There was a time in the not-so-distant past when life on the Park Board was riven with dysfunction and division, when Commissioners derived satisfaction from scoring points off the opposition, as if politics is all about one upmanship, with nothing to do at all about responsible governance in service of voters who elect civic bodies to represent our collective interests.
VanRamblings is pretty sure that re-elected Park Board Commissioners Stuart Mackinnon and John Coupar recall those woeful days of their previous tenures on Park Board. For here we speak of the days when Vision Vancouver led governance of the Park Board, as a stepping stone to higher office, all but ignoring their responsibility to the people who placed them in office. And then 2014 rolled around, and Vision Vancouver was all but no more on Park Board, and the birds sang and all was well with the world.
Why on God’s green earth are pundits talking post 2018 election night of a “divided Council” where decisions will be hard come by, where pundits all but celebrate the potential for fist fights between the dastardly folks elected from the Non-Partisan Association, while the “progressives” on Council attempt to hold their own against an onslaught of evil from NPA electeds.
As if somehow, Sarah Kirby-Yung is going to go toe to toe with Michael Wiebe and make his life on City Council a living hell, or Lisa Dominato will target Christine Boyle with the sort of name calling and acting out that was rife on the last Council and was the usual operating procedure of Tim Stevenson and Kerry Jang, as if on the new Council Colleen Hardwick has her sights set on that dastardly Pete Fry (we mean, just because she voted for him in the past, and considers him to be a friend, and respects the beejeezus out of him, isn’t it somehow Ms. Hardwick’s new job to make Mr. Fry’s life a living misery on Council this next four years?), as if Melissa De Genova just can’t wait to get Jean Swanson in a corner to show her who’s boss, and how about NPA newly-elected Rebecca Bligh, dollars to donuts she has her sights set on her neighbour Adriane Carr because …
Because why? Because that’s what the press wants, because cynics in our community believe our newly-elected City Council is all about the same ol’ same ol’, when voters sought change at the polls when they went into the voting booth, and now somehow change is no longer on the agenda? Oh, puh-leeze. We know every single one of the newly-elected members of Vancouver City Council, and occasional family disputes to the contrary, we know each and every one of our newly-elected members of Council to be persons of honour and integrity who mean well for the city. Those of you expecting Gun Fight at the O.K. Corrall, well, you’re just going to have to wait til next time to elect a Council that will meet your low expectations.
What does all this have to do with the newly-electeds on the Vancouver Park Board? Everything, and more. Because it was Sarah Kirby-Yung who, after years of misery on Park Board following Vision Vancouver’s tenure, created a Park Board of reconciliation, where Commissioners were focused on the work that was to be done, in order to do themselves and the people of Vancouver, proud — by creating the best galldarn parks and recreation system to be found anywhere on the continent. Because Melissa De Genova (now about to start her second term on City Council) fought — yes, because she did fight for what is right during her tenure on Park Board, and in her first term of office on Council, because that was what was required, not because opposition and unpleasantness is fundamental to one of the kindest, most thoughtful political figures VanRamblings has ever witnessed.
Don’t believe us? Just wait to see how much good Vancouver City Council gets done on our new, halcyon post-partisan City Council of reconciliation.
Dr. Janet Fraser, recent Chairperson on Vancouver’s Board of Education set a tone of reconciliation this past year at Vancouver School Board — and woebetide the Trustee who did not accede to her instruction that interaction among Trustees should be one of economium over vituperation.
In the last term at Vancouver Park Board, although things got off to a rocky start (recovery from Vision’s tenure took awhile), by the end of the term, with Stuart Mackinnon as Board Chair, as was the case the previous year with his colleague Michael Wiebe (now, newly-elected to City Council) in the Chair, an environment of co-operation washed over Commissioners — the process begun under the tenure of Sarah Kirby-Yung, the focus on what Commissioners could do together to make Vancouver’s parks and recreation system the best of its kind on the continent, all the while protecting our beaches, waterways, the natural environment, and our urban forests.
At Park Board in the last term, as was the case the past year at Vancouver School Board, a team of rivals worked together in service of the public, in service of creating, maintaining or working towards the realization of the best public education system in the province, and the most welcoming and accessible to everyone parks and recreation system anywhere in the world.
Take a gander at who you elected to Vancouver Park Board on Saturday.
Stuart Mackinnon, who 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 of heart and conscience, perhaps the best off the cuff orator around the Park Board table we’ve ever heard, quiet, authoritative, unassuming and bereft of ego, who marshalls his arguments in such a fashion as to make them unassailable, and in this new term working with his newly-elected Green colleagues, Dave Demers and Camil Dumont, hold much promise for the stewardship for Vancouver’s parks & recreation system;
John Coupar and Tricia Barker, the former who loves Park Board, and lives, eats and breathes the life of the natural environment in our city, and his newly-elected colleague, Tricia Barker (both of whom VanRamblings heartily endorsed), who believes as her colleague John Coupar does, in slow, responsible and well-considered incremental change, and a re-commitment to building a new, replacing, or renewing a community centre every term, and who believes in sustainability as a core value and in preservation of our natural environment;
And then there’s Gwen Giesbrecht, far and away our favourite new elected at Park Board, her fellow Commissioners about to see why.
Perhaps more than any other “newcomer” to the Board, Gwen Giesbrecht, along with her newly-elected COPE colleague, Dr. John Irwin, not only has a handle on the issues, both have a well thought out philosophy of governance and 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, replaced by a gigantic, multi-million dollar destination Olympic competition pool in the midst of a Kitsilano neighbourhood, all the 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, VanSplash 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.
Make no mistake, it is the newly-elected members of Vancouver Park Board who will set the stage and the table for tone and style in civic body governance in this next term, as will be the case should Dr. Janet Fraser be elected by her Trustee colleagues to another term as Chairperson, and as will be the case at Vancouver City Council if the cynics, the media and academic ne’er-do-wells give our new Council an opportunity to show their stuff, to let the people of Vancouver know that finally, finally, finally after all these past years of miserable civic governance at Vancouver City Hall, School Board and Park Board, hope for a better day is on the near horizon.
