Tag Archives: vancouver park board

#SaveOurParkBoard | Ken Sim / ABC Vancouver Lies

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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.

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?

 

#SaveOurParkBoard | Tender Moments of Change at Park Board, Pt 1

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The mandate of the elected Vancouver Park Board: building a bridge to a better tomorrow

As the last bastion for civic democracy in our city, the Vancouver Park Board has played a vital role in serving the best environmental, recreational and family interests of the community for more than 133 years, since its founding in 1889.

For many years, members of the community who attended Park Board meetings to address an issue or a “cause” sat at the same table as the elected Park Board Commissioners while addressing their concern, and were successful in having a direct impact on the livability and humanity of our beloved home by the ocean.

Today on VanRamblings, the first of two “stories” revolving around humanity at the Park Board table, specifically involving past Park Board Chairperson John Coupar, as well as Park Board Commissioners Trevor Loke and Constance Barnes, who sat on the 2014  Vancouver Park Board with Commissioners Sarah Blyth, Melissa De Genova and current British Columbia Attorney General, Niki Sharma.

Vancouver Park Board Adopts an Inclusive Trans & Gender-Variant Policy


Trevor Loke, Vision Vancouver Park Board Commissioner

At the  May 12, 2013 meeting of Park Board, Commissioner Trevor Loke moved a motion to establish a trans and gender-variant working group, aimed at creating more inclusive spaces for members of the trans and gender-variant communities.

The Park Board Commissioners unanimously supported the motion, drawing a standing ovation from the dozens of supporters of the motion, present in the Park Board meeting room that night, many of the attendees sharing trenchant stories with the Commissioners about their experiences of feeling unwelcome in city facilities, such as recreation centres, swimming pools, and washrooms.

“There are days when with the best intents I’m off to the gym or off to the pool, and I turn around and I go back,” said Drew Dennis, a member of the City of Vancouver’s LGBTQ advisory committee.

One year later, on Monday, April 28, 2014, the Vancouver Park Board’s Trans* and Gender-Variant Inclusion Working Group reported back to the seven Park Board Commissioners gathered at the table, on their engagement findings and priority recommendations, aimed at enhancing service quality and access to facilities.

On that warm, early spring evening, 150 members of the trans and gender-variant community were present in the Park Board meeting room to address the recommendations of the working group, a good number of whom who would come to sit at the Park Board table while speaking to the Commissioners: incredibly articulate physicians employed by Vancouver Coastal who identified themselves as gender-variant persons on the spectrum, who spoke movingly and with spirit.

Young persons, high school students, members of the business community, teachers, lawyers, construction workers, actors and entertainers, seniors, a broad and representative spectrum of members of the cultural and ethnic mosaic communities that comprise and have long defined the Vancouver we know and love.


Constance Barnes, elected Chairperson of the Vancouver Park Board, on December 5, 2011

When it came time for the Commissioners to vote to adopt and establish a 2SLGBTQIA+ policy, the first Commissioner to speak was Vision Vancouver Park Board Commissioner Constance Barnes, who spoke with eloquence in her support of each of the members of the 2SLGBTQIA+ who were present in the room, down the long hallway outside the meeting room, and who had been standing outside the office listening to the speakers, now ready to hear Ms. Barnes’ words.

Constance Barnes’ address to the community gathered in the room, and to her fellow Commissioners, was heartbreakingly poignant, as she spoke of “righting an historical wrong”, of how — as a member of a minority community — she had often found herself excluded and even demeaned, and of how important it was to her that the Board unanimously adopt the motion to establish a 2SLGBTQIA+ policy that, among other initiatives, would construct all new change rooms, including three separate change rooms: Universal (U), Women (W) and Men (M).


John Coupar, long-serving Non-Partisan Association Vancouver Park Board Commissioner

Next to speak: Non-Partisan Association Park Board Commissioner, John Coupar.

“Sitting at the Park Board table this quite wondrous evening, as was clearly the case with my fellow Commissioners, I was heartened and stirred by all that I heard, of the grace and vivid evocation of spirit of all the speakers, your pointed, poignant and potent argumentation for necessary change to establish a fairer and more inclusive society, and the role that the Vancouver Park Board has to play in realizing a more inclusive community for all.

Listening to the speakers who sat at the Park Board table this evening, I was moved. I am changed, forever. For me, the best part of being a Park Board Commissioner is how I am afforded the opportunity to learn about aspects of life about which I was not fully aware. I want to thank you for helping to make me a better, a more whole person, and for working with us to help create a fairer and more inclusive city for all.

2014 is an election year. If I should be so fortunate to  be re-elected to Park Board this autumn, and should I become the Chairperson of the Board, I commit to you tonight, that my first priority will include the construction of the new change rooms that Commissioner Barnes spoke about, but more: I will establish, as was requested this evening, a gender variant swim at the Templeton and Lord Byng pools, and during my next term in office, I will work with the 2SLGBTQIA+ community to create a welcoming environment in our community and aquatic centres, to work with you towards the creation of a fairer community for all.”

Indeed, John Coupar was re-elected as a Park Board Commissioner on Saturday, November 15, 2014, and was soon after inaugurated as Chairperson of the Board at a ceremony held at the VanDusen Botanical Gardens, on December 1, 2014.

Park Board Chairperson John Coupar’s first priority?

Establish a gender-variant swim at each of the Templeton and Lord Byng pools.

Next, Chairperson Coupar instructed Park Board General Manager Malcolm Bromley to begin work on the construction of inclusive change rooms and washroom facilities for members of the trans and gender variant communities.

In the 50+ years VanRamblings has covered the work that takes place at the Vancouver Park Board table, never have we been more moved than was the case this hallowed evening of change for the better, never before or since have we experienced as moving and eloquent a speaker than was the case with Constance Barnes on that particular late evening of April, 2014, and never, ever have we been more proud of an elected official than was the case that halcyon evening, and since, in the person of John Coupar, a true hero in our fair city by the sea.

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

#SaveOurParkBoard | Council Moves to Abolish Elected Park Board

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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

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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!