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Budget task force incoming... next year

Budget task force incoming... next year

And why this matters. Plus no bike lane for Stanley Park

Geoff Sharpe
November 29, 2023

WEATHER

Wednesday: 6 🌡️ 1 | 🌤️

Thursday: 6 🌡️ 2 | 🌧️

Friday: 5 🌡️ 2 | 🌧️

CITY HALL

Budget task force incoming… next year

Ken Sim. Province of BC/Flickr

What happened: Hailed as a way to deal with Vancouver’s ballooning budget and get costs under control, the mayor’s much-hyped budget taskforce, which was supposed to deliver its report this year, is now delayed, with an expected delivery date of Jan. 17, according to Vancouver is Awesome.

Background: The task force was established by Mayor Ken Sim to find efficiencies in the budget, without taking a scalpel to it — little changes, not big cuts — and find new revenue opportunities, according to CBC. The report was expected back in October but was delayed.

The problem: An interim report was delivered, but did not have specific numbers. Unfortunately for the mayor, there were not many things it found that weren’t already known, according to the Vancouver Sun. It also focused on policies that aren’t technically part of the city’s mandate but would be hard to backtrack on, such as Sim’s promise to hire more nurses.

A big recommendation was to ask other levels of government for more money… Which is already a huge plan of any municipality and Metro Vancouver.

What it means: The plan likely won’t impact next year’s budget that much, but it does mean the 7.6 percent rise in property taxes is a little more likely. The real problem is that costs continue to escalate, without even factoring in the billions that are needed for infrastructure upgrades years from now.

Looking ahead: Sim did not say if they would push the budget ahead to next year to wait for the recommendations, but it could happen. Usually the budget is passed in December.

Zoom out: While not directly applicable to this situation in Vancouver, an interesting thing happened in Toronto this week when it comes to province and city relations — the province agreed to take control of costly infrastructure projects in exchange for control over the Ontario Place development, a controversial project pushed by the provincial government. Maybe there will be horse trading in the future!

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VANCOUVER NUMBERS

📉 1.772 million: The number of private sector jobs in BC. That’s down from 1.782 million last year, a worrying sign for the province’s economic indicators. [Business in Vancouver]

❤️‍🩹 81.3: The average life expectancy for a Canadian in 2022, which is down from 82.3 back in 2019. [CTV]

CYCLING

No bike lane for you

In the words of the famous Senfield character - no bike lanes for you! Well, it wasn’t exactly like that, but it applies here in Vancouver.

What happened: On Monday, the Parks Board rejected re-opening a dedicated bike lane in Stanley Park this summer, according to CityNews.

Reasoning: The Parks Board cited “significant challenges” in bringing back the lane by 2024, including lack of funding. According to reporting from the meeting, the bike lane return could be looked at after the Stanley Park Mobility Study is completed in April.

Problems: The Green Party park board member Tom Digby noted that 50 percent of cars in the park are going over 50 km/h, versus 11 percent before. The speed limit is 30 km/h. That poses a real danger to bikers.

Challenges: ABC Coun. Mike Klassen originally promised the bike lane would be replaced in spring 2023, according to CBC reporter Justin McElroy. The purpose of removing the bike lane was to reduce traffic on the roads. But bikes still use the road, and cars must now share the extra lane, causing tension between bikes and drivers. There have been numerous reports of cyclists being harassed by drivers after the lane was removed, according to Vancouver is Awesome.

Before anyone says bikers shouldn’t be on the road, they have a legal right to use all roadways.

Zoom out: The rationale for removing the lane was to reduce traffic congestion in the area, support local businesses that said they were impacted, and provide access for people with disabilities, according to Urbanized.

But a week after the bike lane was removed in May, there was still massive car traffic in the area, according to CityNews.

DREAM HOUSE

Realtor.ca

I really like this three-bedroom, half-duplex over in East Vancouver. Why might you ask?

The kitchen is large and broken up from the living room, which in our world of open concepts, is very refreshing. And the cute patio with plenty of greenery looks like a great place to spend a summer.

Of course, any place that’s nice has a significant price tag…

House of The Week is a home selected by the Lookout team and is not a paid advertisement. All ads are labeled as such. If you’re a realtor who wishes to feature your home in our newsletter, please contact our sales team.

THE AGENDA

🔥 A fire briefly shut down traffic on West Pender between Hamilton and Howe Tuesday morning. There were no injuries reported at the scene. [CityNews]

🏢 One community group, the Carnegie Community Action Project, is calling on Coun. Rebecca Bligh to alter her proposal to improve the Downtown Eastside by adding language that would keep condos from being built in the Oppenheimer area. Bligh says she wants everyone to support her and will be bringing in language changes. [CTV]

💉 More questions are being raised about why the Drug User Liberation Front, which procured and tested drugs like heroin to provide safe supply to users and was shut down, when their activities have been known and reported on for a while. Now the members of the clinic have been forced to find unsafe drugs off the street. [Vancouver Sun]

🪧 The union representing workers at the Rogers Sugar refinery has agreed to sit down with a mediator to resolve the strike that is leading to sugar shortages in BC. Workers oppose continuous shifting which would create 24 hours of production every single day. [CTV]

👮 The BC Independent Investigative Office is looking into a man who fell from the Granville Street Bridge last week after police confronted him. [CTV]

ARTS

Theatre

The classic Snow White is reimagined with two actors, as well as a more comedic rewrite. It’s at the Carousel Theatre for Young People until Dec. 1 at Granville Island’s Waterfront Theatre. [Straight]

From now until Dec. 24 you can enjoy the improv show Back to the Holidays, a tale of Christmas past, present and future where the audience contributes to the story, featuring actors from The Improv Centre’s ensemble. [Stir]

Music

Check out Christmas with the Chor Leoni’s, a performance of singing and musical accompaniment. It’s popular for a reason! They’re performing from Dec. 15-18.

If you like hip hop, you’ll want to check out the Urban Renewal Project’s 11-year anniversary party showcasing a line-up of less mainstream music on Dec. 2. You can grab tickets here.

Movies

Potential awards-favourites Maestro and May December are on this week at VIFF. The following week you can expect some classics like Citizen Kane, and a ton of Studio Ghibli films, as well as a series called The Wonders, which is all classic movies about fairies, fables and magic.

The Whistler Film Festival is on today until Dec. 3, with some big ones like American Fiction, and smaller more intimate movies.

Art

It’s sad news for the Vancouver arts community as former executive director of the Eas

It’s a stacked lineup at this year’s Just For Laughs Vancouver Festival, with Bill Burr, Wanda Sykes, Daily Show correspondent Ronny Chieng and Ben Schwartz. [Straight]

SURVEY

What readers thought about the police stranger attack data

Here’s what Lookout readers said about in our latest reader poll about whether they thought the police had misled the public after releasing stranger attack data so late. A majority said they thought the police had misled them.

Reader: The police have so many problems to deal with. Voters have asked for more policing. It is a thankless job!

Geoff: It’s a fair point — voters overwhelmingly chose Sim and the ABC Party last election and one of the big reasons was because they focused on crime. I think the concern here comes from the police not releasing data that would’ve shifted how the public thought about this issue.

Reader: I'm all for more police. But what we really need is a hell of a lot more bylaw officers as virtually NOBODY pays any attention whatever. I've yet to ever see a bylaw officer enforcing them, bylaw officers will walk right by someone breaking one and do nothing. Fines are NEVER enforced thereby why would anyone obey them? Beaches are so full of smoke I can no longer go to them in the West End.

Geoff: People love bylaw officers until they’re on the receiving end of a ticket! I think there’s a fine line between over-ticketing in terms of what actually gets enforced. But I suspect more can be done, especially when it comes to people speeding in neighbourhoods.

Reader: I'm feeling conflicted on most of this story. 1) the idea that they being the highest paid force in Canada should be a negative is the implied tone, yet, were the lowest paying force before that and the pay raise pushed them up to the top?... 2) I'm concerned that they may have made up facts on stranger attacks, but factoring that aside, have other crime rates increased? It seems like it has, so does that somehow not justify increasing the police somewhat? In comparison to other major cities with their own police forces, is VPD overstaffed vs the percentage of the population? If VPD is only one percent of the population are they in fact overstaffed or understaffed? It just seems so much context is missing.

Geoff: This is a fair point by the reader. I’ll try to add more context next time when it comes to other city examples. This article offers some context on rising crime rates. Some are up, while some are down. I tend to be critical of public institutions because it’s my role as someone writing about them — it’s important to cover all sides of the issue. It’s especially true for groups that take up such a large part of the city’s budget.

COMMUNITY HIGHLIGHTS

Another celebrity sighting in Vancouver restaurants, this time Anthony Hopkins at Tasy Indian Bistro. I can confirm the restaurant is excellent! [Dished]
For soccer legend Christine Sinclair’s last game, BC Place will temporarily be renamed Christine Sinclair Place. [CTV]
There are plenty of options in Vancouver for all you non-alcoholic drinkers. [Straight]
What a view of the fog from Seymour Mountain. [Reddit]
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GAME TIME

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