ken Sim that the time has come to “pull a Doug Ford” — which is to say, reverse his shameful position on eliminating an independent, elected Vancouver Park Board.


Today, 9 a.m., Jan. 25, 2024 | Mayor Ken Sim announces transition team that will lead to abolition of an elected Park Board. Pictured: Mayor Sim, Sarah Kirby-Yung, Brian Montague, Lenny Zhou, Mike Klassen


ABC Councillors: Lisa Dominato, 2nd term on Council | Rebecca Bligh, 2nd term, Vancouver City Council

ABC Vancouver Councillors Lisa Dominato, initially Non-Partisan Association Councillors, who switched party affiliations to join the nascent ABC Vancouver civic party seeking office, are serving their second term at Vancouver City Hall.

VanRamblings has known the principled and accomplished Lisa Dominato dating back to the autumn of 2017, when she was elected to the Vancouver School Board as a Board of Education trustee in a by-election that year. A strategic leader with 20 years experience in government administration, public policy, communications and stakeholder relations, Ms. Dominato was responsible for the construction and implementation of British Columbia’s SOGI 123 programme, which provides guidance to educators across our province to help make schools more inclusive and safe for students of all sexual orientations and gender identities (SOGI).

Rebecca Bligh is a passionate supporter of families, education and the environment who championed Vancouver’s diverse and inclusive communities in her first term of office — as she continues to do today — dedicating herself to helping make Vancouver a more livable city, while serving to address the affordability crisis and issues around public safety and the poisoned drug crisis, working in concert with her colleague, Lisa Dominato. Both make an invaluable contribution to our city.

On balance, VanRamblings believes ABC Vancouver had a good first year in office.

The ABC Councillors also brought a welcome civility back to the Council chambers.


Vancouver City Councillor Brian Montague | Lenny Zhou | and Vancouver City Councillor Peter Meiszner

All 10 Councillors and the Mayor worked as a team over their 12 months in office, arising from the expressed desire of Mayor Ken Sim to work collaboratively with “opposition” Councillors, One City Vancouver’s Christine Boyle —  who is having herself some kind of (great) second term —  and Greens Adriane Carr and Pete Fry.

There’s a tendency to dehumanize our elected officials — as if they’re not members of our larger family — to criticize the individual rather than the policy, to engage in the politics of character assassination over reasoned, thoughtful debate.

Was VanRamblings happy when the ABC Vancouver Councillors collectively decided to undo our City’s Livable Wage Programme, mandating that suppliers of goods and services to the City pay a living wage to their employees, currently in the $24-an-hour range? Absolutely not. We thought it was an abomination.

Which is to say, when you have a City Council where the average annual Councillor salary tops well over $100,000, it’s not just bad optics but borders on the inhumane, when you —  as a majority ABC Vancouver Council — set about to cut the wages of working people struggllng to get by in Canada’s most expensive city.

VanRamblings realizes that the 36.3% of the Vancouver electorate who bothered to turn out at the polls in October 2022 to elect a new Vancouver City Council, did not cast their ballot the way they did to please VanRamblings as their priority for a new Council. ABC Vancouver won fair and square (unlike Donald Trump, we’re not given to saying things are ‘rigged’ when events don’t unfold as we might wish).

Dan Fumano, Postmedia: ABC Vancouver returns $116,000 in prohibited donations from 2022 election

VanRamblings will continue to be critical of our city’s majority ABC Vancouver City Council, involving their collective decision to attempt to eliminate a cherished 133-year-old environmental institution, the Vancouver Park Board. At no point, though, will we publish rhetoric that dehumanizes our ABC Vancouver elected officials.

#SaveOurParkBoard | Council Moves to Abolish Elected Park Board

#VanElxn 2022, #VanPoli Civic Politics, News, Park Board, Politics, , , ,

On Wednesday, December 13th, the eight members of the elected majority on the ABC Vancouver City Council — led by Mayor Ken Sim — voted unanimously to a eliminate an elected Vancouver Park Board, the most successful elected Park Board on the continent which, dating back to its creation in 1889, has overseen the growth of a parks system in the City of Vancouver that is the envy of the world.

In the coming days weeks, months and years, VanRamblings will explore why this electoral abomination occurred, what this wrong-headed decision means electorally for the elected Councillors who comprise the “super majority” ABC Vancouver holds at City Council, and what impact the decision of Council has had and will have on the provincial government led by Premier David Eby — whose government is compelled to review and entertain the motion passed by Vancouver City Council requesting that the government enact the necessary change to the Vancouver Charter that would abolish the elected Park Board.

As Vancouver City Councillor Christine Boyle states in her tweet above, ABC Vancouver did not run on a promise to eliminate the elected Vancouver Park Board. From a July 28, 2022 article written by CBC civic affairs reporter Justin McElroy …

The Vancouver mayoral candidate who promised to get rid of the city’s independent park board is now saying he’d like to keep it.

“Vancouverites deserve well run parks now. We can’t wait three to four years to make an administrative change,” said A Better City (ABC) mayoral candidate Ken Sim, who announced his party’s park board candidates and platform Thursday morning.

The candidates are Brennan Bastyovanszky, Laura Christensen, Angela Haer, Scott Jensen, Marie-Claire Howard and Jas Virdi.

They will be running on a platform of repairing aging infrastructure, doing a financial audit of the park board, improving the Stanley Park bike lane, and making permanent the pilot allowing drinking in parks, expanding it to all major parks and starting a separate pilot for drinking at beaches.

A Done Deal | Council Votes to Eliminate Elected Vancouver Park Board


Vancouver Park Board Commissioner at Vancouver City Hall, holding her new, month old baby

A statement from Laura Christensen, Vancouver Park Board Commissioner …

Click on this link to hear duly elected (now former) ABC Vancouver Park Board Commissioner Laura Christensen address the whole of Vancouver City Council on December 13, 2023 —  including her ABC Council running mates —  on the initiative of the political party she ran with to eliminate the elected Vancouver Park Board.


Brennan Bastyovanszky, elected chair of the Vancouver Park Board, urged Mayor Ken Sim and Councillors, Wednesday, December 13, 2023 not to begin the process to abolish the elected Park Board

In point of fact, 82 members of the Vancouver public —  including more than 20 past, elected Park Board Commissioners, as well as dozens of citizens who have appeared before the Vancouver Park Board to argue their case in respect of Vancouver’s parks and recreation centres —  spoke passionately to the members of Vancouver City Council, to protect “the last bastion of civic democracy in the Metro Vancouver region, and a cherished institution that has made Vancouver not only the parks capital of North America, but the envy of the world, across our globe.”

Next week, VanRamblings will set about to refute the notion espoused by Mayor Ken Sim that the Vancouver Park Board is “broken” or the — forgive us for saying so, the ludicrous, and utterly unsupportable — notion that there are “millions in savings” to be had by eliminating the elected Vancouver Park Board, by turning over the responsibility of governance to an already over-extended and far-too-busy-by-half Vancouver City Council, wherein VanRamblings will refute the (unintended) disinformation contained in Emily Lazatin’s Global BC news report on the proposal by Vancouver City Council to abolish Vancouver’s elected Park Board.

Make no mistake, no matter what the speakers had to say who presented to Vancouver City Council on preserving an elected Vancouver Park Board, no matter how reasoned their arguments, no matter how articulate and passionate their presentation,  ABC Vancouver Councillors had made their minds up well in advance of hearing speakers in Council chambers, arising from an imposed caucus “solidarity” issued by the Mayor’s office directing ABC Councillors to eliminate the elected Park Board — note should be made that ABC Councillors were not even informed of the change of direction in respect of the elected Park Board by Mayor Ken Sim prior to his announcement in the press to abolish the elected Park Board — it was a “done deal”, no matter the information presented to ABC Vancouver  Councillors.

The difference between the Vancouver Park Board and Vancouver City Council?

At the Vancouver Park Board table, members of the public can change the mind of Park Board Commissioners, and affect the direction and priorities of Park Board — on Wednesday, VanRamblings will present two cogent examples of the public effecting a meaningful policy change at Park Board — whereas at Vancouver City Hall, more often than not, the minds of Councillors have been made up long in advance of hearing from the public. Autocracy reigns at Vancouver City Hall.

Democracy, on the other hand, reigns long at the Vancouver Park Board table.

Click / tap on the graphic above to sign  the Save Our Park Board Petition started by Sarah Blyth

Save Our Park Board GoFundMe Display Campaign
Click / tap on the graphic above to donate to the Save Our Park Board GoFundMe display campaign

#VanPoli | Vancouver City Council, Park Board and School Board Inaugurals

#VanElxn 2022, #VanPoli Civic Politics, BC Politics, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2022, , , ,

Today is the first day of the rest of the lives of overwhelmingly popular Mayor-elect Ken Sim, his new Councillor-elects, ABC (A Better City) Vancouver’s Brian Montague, Mike Klassen, Peter Meiszner, and Lenny Zhou, and former and oh-so-triumphant and returning Vancouver City Councillors, ABC’s lovingly re-elected City Councillors, Sarah Kirby-Yung — who topped the polls, yay, Sarah! — the ever-so-outstanding Lisa Dominato and Rebecca Bligh, the wonderfully humane Green Party of Vancouver’s Adriane Carr and Pete Fry, and OneCity Vancouver’s ‘hope of the left’ Christine Boyle, all eleven of whom will be sworn into office at 1:15pm on this, what is supposed to be, sunny Monday afternoon, where there will be glad tidings within the luxuriously comfortable and City-owned Orpheum Theatre.

Monday afternoon’s festivities are an ‘invite only’ affair. Although OneCity Vancouver Councillor Christine Boyle posted two charitable invitations to us, we opted to accept Councillor-elect Mike Klassen’s kind invitation — we have been friends for, I believe, 29 years this year, was present at his wedding, and for the birth of his daughter, helped Michael (we call him Michael) collect his election signs the day after the 2011 Vancouver municipal election when he came so achingly close to being elected to Vancouver City Council that year … so, it seems fitting that VanRamblings would be present — along with his wife Stacey, and Michael’s entire family — for this most august of occasions in Mike Klassen’s life.

The link to the live stream of the City of Vancouver Councillor Inauguration Ceremony will be available at …

https://vancouver.ca/your-government/inaugural-speeches.aspx 

or on the City of Vancouver Facebook page … City of Vancouver Facebook page

Vancouver citizens are invited to the Vancouver Park Board’s Inaugural Ceremony, where the seven newly-elected Park Board Commissioners will take the oath of office. This event — unlike regular Park Board meetings — will not be live streamed, so if you want to see Vancouver’s Park Board Commissioners be sworn into office, you’ll have to attend at …

Date: Monday, November 7, 2022
Time: 7 p.m.
Location: VanDusen Botanical Garden
5251 Oak Street
Vancouver, BC V6M 4H1

The full meeting agenda is available at: https://parkboardmeetings.vancouver.ca/2022/20221107/index.htm

There’s a 30-70 chance that VanRamblings will attend the Park Board Inaugural, because we love the Van Dusen Botanical Gardens, we love Vancouver’s Board of Parks and Recreation, it’s probable that there’ll be a surfeit of past Park Board Commissioners on hand (and, you guessed it, we love our past Park Board Commissioners) — and we expect the event will be drama free … although in these times of disapprobation, you never know what protesters might have in mind to disrupt this otherwise celebratory event, in this most inviting of settings.

Against our better judgement, VanRamblings will attend tonight’s Vancouver Board of Education Inaugural, which will be held in the School Board’s regular meeting Board Room. Mostly, we’ll be attending this (could be, sadly, contentious) Inaugural to support our friend, re-elected trustee Christopher Richardson — let us say it again, the finest man we know — a former Vancouver School Board Chairperson, and someone we think will well serve the interests of children enrolled in the Vancouver school district — particularly those children with learning difficulties — with honour, unswerving dedication and unparalleled distinction.

Of course, VanRamblings will be delighted to see past Vancouver Board of Education Chairperson, Dr. Janet Fraser — who, as we’ve written previously, as Chairperson always conducts a clinic on how to run a meeting fairly and judiciously — and her Green Party of Vancouver trustee colleague, Lois Chan-Pedley, as well as OneCity Vancouver’s Jennifer Reddy, and her new best friend, COPE’s Suzie Mah, the latter of whom we’re looking forward to seeing being sworn in, and sharing some cake and a (non-alcoholic) beverage with afterwards, in the cafeteria.

Of course, VanRamblings will invite Christopher over to share the celebration with us — after all, Ms. Mah and Mr. Richardson will be professional colleagues for the next four years, and getting together around food often proves propitious, indeed.

Date: Monday, November 7, 2022
Time: 7 p.m.
Location: Vancouver School Board offices
1580 West Broadway
Vancouver, BC V6J 5K8

It would seem that VanRamblings has returned to publishing. We have a great deal to say, to write and record in the coming days and weeks. See you back here soon!

#VanPoli | Code of Conduct | Elected Office | Trust, Grace, Duty & Deportment

#VanPoli Civic Politics, BC Politics, Politics, Vancouver Votes 2022, ,

A Code of Conduct is a set of rules around behaviour and comportment that serves to define, in the instance today, the political arena of municipal governance and the culture of the institution, that seeks to clarify the core values and principles on display at City Hall, the Code of Conduct setting out to define the expected conduct of elected officials, staff, and all those citizens who present to City Council.

Having a Code of Conduct provides elected officials, city staff, and citizens a structure to follow, reducing the potential for untoward conduct when issues of contention arise, in order that there should be no ambiguity when it comes to Code of Conduct expectations, should lines of conduct be blurred, or rules broken.

As such, a municipal Code of Conduct sets the benchmarks for behaviour at City Hall — and in Vancouver’s case, Park Board — for all those who are involved in civic governance, elected officials, staff, and citizens, a guideline set for all to live up to.

During the final term of governance for the Vision Vancouver administration at City Hall, public demonstrations became a common feature, with — on several occasions, increasing frequency and deliberate intent — members of the rightfully aggrieved public taking over Council Chambers at Vancouver City Hall, ejecting the Mayor and City Councillors, and senior members of city staff from the Chambers.

Meanwhile, over at Vancouver Park Board — the only one of its kind on the continent —  avid follower of all things Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation, the late Eleanor Hadley, who attended each and every meeting of Park Board, was calling out the Park Board Commissioners, and on this particular late autumn evening in 2015, the Vision Vancouver Park Board Committee Chairperson, Sarah Blyth.

Whether it was the late Jamie Lee Hamilton — the self-styled Queen of the Parks — or Ms. Hadley, repeatedly and often throughout the conduct of Park Board meetings, both would call out the Commissioners, the stewards of Vancouver’s parks and recreation system, while they were conducting Park Board business.

At Vancouver City Hall, Park Board General Manager Malcolm Bromley met with Vancouver City Manager Sadhu Johnston, with the two senior staff deciding that the drafting of a Code of Conduct was in order. In late 2016, the Park Board was the first civic body to adopt an official — and strictly enforced —  Code of Conduct.

Mr. Johnston spoke with the then Vision Vancouver Mayor, Gregor Robertson, about Council adopting their own Code of Conduct, but the idea was put off. Only when a new Council was elected in late 2018, did City Manager Sadhu Johnston once again raise the spectre of the adoption of a Code of Conduct at Vancouver City Hall, an idea newly-elected Mayor Kennedy Stewart went on to champion.

Here’s a bit of background on the adoption of a Code of Conduct at City Hall.

“In response to a Council resolution in late 2019 that asked City staff to review and update the City’s code of conduct, staff undertook an analysis of the current code.

Based on this review, staff identified shortcomings in the current Code of Conduct and recommended that a new code of conduct be drafted for Council and Advisory Committees, separate from the code of conduct that applies to City staff.

In response to legislation enacted in the Provinces, municipalities across Canada have recently enacted or revised their Codes of Conduct and retained independent ethics advisors. British Columbia does not have any requirements for a municipal Code of Conduct, or the implementation of an Integrity Commissioner.”

Arising from the fact that Vancouverites elected an almost wholly novice Council, who took a long while to get their feet underneath them, and arising from a packed Vancouver City Council agenda that invariably proved contentious and was frought with hours long amendments to amendments to amendments, and the subsequent onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic, it took two full years for Vancouver City Council to adopt a new and much revised Code of Conduct.

On January 21, 2021, Council adopted a new and revised Conduct of Conduct.

Vancouver City Hall and That Damnable Code of Conduct

When on October 30, 2017, Green Party of Vancouver Board of Education trustee Janet Fraser was elected by her fellow trustees as Vancouver School Board Chairperson, Dr. Fraser set out as her …

“First priority is to build the culture of respect and then we must address the teacher recruitment and retention challenges that we’re seeing here in Vancouver. There are challenges across the province, but I think they’re particularly acute in Vancouver as we have additional challenges with affordability and teachers leaving, choosing to leave to work in other districts.”

VanRamblings celebrated Dr. Fraser’s tenure as Board of Education Chair.

The next year, following the 2018 Vancouver municipal election, when Dr. Fraser’s Green Party colleague Adriane Carr was re-elected to a third term in office, and was appointed by Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart as Chairperson of Council’s powerful Committee on Policy and Strategic Priorities, Ms. Carr decided to take a page from Dr. Fraser’s ‘book’ on how to run a reasonable and respectful civic meeting.

In her newfound role as Chairperson of Council’s Committee on Policy and Strategic Priorities, here’s how Vancouver City Councillor Adriane Carr set about to interpret Vancouver’s old, and then new, Vancouver City Hall Code of Conduct …

      • Vancouver City Councillors will treat each other with the utmost respect. A Vancouver City Councillor may not impugn, or be seen or heard to impugn, the integrity of a fellow Councillor, nor employ clever use of language, nor tone of voice, nor any other untoward mechanism of engagement that might be seen to bring disfavour to a member of Council. At all times in the Council Chambers, Councillors must interact with their fellow Councillors in an always respectful manner.
      • Failure to interact with one’s fellow Councillors in a manner consistent with ‘accepted norms’ of good governance, will see the imposition of sanctions on such member or members, ranging from the issuance of an order of an immediate apology to the aggrieved Councillor, to an ordered withdrawal from Chambers, and / or the laying of a formal Code of Conduct complaint against the offending Councillor.
      • No Councillor will ask a question of a staff person presenting to Council that would seem to hold the staff person in disrepute. Councillors must not, and will not, ever question staff information or data presented to Council. Should a Councillor present information and data contrary to the information and data presented by staff, that Councillor will be sanctioned by the Chair, have their microphone shut off, and be chastised by the Chair for engaging in untoward and unparliamentary conduct, or be ordered to withdraw forthwith from Council Chambers.
      • Citizens presenting to Council must observe the Code of Conduct as laid out for Councillors, and must not ever present information contrary to the information and data presented by staff. Citizen conduct must be respectful, whether addressing the City’s professional staff, or elected members of Council. Citizen failure to adhere to the Code of Conduct will result in the citizen’s address to Council being terminated, their microphone shut off, and their removal from the Council Chambers.
      • Note. Only the Mayor will be saved harmless from the above provisions of  Vancouver City Hall’s Code of Conduct.

      Thus this term of Vancouver City Council, none of the past entertainingly raucous engagements of Councillors with one another — Melissa De Genova or Andrea Reimer’s in-Council ‘attacks’ on one another that defined Vision Vancouver’s final term in office, nor COPE Councillor Harry Rankin’s cleverly infamous attacks on his Non-Partisan Association counterpart, George Puil, which was good-natured theatre of the first order, allowing both Councillors to make their respective points to maximum effect for public consumption and erudition — was countenanced.

      Instead at Vancouver City Council this term Vancouverites seem to have elected a mealy-mouthed, ‘go along to get along’ contingent of City Councillors who appear, for all the world, to be deep in the pockets of staff, who themselves — in some good measure — seem to be ‘in the pocket of’ or at least beholden to the developers who contribute hundreds of millions of dollars in Community Amenity Contributions to City Hall that, in effect, pays the salaries of senior City Hall staff.

      A couple of weeks ago, VanRamblings commented on Vancouver City Councillor Melissa De Genova, in a headlined column titled #VanPoli | Melissa De Genova | Fighting for You on Vancouver City Council, where we wrote …

      During the current term of office Councillor De Genova has transformed from a fighter into a pussy cat, a ‘can barely stand on her legs’ kitten.

      These past three years, what has happened to Vancouver resident champion and fighter for all that is right and good, challenger of her opposition colleagues, and ruthless yet still humane Council combatant, a woman who takes no truck nor holds any prisoners, the Melissa De Genova who calls out dissembling, self-righteous virtue signaling nonsense when one opposition Councillor or other makes a statement so ludicrous and offside that it all but demands a response from Vancouver’s warrior City Councillor.

      The answer, obviously, is quite clear: Councillor Adriane Carr’s and Mayor Kennedy Stewart’s anti-democratic interpretation of Vancouver’s damnable Code of Conduct, that serves at all times to limit debate at Council, the questioning of staff, and squelch many of the community voices who regularly present to City Council.