A year of broken trust has left the embattled park board shorthanded

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Good morning,

First, I want to make a small callout to my (new) colleague Nate for his tenacious coverage of the FIFA takeover of Memorial Park, and the subsequent decision to move it.

Journalists don’t create issues. Our role is to uncover them, put flesh on them, crystalize the stakes and help the public understand exactly what is going on, especially when local communities are impacted. Nate did a fantastic job on the FIFA, through interviews and on-the-ground reporting.

It’s the type of in-depth, hyper-local journalism we plan to do more of in the future.

Speaking of Nate and big stories, today’s Insider story is something a little more niche than usual. It’s a story about committee representation, toxic relationship breakdowns and how our city operates. I hope you enjoy it. You can find that story near the end of today’s newsletter.

Let’s dive in!

— Geoff Sharpe, Lookout managing editor

PS - If you find this newsletter valuable, please consider forwarding it to your friends. New to the Lookout? Sign-up for free.

WEATHER

Friday: 4 🌡️ -1 | ☀️

Saturday: 4 🌡️ -1 | ☀️

Sunday: 5 🌡️ 1 | ☀️

Monday: 6 🌡️ 12 | ☀️

NUMBERS OF THE DAY

🏨 250: The number of rooms proposed for a floating hotel in the harbour, next to the Vancouver Convention Centre. They’re in the process of applying for a rezoning permit, and it could be in operation by 2027. [Globe and Mail]

🍄 $100,000: The amount of money seized from Vancouver mushroom dispensaries during raids last year. It’s raising questions about how B.C.’s civil forfeiture laws work. [Vancouver Sun]

CITY HALL

Mayor promises Downtown Eastside changes, no new supportive housing

What happened: If Mayor Ken Sim’s plan goes ahead, the Downtown Eastside and how the city builds supportive housing, could soon look a lot different…

At a public safety forum on Thursday, the mayor promised three major changes in regard to how the city plans to deal with issues associated with the area, according to CTV:

• No net new supportive housing units in Vancouver until the rest of the region steps up and builds more supportive housing. Sim noted the city has 25 percent of the population but 77 percent of supportive housing.

• Updating the Downtown Eastside area plan to build more diversity of housing and businesses rather than concentrate social housing there. 

• Launching a citywide crackdown on organized crimes and gangs in the area. 

Background: The Downtown Eastside is the centre of a confluence of factors that impact the rest of the city, with a concentration of rugs, crime, poverty, a concentration of homeless and supportive housing, and services for those facing homelessness, In many ways, it’s the physical representation of these issues in the minds of most people in Vancouver. 

Big problem: If Vancouver stops building social housing, would other cities really step up? The province has had difficulty getting other cities to build this type of housing, so it’s unclear why this would suddenly change things. 

• Internal issues: This announcement by Sim appears not to have been telegraphed to the rest of his ABC team. Coun. Rebecca Bligh told the Vancouver Sun she was “taken aback” back the mayor’s speech, specifically the no net new affordable housing, though was supportive of his vision for the Downtown Eastside, according to the Vancouver Sun. 

Yes, but: Sim’s announcement could be interpreted that crime is out of control in the city. But that’s not the case — at the same forum, Vancouver Police Department Chief Const. Adam Palmer said that total crime was down seven percent in the city, according to CTV. 

What it means: Municipal byelections are announced, and the mayor makes a major splashy policy announcement? And that policy announcement could be inferred as tackling the most persistent issue facing the city? The coincidence cannot be over-emphasized, as the mayor and his team prepare for what could be a tough by-election if centre and centre-left parties agree not to compete. 

• The other question is how regional mayors will react to this issue. Could it exacerbate tensions with regional mayors?

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THE AGENDA

💲 A special meeting of the Metro Vancouver Board noted that administrative services budgets increased from $2.9 million to $4.6 million as more politicians joined standing committees and governance groups. A review is currently underway, which includes looking at governance spending, as the regional government faces pushback for its spending practices. [Global News]

🌲 McDonalds Pool? The park board approved the sale of naming rights for park assets, to help generate more revenue for the city. The mayor believes that it could generate $50 to $100 million, but the lone dissenting park board member says it’ll be much less. One commissioner noted that the public should not be worried about any bad names. [CBC]

🚰 The city approved a motion to look into installing water meters in city homes. Currently, residents pay a flat rate, and the goal of the change would be to reduce water usage by residents. Vancouver is an outlier when it comes to water usage, both in terms of amount and paying a flat rate. A report is due back in late spring. [Global News]

🪙 A growing number of Vancouver restaurants are embracing no tipping policies. Cowdog Coffee for instance, doesn’t do tipping, but it instead pays workers a living wage. [Vancouver Sun]

🗳️ Vancouver South MP Harjit Sajjan announced that he would not be seeking re-election. He joins many of Liberal MPs who’ve announced they won’t run in the next election amidst low approval ratings for the Liberals. [Vancouver Sun]

🏒 The Canucks are looking into different ways to sign pending free agent goalie Kevin Larkinen, who turned out to be one of the best offseason additions, with a current record of 16-8-6. [Daily Hive]

Outside Vancouver

🚲 Metro Vancouver is getting tough with mountain cyclists and the unapproved trails they’ve created. Self-made and unsanctioned trails on the North Shore will be shut down, as the government says they pose a danger to people and nature. The North Shore Mountain Bike Association has echoed the sentiment, saying these trails can be destructive to plants and nature. [CBC]

❌ Good idea or bad idea? The District of North Vancouver announced they were no longer participating on Twitter due to the toxicity of discussions. [CBC]

EXCLUSIVE

A year of broken trust has left the embattled park board shorthanded

By Nate Lewis.

Sometimes the smallest bits of information can turn up a much bigger story. That’s what happened earlier this month with the release of an innocuous memo – a two-page list appointing park board commissioners to liaison roles with local community centre associations (CCAs) and other advisory bodies. 

What we found is that over the past two years, there’s been a significant discrepancy in liaison appointments amongst commissioners. Four commissioners – three of whom left the ABC Party in 2023 – held all these roles with CCAs in 2024, and in early January the board announced the same balance will hold for 2025. 

The sidelining of ABC commissioners – which was brought about by other commissioners, community partners, and, in part, by their own choice – underscores the lack of trust between municipal political factions, with one core issue at the centre: support for, or opposition against, keeping an elected park board. 

The politics of who is tasked with representing the park board amongst community partners – a not-often discussed role of commissioners – illuminates the deep political divisions and lack of trust that’s erupted into public view since Vancouver Mayor and ABC Party leader Ken Sim announced his plan to abolish the elected park board in late 2023. 

The Mayor’s plan to eliminate the park board resulted in a schism that broke apart ABC’s majority on the park board as three commissioners – Laura Christensen, Brennan Bastyovanszky, and Scott Jensen – decided to leave the party, and team up with Green Party Commissioner Digby to form a new majority opposed to the mayor’s plan.

• Since then, Sim has emphasized that bringing the park board under direct city governance would save approximately $7 million per year, according to City News.  

Getting a deeper look into the roles of liaisons themselves highlights the importance of direct democracy for the park board’s partners. Liaison roles are one of the governance systems that would be eliminated if the plan to absorb parks and recreation into city hall’s already broad portfolio is successful.

Importance of liaison roles for CCA’s

One piece of the significant fallout from Sim’s big move in December 2023 was the Association Presidents Group (APG), which represents 19 Vancouver community centres, rejecting the mayor’s plan, calling it “undemocratic.”

APG chair Jerry Fast, who is also the president of the Kitsilano Community Centre and the spokesperson for the Save our Park Board Coalition, said the commissioner liaison roles are one of the main reasons the APG wants to retain the elected park board. 

The liaisons “give us direct, ongoing, regular access to the elected park board, who have decision-making authority and who can direct staff if need be, to work with us and resolve issues, or help us with projects that we're hoping to implement, and so on,” Fast explained. 

Comm. Bastyovanszky, the liaison with the Kits community centre, attends most of their association board meetings, Fast said.

The focus of the liaison roles is policy and governance, rather than specific operational issues, according to park board staff.

Fast said that direct contact won’t happen under the new structure the city proposed in their November 2024 Parks and Recreation Governance Transition Planning report, which recommended the city establish a Community Partner Relations Office made up of three to five city staff members.  

It would make the process “far less democratic, [with] far less direct democracy, and [become] more indirect and bureaucratic,” Fast said. 

The city’s report also recommended establishing a council subcommittee made up of five appointed city councillors, who would work in an advisory role with no delegated authority at the subcommittee level.  

“We see this leading to a serious deterioration in the priority that parks and recreation receives in this city,” Fast argued. 

“When you have elected commissioners who run on a platform in a municipal election of carrying out a program for parks and recreation, and they are elected and accountable to the voters to do that, you necessarily have a much higher priority for the issues around parks and recreation than you will have from city councillors who are running on a whole range of issues,” Fast explained.  

Kathleen Bigsby is a board member with the Kerrisdale Community Centre. Their current liaison, Comm. Tom Digby, has been great, “attending every board meeting, providing useful information, and making pertinent comments. He responds quickly to any questions we raise,” Bigsby said.

She added that Digby has been a great improvement on previous commissioner liaisons they’ve had.

Bigsby’s remark highlights the fact that while the liaison roles allow for a direct relationship between elected officials and community centre leadership, that is dependant on each individual commissioner’s capacity and desire to engage with community partners.

The politics of a divided board

 The park board recently released their 2025 list of liaison appointments – assigned at the discretion of the board chair – which tasks commissioners to attend meetings, provide updates, and get feedback from the city’s 21 community centre associations and societies. It also assigns roles for commissioners with various civic advisory committees and community partner groups. 

The discrepancy in liaison appointments illustrates the deep rift and competing priorities amongst park board commissioners. On one side, ABC party commissioners, and on the other, community centre associations and Independent commissioners who broke away from ABC as a result of Sim’s announcement. 

This year’s appointments included 12 roles for Green Party Comm. Tom Digby, 11 each for Independent Comms. Scott Jensen and Brennan Bastyovanszky, eight for Independent Comm. and board chair Laura Christensen, and three for ABC Party Comm. Angela Haer. ABC Party Comms. Jas Virdi and Marie-Claire Howard were entirely absent from the list. 

Following Sim’s announcement and the resulting schism on the park board, the Association Presidents Group “explicitly asked not to have any ABC commissioners appointed as liaisons,” to community centre associations, Comm. Bastyovanszky said. 

APG chair Jerry Fast had a slightly different recollection, telling Vancity Lookout the initiative came from the park board side of things. He recalled a park board staffer approaching him in early January 2024 – before liaison appointments for that year were made public – to informally ask what Fast thought of not having ABC commissioners involved in liaison roles with community centres. 

“Our reaction was that, no, I didn't think [ABC commissioners] should be involved, since they voted to eliminate the park board,” Fast said. 

“It doesn't really make sense to have commissioners attending the community centre associations who want to get rid of the park board. It makes for a very awkward situation,” Fast explained.

There was also a successful park board motion in December 2023, formally establishing the board’s opposition to the mayor’s plan — which Virdi, Howard, and Haer opposed — and was a “contributing factor to the idea of distancing from ABC,” according to Bastyovanszky.

With the APG’s blessing, Bastyovanszky, in his role as board chair, chose not to involve the ABC commissioners in liaison roles beginning in 2024. The one exception to that was Haer’s appointment to city council’s Racial and Ethno-Cultural Equity Advisory Committee, a role which she was reappointed to for 2025.  

While there isn’t a formal policy for liaison appointments, according to park board staff, the previous park board distributed liaison appointments amongst all commissioners, as did the current board until 2024. The precedent is that the board chair recommends the liaison appointments, staff said.

“I tried to be fair,” incoming board chair Christensen said about the 2025 appointments. “I contacted commissioners before Christmas and asked them what their liaison interests were, and if they could get back to me. Commissioners Howard and Verdi didn't reply to that. So I took that to [mean] that they are not interested in liaison appointments, so they weren't assigned any for this year… if they're not willing to take an interest in the roles, I wasn't going to assign them to a role that they didn’t want,” she added. 

Going into 2025 “there's definitely still concerns from the community centre associations about having commissioners who support abolishing the park board being their liaisons,” Christensen said. “When the community centre associations have come out in support of keeping the park board, there's obviously a bit of a conflict there. So just to avoid that kind of uncomfortable conflict, you know, it makes more sense that they don't hold those roles,” Christensen explained. 

Fast concurred, saying he still feels that ABC commissioners shouldn’t be in these roles with community centres due to their support of the mayor’s plan. 

“They don't believe in the elected park board… it’s kind of hard to work with people who aren't committed to their role,” Fast said.

But Christensen said she did open up many other roles to the ABC commissioners for 2025. “I asked commissioners for their interest in other liaison roles, specifically with some city liaison roles,” Christensen said. 

Comm. Howard said she didn’t become aware of a Dec. 20, 2024 email – addressed to all commissioners, soliciting their interest in being committee liaisons – until just before the Dec. 29 deadline, and was unable to respond. 

Despite the Dec. 20 email from board chair Christensen, Howard said that the appointments were made “without consultation,” and appointments to council advisory bodies in particular were “overlooked.” 

Howard did not respond to Vancity Lookout’s questions regarding whether she was interested in having a liaison position with one of these advisory bodies. 

From his perspective, Comm. Virdi told Vancity Lookout he didn’t reply to the Dec. 20 email requesting expressions of interest for the 2025 liaison positions because he’s boycotting the roles. That decision is due to several disputes with Bastyovanszky and other commissioners, including his removal from liaison roles in 2024. 

“When the opportunity came this year for the positions, it just, mentally, it hurt me a lot last time, and I just feel like I knew the same thing was going to happen this time, so I just didn't even put my name forward,” Virdi said.

In 2024 “I fought so hard, and I was getting nowhere,” Virdi said. “At the end of the day, the authority resides with the majority. So this time, I didn't bother for that reason. It was a traumatic experience [last year] because staff weren't able to help,” he added.

“I would love to have the opportunity to be a liaison. But I can't support a system where there's prejudice and unfairness,” Virdi said.

In an email to Bastyovanszky and others in April 2024, Virdi lodged several complaints, such as not being included in any liaison roles and not being able to submit certain photos to the Chair’s Report. In the email, which Virdi shared with Vancity Lookout, he asked Bastyovanszky for “a letter from every CCA and advisory committee that shows they do not want me as their liaison.”  

“Angela Haer supports the dissolution of the park board and yet you put her on the ethnic advisory,” Virdi added. 

Haer is the one ABC commissioner who seems to still be able to work with the non-ABC majority, albeit in a limited way. Vancity Lookout reached out to Haer for comment but the commissioner did not respond by publication time.

In the email chain, Bastyovanszky explained that “Commissioner Haer proactively expressed interest to the Chair in working with a committee as a liaison and offered to volunteer for her appointed liaison role. This email thread is the first time you [Virdi] have expressed any interest to the Chair to be on a committee,” Bastyovanszky said.

“I'm still there to fight,” Virdi told Vancity Lookout. “I believe [the] park board needs to be dissolved because it's inefficient… I'm there just to make sure that the mayor's plan goes forward, because I do think it's better for the city. At the end of the day, I love being a commissioner. I know I'm losing my position, but I'm doing it because I know it's the right decision for Vancouverites… I feel like this is a redundant board, and it's wasting taxpayers money,” Virdi explained. 

Having “the workload spread across seven [commissioners] is better for the community… We would much rather have some trust in the ABC commissioners, but they’re not to be trusted with parks and recreation. They burnt trust with the community,” Bastyovanszky said. 

More work to go around 

The loss of trust in ABC commissioners amongst their colleagues and community partner groups has the practical effect of increasing the responsibilities of the four other commissioners.   

Comm. Christensen said that a reduced roster of commissioners in liaison roles means a bigger workload. 

“That means sometimes attending two community association meetings in one night. So you're going to one meeting, then driving across the city to another meeting. But that's part of the job, and I think that's what we signed up for… it's an important role that we take very seriously,” Christensen said. 

Comm. Bastyovanszky said the workload is too much. “I'm so overloaded. The four of us [himself, Christensen, Digby, and Jensen], we now have like two full time jobs with the amount of workload, working with all the community centres… We’re attending as many CCA meetings as we can, and we’re still maintaining a good relationship with the associations, but it's too many,” he said. 

The fact that this current workload is already a lot for four commissioners who are only responsible for parks and recreation doesn’t augur well for CCAs if management of Vancouver parks and recreaction is brought under a five-person city council sub-committee, plus three to five city staffers, as recommended by the city’s latest transition report.  

“We can't believe that city councillors are going to come and attend our board of directors meetings the way commissioners do,” Fast said. “They don't have the time. They're going to be taking on the responsibilities of park board commissioners, on top of everything else that they're responsible for. That's what they want to do. It's hard to believe,” the APG chair said. 

What it means 

The big picture takeaway is that eliminating the park board would result in less direct democracy at these fine grain municipal levels for places like community centres.

The broken trust that resulted from the mayor’s 2023 announcement is a big factor here, which has had ripple effects on the political alignment of the board and the day-to-day tasks of park board commissioners. 

The schism also means the public has far greater insight into the inner workings of this unique civic body, which likely wouldn’t expose itself in such detail if not for the overt threat to the park board’s existence. While the entrenched hostilities between the two camps is not a good thing on its face, it does provide the public with greater access and understanding of the board’s current governance practices and how the proposed plan to integrate services may impact community services we all rely on.  

What’s next

In March 2024, prior to the recent provincial election, Premier David Eby said that the province is “committed to advancing the dissolution of the Vancouver park board in the next legislative session… we commit to advancing the requested Vancouver Charter changes to dissolve the park board in the next earliest legislative session,” according to the Vancouver Sun. 

Now that Eby’s party has narrowly won another majority, it remains to be seen if he’ll follow through with that promise when the Legislative Assembly reconvenes in February. 

Eby’s recently released mandate letters to the Minister of Local Governments, and the Minister of Housing and Municipal Affairs, did not include any explicit mention of the park board or changes to the Vancouver Charter, indicating it’s not a high-level priority for the incoming BC NDP government. 

EVENT GUIDE

Vancouver Women’s Flat-Track Roller Derby Double-Header | Poirier Forum | Jan. 26, 1 pm | Admission by donation

PuSh International Performing Arts Festival | Various venues around town | Now until Feb. 9, various times | Various prices, including free options

MENA Film Festival | VIFF Centre and online | Jan. 25–30, various times | Various prices, some free events

Taste Our Travels: Basque Region & Cantabria | ¿CóMO? Taperia | Now until Feb. 9, 4–9 pm | Tickets $170 per group

Lunar New Year Market | UBC Botanical Garden | Jan. 25–26, 10 am–4 pm | Tickets $9

Dine Out Vancouver Festival | Various restaurants around Vancouver | Now until Feb. 9 | See restaurants

Beetlejuice (Touring) | Queen Elizabeth Theatre | Now until Jan. 26, various times | Tickets $119+

A Classical Piano Showcase with Shoko Inoue | Pyatt Hall at the VSO School of Music | Jan. 24, 6:00 pm | Tickets $50

COMMUNITY HIGHLIGHTS

• One of my favourite local pizza chains is opening a fourth location. [Vancouver is Awesome]

• The Sedins, Naslund and three other players were chosen as the Canucks quarter century team. Do you agree with the selections? [NHL]

• There’s an exciting new triathlon event coming this summer to Vancouver. [Endurance]

• You can snag tickets from Vancouver to Hawaii for under $250. [Vancouver is Awesome]

• BC spirit companies did very well at the Canadian Whiskey Awards, including local Odd Spirit Society. [Straight]

VANCOUVER WORDLE

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