Candidates names are listed by their order on the new randomized Park Board ballot
Here’s what’s gonna happen.
On Saturday night, Vancouver voters who have gone to the polls will have decided who’s elected to Council, School Board, and Park Board.
At Park Board, we can only hope that John Coupar, Casey Crawford and Stuart Mackinnon are re-elected. Everyone else who will be elected to Park Board will be rookies. Not to worry, as above, there are some good folks eminently qualified to run for and achieve a seat on the next Park Board.
No matter what happens Saturday night that determines the future of Vancouver’s parks and recreation system, believe us when we say it will not come close to the nightmare that is about to unfold at the City Council table, where there’ll likely be at least seven, and probably nine new elected who will ascend to Council, most of whom not only won’t know where to find the washrooms at City Hall in their first two years at the seat of city governance, for all the hard work the new Councillors will find they have to do, chances are all that will come of that is lot of wheel spinning.
For the record, VanRamblings is no more hopeful about prospects for the new Vancouver School Board. Janet Fraser may be the best governing Board of Education Chair in a generation, but we have our doubts that she’ll be able to exercise any control whatsoever over the fire and brimstone newbies who will fill the seats around the Board of Education table.
Thank your lucky stars, and thank the heavens that pretty much whoever is elected to Vancouver’s Park Board will be possessed of the wit, the intelligence, the élan and all of the information they’ll need to acquit themselves while under the tutelage of a sure-to-become beleaguered Park Board General Manager, the unfailingly steadfast Malcolm Bromley.
Take a minute. Look up. What you’ll see on the ballot above and at the end of this post is that there is only one Green Park Board candidate.
We’ll tell you who — which won’t endear us to the two gentleman mentioned in the next two paragraphs of today’s Park Board endorsements post, both of whom we believe will be elected to Park Board. Alas.
We spoke with Greens’ Camil Dumont and Dave Demers, listened to what they had to say at various of the all candidates, and both seemed to feel that they could “learn on the job.” VanRamblings blanched. When we suggested to the new Green candidates that they might want to sit down with current Green Park Board Commissioners Stuart Mackinnon & Michael Wiebe to apprise themselves of the issues, both pooh-poohed the idea.
VanRamblings has no doubt Green candidates for Park Board Dumont and Demers are good guys — although we would have much preferred Mash Salehomoum, the recommended Green candidate for Park Board, but you know how it is, women just don’t belong at the seat of power, do they? Never mind a woman of colour (blog writer rolls eyes, just before tears start to cascade down his cheeks). Next thing you know, they’ll want to take over the world. Ms. Salehomoum — darned impressive, though.
Update: The informal discussions VanRamblings had with Mr. Dumont and Mr. Demers, the Green Party candidates for Park Board are as we report above — however, it should be noted that those conversations happened early in the 2018 election season. Apprisal matters apparently changed.
Soon after publication of today’s Park Board candidate endorsement list, we received the following correspondence from Green Party of Vancouver Commissioner, Stuart Mackinnon — a two-term member of the Board, and since the past December, it’s Chair (who we heartily endorse below) …
Thank you for your endorsement. I would like to correct one thing in your posting though. Dave Demers, Camil Dumont, and I have caucused almost every Saturday morning since our nominations. Michael Wiebe has joined us on occasion, as have other Green candidates — both at our Saturday morning meetings and other times as well.
Dave and Camil are probably more familiar with the issues of the Board than the majority of other candidates. In addition to this, Camil was a front line worker at the Park Board for 10 years as a seasonal outside worker. To suggest Dave and Camil are unprepared for the role of Commissioner is both untrue and unfair.
Readers are now apprised of “the facts”. We are grateful to Mr. McKinnon for posting to us the corrected information to be found directly above.
Mr. Mackinnon’s statement notwithstanding, VanRamblings continues to harbour grave concerns about the Green Party slate — concerns shared by Denise Brennan, a candidate for nomination with the Green Party for City Council, addressing the crowd gathered at the nomination meeting back in June — that not enough consideration had been given to balancing the slates, with only four of eleven Green candidates for office women.
All of the above said, we would suggest to VanRamblings’ readers that when you take a look at the names of the individuals in the graphic at the top, and at the bottom of today’s column, rest easy that the names on the VanRamblings’ endorsed Park Board ballot represent for us the best of the best of Park Board candidates in the 2018 civic election, and provide to the citizens of Vancouver who love of our parks and recreation system the best possible opportunity for the responsible stewardship we all need.
And now we’ll tell you why, which is the raison d’être of today’s column …
Tricia Barker — has a deep connection to our parks & recreation system
For years, VanRamblings has attempted to convince our socialist friends that Vancouver’s parks and recreation system represents a class issue — all, sadly, to know avail. “Vancouver is all about development, Raymond,” VanRamblings is told. “Who cares about our parks and community centres? Not us. You’re just being naïve.”
Well, you know who cares about Vancouver’s parks, its beaches, its forests, ponds, lakes, wildlife and our city’s thriving, but underfunded, community centres? Darn right it’s a class issue — but for the Vancouver Non-Partisan Association (NPA), who since 1937 have acted as stewards of our parks system & since the early 1950s, the community centres across our city — most of which were built when the NPA was in power, as they replaced, renewed or built a new community centre every three years, for decades.
Most of our left-of-centre friends would look at the fact that VanRamblings is endorsing three NPA candidates for Park Board, and think to themselves, “What’s wrong with Raymond, anyway? What can he possibly be thinking in endorsing three candidates from a right-of-centre civic party?”
Ain’t nuthin’ wrong with VanRamblings, folks. We care desperately about Vancouver’s beleaguered parks and recreation system — as do COPE’s entirely tremendous 2018 Park Board candidates, Gwen Giesbrecht and John Irwin. Truth to tell, unlike Council and School Board, there are no politics at Park Board — well, there was for the six years Vision Vancouver ruled at Park Board, when they failed to replace or build one new community centre, never mind renew a centre badly in need of repair.
For the Non-Partisan Association (NPA) there is stewarship of our parks and recreation system — nothing more, that’s all there is to it. At Council and School Board, the steady as she goes, slow to change, incremental steps to improvement — well, that doesn’t exactly work for us, does it? At Council and at School Board, we need change, we desperately need change now.
At Vancouver Park Board, we need slow, incremental change, a re-commitment to building a new, replacing, or renewing a community centre every term, we need Commissioners around the Park Board table who care, actually care, about our national environment, Commissioners who will work to ensure access for every resident of Vancouver to our parks, pools and recreation centres, irrespective of their economic circumstance or sexual orientation, Commissioners who are committed to developing programmes like the Mobi-2-Go programme allowing $20-a-year access to families living in poverty and seniors living on fixed incomes — the NPA did all of that and more working in concert with their fellow Commissioners, all the while protecting Vancouver’s urban forest, and ensuring food choices at concession stands would be healthier and more nutritious, and much more.
So, are we endorsing Tricia Barker for Vancouver Park Board?
You’re darn tootin’ we are. We’ve met Tricia Barker, we’ve spoken with her multiple times, and we know in our heart that Tricia Barker will not play politics at the Park Board table. Elect Tricia Barker to Park Board, and you elect a steward of our parks and recreation system, who will fight for more funding, and maintenance of our natural environment.
And, heck, we didn’t even mention that for children living in poverty in our city, and the hundreds of thousands of Vancouverites who live in apartments, condominiums or housing co-ops, parks are their back yard, and for tens of thousands, Vancouver’s community centres are their low-cost, easy to access “living rooms” where health and connection is on their agenda, not to mention the potential of making new friends with their previously unknown to them neighbours, and soon-to-be new friends.
John CouparPast Park Board Chair. Must re-elect. Loves our parks & recreation system
The most resolute parks and recreation advocate we have seen at the Park Board table in a generation, whose father worked for Park Board for 40 years, his young son John often by his side. John Coupar loves Park Board, and in the face of 10 years of Vision Vancouver pulling the strings at City Hall, stripping a third of the Park Board budget to fund their pet projects instead, that you can enjoy spending a day in our parks, at the beach, and visiting our community centres — you’ve got John to thank for that.
You want a Park Board Commissioner who is a defender of Vancouver’s parks and recreation system, who as a first order of business when he became Park Board Chair in December 2014 was to ensure that Park Board moved quickly on implementation of the gender variant policy he had spoken to so eloquently only months before, in order that by early January that first trans only swim at Templeton pool was taking place.
That’s our John Coupar. A man to be celebrated, and a civic treasure, and wherever you are along the political spectrum, a must vote.
Casey CrawfordThe ‘fields guy’, the youth sports advocate. Democrat. Great chairperson
Park Board Committee Chairperson, with his NPA Park Board running mate, Tricia Barker
Prior to the actual Park Board meeting take place, there’s a 4-hour Park Board “Committee” meeting which takes place, where the public is heard from, and where all the decisions at Park Board take place. While Park Board Chairs change each year by a vote of the Commissioners, for four years Casey Crawford has found himself nominated as the “Committee Chair” because all of the Commissioners can see that it was Casey and Casey alone who could act on behalf of the Board, and the citizens of Vancouver, as the democratic Chair of the Park Board Committee.
Now, apart from Casey Crawford’s brilliance as a democratic meeting Chair there’s this: do you have children who, or when you were younger, play soccer, baseball, rugby, field hockey or anyone other of the myriad outdoor sports played on fields across the city? Do you know who for the past 20 years has headed up the youth recreation system in Vancouver, prior to his election to Park Board as a Commissioner? Yep, that’d be Casey Crawford — the single most knowledgeable guy in the city when it comes to field and youth sports in the city of Vancouver, who has a great relationship with every parent, and a whole bunch of kids in neighbourhoods across our city.
Casey Crawford, the democratically engaged, humble “fields guys” on Park Board. Don’t know who to cast your vote for Park Board — John Coupar and Casey Crawford are the soft spoken ‘can do’ guys around the Park Board table, as has been the case for four years, absolute treasures in our city for anyone who loves our parks and publicly accessible community centres.
VanRamblings will also recommend to you, Park Board candidate Tricia Barker, who we’ve met, and spoken with.
Shamim Shivji — parks are a sacred space
Lawyer, mediator and small business owner, and most important to VanRamblings (and to you, we would hope) for the past 7 years Shamim Shivji has acted as a director of the West Point Grey Community Association (WPGCA), where for the past 2½ years the Board has chosen her to lead the organization as its President.
VanRamblings has spent tens of hours listening to and talking with Shamim Shivji — from the start she impressed us, as has her colleague candidate for Park Board, Cameron Zubko (about whom we heard more good things from across the political spectrum this past six months than any other candidate seeking office this year).
Both know the “issues”, both come down on the right side of the issues (which we’ll explore a bit when we write about Gwen Giesbrecht), both are bright, seasoned community activists who we cannot recommend to you more highly, as two of the must-elects in 2018 to Vancouver Park Board.
Shamim Shivji is a democrats to her core, with an independent spirit and mind, the take no guff advocate for the public interest we want representing our interests at the Park Board table.
We cannot recommend Shamim Shivji to you too highly. Shamim Shivji is, we believe, a must-elect at the polls.
Gwen Giesbrecht — première caretaker of Vancouver’s parks & rec system
Gwen Giesbrecht is VanRamblings’ favourite candidate for Vancouver Park Board in 2018. Perhaps that’s because she’s a friend of ours — and we mean, a true friend — but more, it’s probably because of her work as a 20-year veteran director, and more often President, of East Van’s critically important neighbourhood resource, the Britannia Community Centre.
Perhaps more than any other “newcomer” to the Board, Gwen Giesbrecht not only has a handle on the issues, she has a well thought out philosophy of governance & activism that serves all of our interests. As Gwen says …
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Building neighbourhood pools, which were closed by the seemingly anti-park Vision Vancouver majority Park Board (always under the thumb of then City Manager, Dr. Penny Ballem) is a top priority for her;
- Renewing our community centres, many of which are ten years past due renovation, or replacement, while also ensuring the proper funding of our community centre programmes, of such value to the community;
- Fighting against the 12-foot wide asphalt bike path through Kitsilano Beach, through the basketball court, and the children’s play area that HUB, for years, and Vision Vancouver have tried to shove down the throats of residents;
- Resisting Vision Vancouver’s VanSplash initiative that would close Lord Byng and Templeton pools, instead building a gigantic, multi-million dollar destination Olympic competition pool in the midst of a Kitsilano neighbourhood, while destroying scarce green space, which is to say Connaught Park to the west of the Kits Community Centre, which would come down, as would the hockey rink attached to the Kits Community, all in favour of an environmentally irresponsible Olympic competition pool paid for out of your dollars, but meant to be inaccessible to the public for large portions of the year.
And those are just some of the issues that the new Park Board will face, likely at their second ever meeting, at the beginning of February.
Me, I want someone on Park Board who knows the issues, is on our side, wants to build the city we need, and will go to bat for us.
That’s Gwen Giesbrecht in spades — destined to be our strongest advocate at the Park Board table over the coming four year term of office.
John Irwin — preservation of the environment his life’s work
John Irwin, a longtime community activist and environmentalist earned a PhD from the University of B.C. in sustainable urban development is a lecturer in geography and labour studies at University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University, and is an avid cycling enthusiast and advocate, as well as a well-respected sustainability advocate.
During the 2018 Vancouver civic election campaign, Dr. John Irwin has spoken out against the contracting-out of park maintenance on the new rooftop Oakridge Centre park. Says Dr. Irwin, “this will become the first city-owned park that will be maintained by private workers, and not by park board employees,” expressing the concern that “the privatized maintenance of the rooftop park may be used as a model for other major rezoning applications that involve the provision of public spaces.”
Dr. Irwin has worked with the City of Vancouver’s Planning Department on the future of the Southeast False Creek area, as co-ordinator of the Southeast False Creek Working Group. At Vancouver City Hall, he is a member of the Advisory Group for the Sustainability Process in Southeast False Creek & a member of the Southeast False Creek stewardship group.
Clearly, both Gwen Giesbrecht and John Irwin possess the qualifications necessary to be outstanding advocates for Vancouver’s parks and recreation. VanRamblings enthusiastically endorses Gwen Giesbrecht and John Irwin and urges you to cast a vote for each.
Stuart MackinnonStaunch defenders of publication education, and the must, must-elects in 2018
Here’s what we’ve about Stuart Mackinnon in the past …
Stuart Mackinnon is both the star around the Park Board table, and the conscience of Park Board, perhaps the hardest working member of the Board, with a stronger command of the issues than anyone else at the Park Board table. In the past we have written that we didn’t always agree with some of the positions that Mr. Mackinnon took on the issues at the Park Board table — but upon reflection, and taking an intense look at Stuart Mackinnon’s record, we’re going to admit we were wrong, that in fact Mr. Mackinnon always comes out on the side of the issues that: protect our environment, the sustainability of our parks and beaches, the viability of our community centres — among a host of others issues — all the while emerging as Park Board’s most compelling & articulate speaker, perhaps the best off the cuff speaker around the Park Board table we’ve ever heard, quiet and authoritative yet unassuming, who marshalls his arguments in such a fashion that they are unassaible, leaving the other six Park Board Commissioners with no other option than to support whatever initiative he is bringing before that Board that evening.
Stuart Mackinnon always votes on the side of the citizens of Vancouver, and seeks to convince the Board to realign their spending priorities so as to ensure monies are spent on programmes that serve us.
VanRamblings has known Stuart Mackinnon for a long time, we watched him at the Park Board table between 2008 and 2011, and again in 2014 thru today, and believe in the deepest part of our being it is the thoughtful, accomplished Stuart Mackinnon, perhaps more any other Commissioner, who best represents the interests of the citizens of Vancouver.
As such, VanRamblings enthusiastically endorses Stuart Mackinnon, a must, must, must vote for Park Board in the 2018 Vancouver civic election.
Alternate | Rick Hurlbut — qualified, committed, prepared to put in the hours
VanRamblings is identfying two alternate candidates for Park Board.
A Pro Vancouver candidate for Park Board, as Rick Hurlbut says in the video above, you want to know that the candidate you select to be a Commissioner in this next term of governance at Park Board is qualified.
Rick Hurlbut has attended every meeting of Park Board in the past 24 months — no mean commitment that.
Mr. Hurlbut is familiar with the myriad issues that come before Park Board, and the issues that have been held over until the next term. As he suggests in the video above, Rick has spent literally hundreds of hours on work related to Park Board activities, and states that he is fully prepared for the 35 – 40 hour weekly work load expected of a Commissioner, including: liaison to School Board /City Council, liaison to three community centres (representing their interests at the Board), as well as the hundreds of hours of work in the community expected of Park Board Commissioners.
In addition, Rick Hurlbut is an out and proud member of Vancouver’s gay community, and as such would represent an important voice at the Park Board table, as the only LGBTQ2+ member likely to sit on the new Board.
In the 2011 – 2014 Park Board term of office, were it not for the work of activist and proud member of the LGBTQ2+ community, Trevor Loke, the Board would not have adopted a gender variant policy that assures ready and safe access to parks and recreation services in the City of Vancouver for all the members of Vancouver’s LGBTQ2+ community.
For all the reasons above, and more, VanRamblings enthusiastically endorses the candidacy of Rick Hurlbut as an alternate for Park Board.
Alternate | Cameron Zubko — our parks & recreation services belong to us
After posting Wednesday’s endorsement of Cameron Zubko, VanRamblings received the following note — make of it what you will …
“I was less than impressed with Cam Zubko at an early summer event. His focus on “safe” parks sounded a little like a dog whistle to the notion of policing addiction and homelessness. When I asked another candidate about how we might reduce Airbnb’s stranglehold on secondary suites, Zubko’s partner stepped in and cautioned that we don’t want a nanny state. I was left with a very Yaletown aftertaste from the whole thing.”
Cameron is a Métis business owner with 20 years of experience building partnerships and infrastructure across the country. As Cameron says in the video above, he also serves on the City of Vancouver’s Urban Indigenous People’s Advisory Committee where he has worked with city councillors to advise Council on indigenous issues and how to move forward on reconciliation with our indigenous peoples.
VanRamblings has moved Cameron Zubko for endorsed to alternate, as we still feel that his presence around the Park Board table would represent a voice for the under represented indigenous community. Support of Mr. Zubko is split — have of VanRamblings trusted correspondent express concern of his candidacy, while the other half both enthusiastically support Cameron Zubko for Park Board, have donated to his campaign, held coffee klatches at their homes, and have joined Mr. Zubko’s campaign team.
As such, VanRamblings endorses Cameron Zubko as an alternate, with reservations, as noted in the commentary above.
So here’s what gonna happen.
On Saturday night, a new Park Board will be elected. And you sure as heck better hope that it is the engaged, socially and environmentally responsible candidates for Park Board VanRamblings has written about above.
In October, the new Commissioners will meet out of the public eye to choose a new Chairperson from the seven Park Board Commissioners, as well as elect a new Park Board Committee Chairperson. There’s a possibility that decision will be held off until January, but that’s unlikely.
Park Board GM, Malcolm Bromley, will require direction from the Chair.
The new Board will officially be inaugurated the first week of December, with the newly-elected Chairperson addressing members of the public. The event is open to all citizens — we urge you to consider attending, with everyone (except for VanRamblings, of course) dressed in their best bib & tucker. The whole event is enjoyable, and quite moving.
Again, generally only invited guests attend, but you should go. Really.
If past practice holds, the next meeting of the new Park Board will not take place until the end of the second week of January, the first opportunity the new Board will have to conduct the business of the people. This will be the ‘getting your feet’ wet meeting for the new Commissioners. VanRamblings feels quite confident should the public show the wisdom to elect the Commissioners endorsed above, the first meeting will establish a certain sense of decorum, as to how the Board will be governed, and govern itself.
The first “real” meeting of the new Park Board, then, where the new Commissioners will preside will occur at the beginning of February, when the new Commissioners are likely to find themselves overwhelmed with the agenda for that early February meeting. Why overwhelmed?
Dear reader, because it is at that first meeting in February the new Board will make a decision on the controversial park & neighbourhood destroying Olympic competition pool — one might reasonably expect to see 150 irate citizens filling the gallery in the Park Board Committee meeting room.
But that’s not all: as above, there’s that damnable 12-foot wide child killing — at least according to the two heads of the children’s health departments at UBC Hospital and the Vancouver General Hospital — asphalt bike path through Kits Beach that the new board will have to adjudicate.
That first meeting may cause some of the new Park Board Commissioners to wonder what they’ve gotten themselves into.
But not really — not if you elect the candidates we endorse above.
VanRamblings’ City Council endorsement rationale is available here.
VanRamblings’ School Board endorsement rationale is available here.
VanRamblings’ all women slate for Council may be found here.
