Column: "This is one of the most extraordinary policy announcements in the history of the city, and this isn't particularly professional," said Research Co. president Mario Canseco.
With Vancouver council set to consider the end of the city’s 133-year-old elected park board, questions remain unanswered about the mayor’s claims of millions in savings.
Discussions about the fate of the park board also keep getting mired in bizarre sideshows — the latest came during Monday night’s park board meeting when some surreptitious photography brought a private chat into the public discourse.
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Sarah Blyth-Gerszak, a former two-term Vision Vancouver commissioner, was one of several former park board members from different political parties who attended Monday’s meeting to show opposition to Mayor Ken Sim’s proposal to abolish the elected board.
From her seat in the gallery, Blyth-Gerszak noticed ABC park board commissioner Marie-Claire Howard on her phone for much of the meeting. Howard and two other ABC commissioners have decided to remain with the party and support Sim’s plan since it was announced last week, while the other three elected last year with ABC now sit as independents.
Blyth-Gerszak used her phone’s camera to zoom in on the screen of Howard’s phone, and read the text on Howard’s screen. Soon, Blyth-Gerszak was posting photos of Howard’s phone on X, the website formerly known as Twitter, including one apparently showing a group chat named: “Transition Team.”
Sim is seeking council’s approval to formally ask the province to eliminate the elected park board. With ABC’s council majority, Sim’s motion coming to council Wednesday seems likely to pass. But there still seem to be more questions than answers about this major proposed change to Vancouver’s governance.
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On Howard’s phone screen Monday, someone had messaged the group: “Just talked to Gary Pooni and he is hearing only overwhelmingly great feedback! So congratulations to all of you!”
Blyth-Gerszak posted the photo online with the caption: “Well, I’m glad Gary Pooni is happy.”
Pooni is a prominent local businessman and president of Pooni Group, a Vancouver urban planning and communications firm that works with real estate developers on major project approvals. Reached Tuesday, Pooni declined to discuss the matter.
But Pooni Group posted a statement online saying: “No one at Pooni Group is involved with the park board transition team.”
Reached for comment Tuesday, Howard sent a written statement saying: “We are committed to maintaining the highest standards of professionalism and transparency in all undertakings. Suggestions implying an agenda to sell off park land are baseless and inaccurate.”
“Mayor Sim’s commitment to enhancing Vancouver’s green spaces remains steadfast, highlighted by his initiative to streamline park management,” Howard said. “Internal politicking detracts from the essential work of ensuring the city’s parks remain dynamic, inclusive and sustainable environments for the enjoyment of all residents and visitors.”
Blyth-Gerszak also posted other photos on Monday evening showing Howard’s phone during the park board meeting, which got local political observers talking.
“It’s not something I do, taking photos of people’s phones,” Blyth-Gerszak said.
But she wondered what had captured the attention of Howard, who was, Blyth-Gerszak said, “not paying attention to anyone talking” in the meeting. When Blyth-Gerszak zoomed in, she was curious about the subject matter.
“Why would the transition team be talking about that, when they’re supposed to be actually listening to people? … They were in the middle of a meeting, and she’s talking to the transition team about how happy Gary Pooni is to get rid of the park board?” she said. “Why would that matter to park commissioners?”
The whole episode, Blyth-Gerszak said, “seems kind of crazy.”
“It’s a general atmosphere of crazy.”
Some questions remain unanswered as city council prepares to consider Sim’s motion at Wednesday’s meeting.
In a video he posted online last week, Sim claimed that “by not having an elected park board, we’ll save millions of dollars a year” and reduce costs for taxpayers.
Last week, Postmedia News asked Sim’s chief of staff Trevor Ford for more information about the estimated millions in annual savings, and he said more information would be available this week.
On Tuesday, a representative of the mayor’s office declined to provide financial details but said: “We expect to share further cost details in the coming days.”
The savings from eliminating the elected commissioners’ salaries would be fairly negligible: These are part-time positions with the six commissioners earning $18,734 each last year and the chair earning $23,428, totalling less than $150,000 per year — or less than 0.1 per cent of the park board’s $169 million annual budget.
Disbanding a long-standing democratic institution is controversial, but polling suggests there could be substantial public support for shaking up the status quo. A 2020 Research Co. survey found 44 per cent of likely municipal voters in Vancouver favoured eliminating the park board and placing its operations under city council’s jurisdiction. By 2022, that increased to 52 per cent.
But while some Vancouver voters might like the idea of overhauling the park board, the public could be confused and turned off by the past week’s “strange” series of events, said Research Co. president Mario Canseco.
One reason ABC was so successful last year was the party ran full slates for park board, school board and council alongside Sim for mayor, Canseco said.
“You have a slate of people running behind you for office, and when you elect everybody, you can’t just suddenly decide, ‘Well, part of my cost-cutting measures is to get rid of people who put their names forward and knocked on doors with me.’ It’s weird.”
“It would be very dejecting for someone who knocked on doors, who participated in a campaign, who was part of a cohesive team,” he said, for those commissioners to be abruptly notified that “your services are no longer needed,'” Canseco said.
“It certainly seems a little bit heavy-handed. … This is one of the most extraordinary policy announcements in the history of the city, and this isn’t particularly professional.”
“It takes away from the importance of the announcement.”
Council should be able to get a sense of the public’s feeling on the issue at Wednesday’s council meeting, where more than 125 people, including representatives of community associations, have already signed up to comment on Sim’s proposal.
On Monday, Elaine Perry, a retired Vancouver bookseller, emailed the mayor’s office, and copied me. It concisely captured the mood of many other readers’ emails in the past week.
“I honestly don’t know if abolishing the park board is a good idea or a bad idea or something in-between,” Perry wrote to Sim. “What is certain is the process was not good. It was unilateral and hurried. Please tell me more about your reasons. And why the rush?”
“I might agree with you if I knew more. Right now, I don’t.”
dfumano@postmedia.com
twitter.com/fumano
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