A Very Merry Christmas

So this is Christmas

And what have you done?

Another year over

And a new one just begun

And so this is Christmas

I hope you had fun

The near and the dear ones

The old and the young

A very merry Christmas

And a happy New Year

Let's hope it's a good one

Without any fear

And so this is Christmas (War is over)

For weak and for strong (If you want it)

The rich and the poor ones (War is over)

The road is so long (Now)

And so happy Christmas (War is over)

For black and for white (If you want it)

For yellow and red ones (War is over)

Let's stop all the fight (Now)

John Lennon, 1971

On the Mayor's Motion to Disband the Elected Park Board

 Here is my statement:

It is unfortunate that the current mayor doesn't seem to appreciate representative democracy. The government closest to the people is often the most important. Nothing is closer to the people than their parks and recreation. Vancouver is as beautiful as it is because the city founders knew they had other business to attend to, and gave the responsibility of parks and recreation to a separate body. To throw more than a century of success out on a whim is not only churlish but also irresponsible.

Naming Rights: What Goes Around Comes Around

 So now Ken Sim's ABC wants to sell naming rights to public buildings in Vancouver. Like his NPA predecessors, he wants to make a buck selling corporate advertising on public entities. We looked at this back in 2007. I wrote about it then. Nothing has changed. Here's my article from 16 years ago, just substitute ABC for NPA:

Interfor Stanley Park? Kia Killarney Centre? 

Eukanuba Agrodome? 

The NPA dominated Park Board is at it again. They want to sell corporate naming rights to Vancouver park facilities. No, they aren't selling park names -yet- but they do want to sell naming rights to corporations and individuals with fat wallets. What's wrong with that you say? An innovative way to raise needed money? Well, corporations have always given money to public entities, they only wanted an acknowledgement in the past. A plaque or a notation. Now they want to advertise on public facilities. Remember the fuss over Telus and Science World? We were assured they would not rename Science World, and to be fair they didn't. It's still Science World, but now it is Science World (in little tiny letters) at TELUS WORLD OF SCIENCE. This is corporate branding of the worst kind. They get the best advertising money can buy, and the taxpayer pays for it. Telus didn't build Science World, you and I did with our tax dollars, but they get huge branding at our expense. Now the Park Board wants to do the same. No, we won't see Interfor Stanley Park, but if that would be wrong, how is naming a community centre, swimming pool or skating rink any less wrong. Let's keep the public and private separate. Let's keep corporate branding out of our parks.

It was wrong then. It is still wrong today. Tell Ken Sim and ABC that public buildings aren’t for sale.

Wasted on the way

 We had an opportunity in Vancouver and we wasted it. We could have shown the world what a progressive government could do, but we were not bold enough. We didn’t have the courage of our convictions, nor the wherewithal to carry through with the promise. And so, we have retreated to the regressive, ‘I’m all right’ kind of government that led us to the problems we face today.

It started as a revolution with the election of Gregor Robertson in 2008, with bold goals and visions of an equitable city and a leader in climate and reconciliation. But it fizzled out and was replaced by a weak mayor in 2018 and a void in the progressive movement. 

From 2018 to 2022 only the COPE/Green/Vision-led Park Board showed the kind of leadership the whole city needed. From equity to homelessness, reconciliation to sustainability, the Park Board led in a compassionate and progressive way. 

Unfortunately, the same kind of leadership needed at City Hall was absent. 

Into this void came the election of Kim Sim’s ABC City Council. With no real policy or direction, the city waited with anticipation on what they would do.  What we got was a hard right, uncaring city hall. 

Homelessness and addiction are being swept under the carpet again, with folks retreating to the alleyways, doorsteps, and parks, where they can be ignored and unseen. We might have gotten the 100 cops promised but not the 100 nurses. 

With the ABC majority scrapping the ‘living wage policy’, the stage is set for other employers to ignore the reality of the cost of living in Vancouver, forcing low-wage workers to either leave or become homeless themselves. 

Mayor Ken Sim says he wants Vancouver to be a ‘World Class City’. If that means unaffordable, he’s the right person for the job. ABC has cherry-picked from the Vancouver Plan leaving low-wage earners and the ‘missing middle-class’ with nowhere to live. Families can no longer afford housing and abandon the city for the furthest reaches of the suburbs. Seniors are left destitute.  Ken Sim wants density but not affordability. Vancouver becomes a city for the rich and no one else. Monaco on the Pacific.

Can Vancouver endure 3 more years of this recklessness? It has endured previous weak mayors, but this is an agenda not based on weakness but on callousness. I despair for Vancouver, the city I once called home. As the planet warms, Vancouver City Hall chills to the realities of its residents.

We started with so much promise, but it was wasted on the way.

Vancouver School Board to consider privatising school field

 Well, that didn't take long. And really, not too unexpected. Within months of being elected, the majority ABC/NPA Trustees on the Vancouver School Board are already contemplating hiving off school board land and either leasing it or selling it to private entities. In a news report, CTV News Vancouver explains the 'Vancouver School Board is looking to sell or lease school property that is currently part of Graham Bruce Elementary School'. It seems the ABC/NPA thinks there is too much land for kids to play on at that location.

Not only is this ridiculous (can kids really have too much play space?), but it is also bad public policy. Public land is held in trust by this and past generations for the future. Once public land is sold, it is almost impossible to ever get it back. Cost alone would prohibit it, not to mention the lack of available land in a dense urban community like Vancouver.

Recent Boards have considered selling off lands like Kingsgate Mall, and parts of John Oliver Secondary, but enough public pushback silenced those proposals at least temporarily. The Chair of the Board says that selling isn't on the table at the moment, but you know even if this is a trial balloon, the idea has already been set.

Even if it were true, that Bruce has too much play space, why wouldn't the VSB share it with the Park Board and make it a public space open to all? It isn't like there is too much park space in East Van!

When I was with the Vancouver Greens, we had a policy of no net loss of green space for parks, and no selling of land for schools. So far the Van Greens have been silent. I sincerely hope there has not been a change of policy from them. I cannot imagine that One City or COPE would contemplate this. Even with the Greens onside, the ABC/NPA majority could move ahead with this if they chose. This is why local politics matter, and why who you vote for makes a difference. There was no suggestion of this policy in the ABC platform, but once in power, one never knows what a party will do.

Once it is gone, it is gone. We owe it to the children of today and tomorrow to preserve public lands. Short-term monetary gain is as ephemeral as the wind. Here one moment, gone the next.

Tell your Vancouver School Trustees that selling public land is a bad idea. 

Stanley Park's Polar Bear pit back in the news

 In a news item, CBC's Justin McElroy writes about a proposal to turn the old Stanley Park Zoo polar bear pit into an 'urban spa'. For those old enough to remember, the polar bear pit was a concrete bear pit within the old zoo. The bears paced back and forth in lethargic stupors, imprisoned in concrete and metal. To call it cruel and unusual punishment for majestic animals caught and held captive through no fault of their own would be an understatement. For many, the polar bear pit was the final nail in the coffin of the zoo. The zoo closed in December of 1997, one hundred and nine years after it was first opened as a pound. The zoo was closed after a plebiscite in 1994 showed it was an anachronism no longer wanted by the citizenry [more history can be found in Scout Magazine].

A 1963 photo of the polar bear enclosure at the Vancouver Zoo in Stanley Park. 

It was shut down in 1996. (City of Vancouver)

Since then, while the rest of the former zoo site has been rehabilitated, or overtaken by the ever-expanding Vancouver Aquarium, the polar bear pit languished, abandoned, fenced away and covered by brush, unseen to most visitors. Now, 25 years later an architect has proposed taking over the old site and making it into an urban spa. No price tag was attached to the proposal presented in the article, nor who would pay for it, but it would seem that it will be presented to the Vancouver Park Board at a future meeting. 

Strange proposals are not new to the Park Board. About 15 years ago the NPA-led Board proposed animatronic dinosaurs for Stanley Park. There have been temporary zip lines, a Ferris Wheel, and a circus tent at Queen Elizabeth Park, and each year VanDusen Botanical Gardens hosts a classic car show on its Great Lawn.

It isn't clear whether this would be a private initiative, a public/private, or a wholly public one. When one considers the land values in downtown Vancouver, this could be a real financial plum for a private initiative. And of course, this initiative comes with 'no business plan or budget' attached to it. Once the new Commissioners learn the cost of rehabilitating the site they might understand why it hasn't been done before.

What is new is that a Green Commissioner would be an advocate for such blatant commercialization of public spaces. Newly elected Green Party Commissioner Tom Digby seems to be supporting this initiative wholeheartedly. What makes this troubling is, despite all the work previous Boards have done on reconciliation, this new proposal would be presented without prior consultation with the three First Nations that have called Stanley Park home since time immemorial, and who now have a working relationship with the Park Board through the Stanley Park Intergovernmental Table, and despite the Park Board's initiative to co-manage Vancouver Parks with the Nations.

Previous Green-led Boards opposed further commercialization of Vancouver parks. It is not surprising that the ABC majority on the current Board would be interested in more commercialization--the Chair of the Board says he would 'love to see this come forward'-- but for a Green Commissioner to express such support without even an idea of how this will impact the park or the relationship with the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh peoples beggars' belief.

By all means, accept the proposal and have staff do a thorough analysis if that is the will of the Board, but Commissioners should be doing their due diligence, not being cheerleaders for unsolicited projects.

Donnie Rosa becomes Squamish Nation Executive Director of Ḵ’iyáx̱an Ch’áwch’aw (Community Services)

 In a media release Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw, the Squamish Nation, has announced the appointment of former Park Board General Manager Donnie Rosa to a leadership position.

    Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw is on an exciting journey – rekindling our language and cultural practices, asserting our rights and title, increasing own-source revenues, and expanding the range of services provided to Members. A new organizational structure came into effect in April 2023 as the Nation continues to build capacity as a modern Indigenous government to support this vision.

The existing departments have been realigned into four divisions, each of which will be managed by an Executive Director.

Ḵ’iyáx̱an Ch’áwch’aw (Community Services)

Nexwníw̓mamin Ch’áwch’aw (Territory & Culture Services)

Nexwnínlhewá7nem Ch’áwch’aw (People Services)

X̱etx̱ítayus Ch’áwch’aw (Corporate Services)

 We are pleased to announce the appointment of three of the Executive Directors, two of whom are Nation Members. All three start their roles on August 1, 2023 and will report to the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO). 

In the release a biography of Donnie Rosa reads in part: 

    With over 30 years’ experience in parks, recreation, planning, facility management, operations, arts, culture, and community building, Donnie Rosa (they/she) has been a champion of equity, diversity & inclusion. Most recently Donnie was the General Manager for the Vancouver Park Board where they led the strategic efforts to centre reconciliation by creating a new and important team to decolonize the park boards colonial systems and build relationships in community. The Decolonization, Arts & Culture team, with Donnie’s support, led important policy efforts including the Urban Indigenous Food Sovereignty policy, the Burrardview Urban Food Forest initiative, the policy on co-management of parks with local First Nations, the formal Apology to the Nations and most recently the raising of the flags representing the xʷməθkʷəyəm (Musqueam Indian Band), Sḵwxwú7mesh (Squamish Nation) and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh Nation) at spapəyəq Pápiyeḵ, commonly known as Brockton Point in  Xwáýxway (Stanley Park). Donnie also led the team in the delivery of sθәqәlxenәm ts'exwts'áxwi7 (Rainbow) Park. Ḵ'iyáxan Ch'áwch'aw Community Services Executive Director Appointed Twice named to Vancouver Magazine's Power 50 list, Donnie is acknowledged for how they do their work in community, leading with compassion and heart. Donnie was named the City of Vancouver’s Leader of the Year, as well she and her team won the Equity & Inclusion award for outstanding policy work to remove barriers to accessing programs for all community members. 

Congratulations to Donnie Rosa!

The entire release can be found here.

Donnie's complete bio can be found here.

New Year, New Adventures

 

This year will see many changes in my life. I am transitioning to a new adventure on Vancouver Island. My passion for parks and natural spaces has not diminished, but like my residence, will move to a new locale. I hope to explore the many parks and natural spaces on the Saanich Peninsula and the Capital Region, as well as further afield as I explore the wonders of the coastal islands. You can find my new blog at: ruralbynature.ca 

My postings here may not be as frequent, but I hope you will check back occasionally to see what I have discovered in my new home and environs. I will also continue to watch and comment on parks and recreation in Vancouver, as my commitment to my 'hometown' is as strong as ever.