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

A niche aspect of governance at the park board highlights the practical impacts of broken trust, resulting from Mayor Ken Sim's proposal to eliminate the board.

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

Association Presidents Group chair Jerry Fast / Kitsilano Community Centre

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.  

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