Cutting Your Nose to Spite Your Face: Maintenance Cuts Hurt the Bottom Line

For those of us who love the VanDusen Botanical Gardens, this was a bit of a disappointing year. The gardens just weren't as beautiful as they have been in the past. They were a little frayed around the edges. This is not surprising as, like every other garden and park in Vancouver, their maintenance budget was cut this year. This is incredible as the VanDusen is actually a revenue stream for the Park Board. People pay money to view the gardens, and if they don't like what they see they won't come back. In addition to the cuts in gardeners, under the new protocol the Bloedel Conservatory will soon be funded out of VanDusen revenues with no additional support from the City. This will put even more pressure on the VanDusen. I am absolutely thrilled to have the expertise of the VanDusen staff supporting and managing the Bloedel Conservatory, but just as the archives, museum and planetarium are funded by the city, why isn't the Bloedel?

The City has strange priorities when they cut funding to places that actually bring in revenue directly to the City--not to mention all the indirect revenue that tourists and residents alike bring to the City through their dollars spent at sites like VanDusen and Bloedel. We are in great danger of losing our cultural heritage if we don't look after it. Please support the VanDusen and the Bloedel. If you haven't visited in a while get out to them. Now is especially a great time to see the outdoor gardens at VanDusen. The trees are magnificent in their autumn colours. And tell your elected officials that gardens are important. They help our environment and make Vancouver one of the 'greenest' cities in the world.

You just can't fool all of the people all of the time

Poor Park Commissioner Aaron Jasper. It seems he just can't get a break. In the Vancouver Courier, columnist Sandra Thomas writes that one of his liaison responsibilities wants to jettison him. Thomas writes in her Central Park article Lazy Liaison? that the Riley Park/Hillcrest Community Centre Association wants to dump Jasper for another commissioner, preferably Nikki Sharma, one of Aaron Jasper's Vision Vancouver colleagues (ouch! that's gotta hurt). When questioned by Thomas, Jasper replied that he doesn't understand the kerfuffle. Thomas reports that Jasper says he's "baffled" by the Riley board's decision. "Actually, I have yet to be invited to one meeting since February," said Jasper. "I've been liaison to this board for three years and was always invited to meetings until Jesse became president."

Well just a minute here. Seems that Commissioner Jasper must have his liaison duties a bit mixed up. Aaron Jasper has not been liaison to this association for the past three years. I was on the Park Board from 2008-2011 and I don't recall Jasper holding that position. I seem to recall that it was another commissioner's responsibility. For further proof just ask former Commissioner Ian Robertson about it. At his I on the City blog, Robertson writes about this in his article Why did Aaron Jasper lie? 

Jasper is correct that the usual protocol for Associations is to invite commissioners to meetings--Association meetings are not generally open to the public--but my experience was that some Associations have standing invitations to their liaison.

This is not the first time Commissioner Jasper's hyperbole has gotten in the way of the truth. I was subjected many times to his curious interpretation of the truth. Just one example was the issue of a referendum of the Aquarium. He stated in a press release that I was "knowingly" putting the Park Board at legal risk by discussing the issue--something he knew was false as the the City of Vancouver's legal department had reported to him, as Chair, that the motion was fine.

I suppose one can just put down this kind of thing as not allowing the truth to get in the way of good story, but once again it leads the public to distrust politicians and the whole process. I hope Commissioner Jasper will do the right thing and correct his misstatement. It can't hurt--in fact it can only help in the search for the truth, regardless of whether or not the truth is a good story.

Another year of reduced maintenance in our parks and public spaces

As autumn approaches and the leaves start to change colour and fall to the ground you might wonder what happened to all the city gardeners this past summer. Parks and boulevards looked shabby again this year. The fine folks who maintain our parks and public spaces were around, but there were fewer of them trying valiantly to keep up with all the growth that happens over a warm season like our summer.

In my neighbourhood (Fraserlands) as I have reported before, the people took to the streets to tend the little bits of untended public space. This past weekend they were at it again. The neighbourhood sure looks better for their efforts! A hearty thank you to all involved.

One area that they took on that surely the City should be maintaining is the shared (pedestrian/bike) public path along Kent Ave North. This is well used path but has been fairly quickly disappearing because of the growth of the shrubbery between the pavement and the pathway. A few years ago city/parks crews came out 3 or 4 times a year to keep the greenery at bay. This maintenance dwindle to nothing this year making the path very dangerous for both cyclist and pedestrians. And so the Fraserlands Community Gardening Group with clippers in hand attacked the offending shrubbery. Unfortunately hand clippers are slow and awkward against unwieldy bushes. What could take the City an hour or two with their power tools and professional crew will take several days by volunteer hands.

This is doubly galling when you consider that we pay taxes for the maintenance of our public thoroughfares. This volunteerism is a form of double taxation for these kind folks.While taking bits of unused ground and transforming it into a rainbow of colours with lovely flowers is one thing, the maintaining of public thoroughfares is quite another.

I've said it before and I'll probably say it again, cutting the budget for maintenance just doesn't make sense.We all know that allowing graffiti to remain encourages more. Likewise letting public spaces deteriorate encourages vandalism and litter. Call the city (3-1-1) and ask them to cut the boulevards and verges, clean up the garbage, and maintain our parks and public spaces. Write to the Mayor, City Councillors and Park Commissioners and demand that they keep our city beautiful. After all, it is what they they were elected to do.

Live in South Vancouver? Take the Fraserlands Community Garden Survey!

A group of neighbours have recently formed the Fraserlands Community Gardening Group with two goals:

1.      To work towards establishing a community garden in our neighbourhood;

2.      To complete reclaiming and beautifying the pedestrian/cycling pathway that runs along Kent Avenue parallel to the train tracks between Kerr and Elliott streets.

In an effort to determine our neighbourhood’s support of a community garden as well as to gain information in applying for grants, the group has developed a short online survey.

Please make the time to take the survey as we want to collect as much information as possible. You can link to it here. The survey will be available until October 15, but we encourage you to take it as soon as possible as it’s easy for these things to get forgotten!

GardenWorks at Mandeville and Chevron Canada have generously donated gift certificates for a prize draw. We will be awarding one prize of a $25 GardenWorks gift card, one prize of a $25 Chevron gift certificate, and one prize of both a $25 Gardenworks gift card and a $25 Chevron gift certificate. You have to take the survey to be eligible for the prize draw.

Please forward this message to all the contacts you have who live in Fraserlands… we really appreciate receiving as much input as possible as this will provide valuable information as we move forward.

Sincerely,

Jill Lunde

Member, Fraserlands Community Gardening Group

Like us on Facebook.

Vancouver is teeing off over city-owned golf greens

 Developers, and the city itself, would like to see affordable housing, rather than affordable golf, on the publicly owned land

by Emma Teitel Maclean's Magazine , Tuesday, July 10, 2012 

VIEW IN CLEAN READING MODE »

WHAT IS THIS ?  

Rebecca Bollwit/Flickr

Vancouver’s publicly owned golf courses—Fraserview, Langara, and McCleery—are currently protected “green zones” out of reach to interested developers. But pressure from none other than the city itself, and its mayor, Gregor Robertson, might change that.

Last week Robertson revealed his plan to establish a housing authority that would manage the development of taxpayer-owned land. He also revealed he’s open to leasing some city public golf courses to developers for the construction of public housing. Referring to Langara golf course in particular, Robertson said, “It is debatable as to whether that is valuable green space. The public can’t access it, it is not bio-diverse and there is no strong business case.” The mayor might agree then, with Vancouver Sun columnist Don Cayo’s argument that “selling 20 per cent of just one of three city-owned golf courses could net $675 million that could be used for providing affordable housing to lowering taxes to approving amenities.”

This argument isn’t unique to Vancouver. Since October, the city of Winnipeg has received 32 proposals from private companies interested in leasing one or more of its public golf courses, which lose about $1 million a year.

Community activists in both cities, however, are concerned that development will eliminate valuable green space. And in Vancouver, some argue while affordable housing is very important, so is affordable golf: Vancouver’s supervisor of golf operations, Howard Normann, recently defended the city’s public courses, arguing they make golf accessible for those who might not otherwise be able to afford it.

Source:  http://www2.macleans.ca/2012/07/10/vancouver-is-teeing-off-over-city-owned-golf-greens/

Former Vancouver park board commissioner Stuart Mackinnon questions new meeting schedule

By Matthew Burrows, Straight.com Publish Date: July 25, 2012 

 

A former Green park board commissioner by night and a schoolteacher by day, Stuart Mackinnon admits he’s “a bit of a process wonk”.

Having served one term on the board, from 2008 to 2011, Mackinnon told the Straight he finds the board’s new meeting structure “peculiar”. Earlier this year, the Vision Vancouver–dominated board adjusted the meeting schedule so that committee meetings happen right before meetings of the full board, all on one night.

“There is a reason why committee, for me, happens at least a week before the park board,” Mackinnon said by phone. “That’s so that, if something comes up, staff has time to go back and research and make changes. Quite often, an idea would be brought to a committee, commissioners would bat it around and listen to people, and then we would send off staff, saying, ‘We need to look at this, and we would like to see this.’ And it gave them a week, at least, to tweak it or to rejig it and then bring it back. That made sense to me.”

Ian Robertson, a Non-Partisan Association commissioner from 2005 to 2011, told the Straight of the new arrangement, “It’s ridiculous for a couple of reasons. First of all—and I think most importantly—it significantly limits the public to have discussion and debate, and to understand the issues by doing that. Secondly, it just jams everything into one night. Therefore, you’re not able to get a thoughtful and good discussion around an issue.”
Vision park board chair Sarah Blyth told the Straight one reason commissioners decided to change things was for greater simplicity.

“Take, for example, the seawall [motion from July 23],” Blyth said by phone. “We severed it, and we are putting it back to committee—because it was at committee—but we need to do a bit more…we want to bring up the issues of the past [relating to the foreshore in question].”
She admitted there may be initial “bumps” with the new approach.

“But I think that, overall, it’s a lot better,” Blyth said. “It saves money, which we can put back into our programming, and staff time to work on other things.”

---

Source URL: http://www.straight.com/article-740306/vancouver/former-vancouver-park-board-commissioner-stuart-mackinnon-questions-new-meeting-schedule

One Misstep After Another: Where is Vision taking the Park Board?

First it was housing on the Langara golf course, now paving the last natural foreshore on English Bay. Where are the Vision Vancouver park commissioners going? Do they even know?

If you look at the their 'policy' statements from the past two elections you would see that they really stand for nothing and have no real ideas. Follow lock-step to where ever their City Council colleagues lead them. Cuts to park maintenance, cuts to community centre maintenance, cuts to renewing the aging infrastructure. Gauge public opinion and then jump on the band-wagon. They have closed programs and raised fees for children. In their first term they tried to undo decisions made by previous Boards while postponing making real decisions in the present. This is hardly leadership.

Vancouver deserves better than this.

The recent debacle of the Seawall extension from Kits to Jericho is a good case in point. A poorly worded motion that was based on an amorphous and mysterious 'anonymous' donation of a reported $10 million dollars. Good public policy is not made on ephemeral promises. Good public policy engages the public and understands the economic, environmental, and social costs of all decisions. This hare·brained scheme missed the mark on all three of these benchmarks. And once again, the decision was not made but deferred.

But this is not surprising; as the election campaigned showed, the only desire of the Vision team was to be re-elected. And re-elected they were. We have another two and half years of missteps and political theatre. Pontificating and grandstanding. Perhaps their plan is to abolish the elected Park Board as an anachronism. If this is the case they are certainly making their point.

KEEP KITS BEACH WILD. Say NO to the Point Grey Foreshore Seawall

Please visit  the KEEP KITS BEACH WILD website to sign the petition. The following information is from the website.

The Vancouver Parks Board is proposing to extend the seawall from just west of Kitsilano Pool along the quiet wild beach to Spanish Banks. Vision Vancouver has lined up a private donor who is offering $10 million to pay for the costs. Park Board Chair Sarah Blyth introduced a seawall motion on July 9, 2012, “ which, if approved July 23, will see staff developing options to connect the seawall and provide a timeline and estimate of costs for the job ... That preliminary work will include city engineering reports, community consultations, meeting with residents along the route, discussions with the federal department of Fisheries and Oceans, which manages the foreshore along that stretch of beach, and nailing down the cost and funding." (Vancouver Courier July 11, 2012)

This beach is called the “POINT GREY FORESHORE”. It is the last natural beach in the City of Vancouver. On this foreshore a bounteous intertidal zone provides a rich feeding for waterfowl that come in large numbers, especially during the winter months. More than 150 different bird species have been identified here, at which at least 70 are regular winter residents.

As a concerned citizen wrote on a sign at a beach access point: “This is the very last publicly accessible undeveloped beach in the City of Vancouver, a recovering marine habitat. The media has portrayed this beach as a preserve of "the very rich mansion owners of Point Grey Road. Most of them have no access from their property: they may or may not be on the beach. The Point Grey Foreshore belongs to those who love and use it, who do not want to sit with 10,000 others in an artificial environment, who want to watch the herons fish, seals pass by and cormants sun themselves on floating logs. Vancouver has many kilometers of wheel-accessible beach paths, only one "primitive" beach for the general public.

Another concerned citizen wrote in a Letter to the Editor of the Vancouver Courier on July 13, 2012: “One of the wonderful aspects of living in Vancouver are the pockets of relatively unspoiled nature that the public can enjoy if they want to. So now the two parties at city hall want to ruin the quality of life that many of us enjoy by marketing (and therefore ruining) the very thing that makes Vancouver special. The beach beyond Kits all the way to Spanish Banks is a joy to use for the very fact that there isn't any formal seawall or path way that the hordes can use... and therefore makes it a gem in Vancouver. When my family and I are down there for our walks and mooching around, it is almost like being on a Gulf Island but with a city view. No crowds, no frenzy, just a wonderful peaceful retreat within the city. It's a luxury within Vancouver.”

This is another attempt to homogenize the natural world that we live in. It's remarkable that we have such a treasure in our midst -- a place where one can walk and see the city -- but feel like one is not in the city. Let’s keep it that way. Don't turn it into another noisy seawall of cyclists, joggers and skateboarders. We have plenty of those.
We urge the Vancouver Parks Board and City Council to take a walk on this quiet beach and reconsider your plans to extend the seawall. Keep Kits Beach Wild. Say no to the Point Grey Foreshore seawall.

We also ask that you reveal the anonymous donor. We're entitled to know this information so that we can determine if there are any vested interests.

Just because we can build a seawall extension doesn’t mean we should

 July 12, 2012. 4:00 pm • Section: Opinion
The Province, Vancouver BC

There has been some discussion at Vancouver city council about an extension of the seawall. A motion is coming to the parks board on the feasibility of extending the seawall from Kitsilano Beach to Jericho Beach. This is on the heels of an anonymous donation pledge to help defray some of the costs.

I think the city and the parks board are putting the cart before the horse on this one. And I have to ask: just because we can do something, should we?

I asked this questions several years ago when the proposal to prop up the dead stump in Stanley Park, known as the Hollow Tree, came before the board. Vision Vancouver said yes and the tax payers are now on the hook for maintaining it in perpetuity.

I asked the question again a year later about keeping whales in captivity in Vancouver parks. Vision Vancouver said the citizens didn’t have a right to answer for themselves and my motion for a plebiscite was rejected. Now it is an extension of the seawall.

The seawall is a tremendous amenity, surely one of the most used public features in the city. Tourists and residents alike take great delight in the grand vistas of the cityscape seen from it, whether on foot, rollerblades or bicycle. It is a place for serious fitness and casual pleasure. Yes, it would be nice to have a continual path around the city, but is it necessary?

The seawall cost millions of dollars to build and further millions to maintain. It is a never-ending job keeping it safe and secure. Time, storms and natural erosion take their toll on the structure.

With limited budgets for maintenance, we have to ask ourselves if an extension of the seawall is a good use of tax dollars. Look around Vancouver this summer. It seems we don’t have enough money to maintain the parks and amenities we already have. So why are we looking at an expansion we can’t afford?

A seawall extension would also dump tons of fill and concrete onto one of the last sections of natural foreshore on English Bay. Is this what we want? Do we really want a cement, fortress-like structure surrounding our city? What about leaving some space for natural waterfront?

There is another foreshore walkway along the Fraser River. This path is a mixture of soft walkways and shored up breakwater support. This is part of the flood-control system and serves a purpose as well as providing a lovely amenity. There are no concrete retaining walls. But what do concrete slabs hugging the last rugged shorelines of English Bay serve? Other than once again spending countless millions to show that yes we can do this, not much.

I would suggest a better use for the millions of dollars required to build and maintain a seawall extension would be to maintain the parks and community centres we already have. Vancouver used to be a city with flower baskets and beautiful gardens maintained by parks employees who were proud of their work. Today, our parks and public gardens are neglected and ragged. Boulevards are unkempt and public litter bins are overflowing. Many of our community centres are aging and need replacing. Outdoor pools have been closed. There are only so many tax dollars to go around. Let’s use them wisely.

Just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should. Let’s have a discussion about whether a seawall extension is a good use of our money, time and the environment.

Let’s have the discussion about whether we should before we have the discussion about whether we can.

Stuart Mackinnon is a former Vancouver parks board commissioner. He blogs at: betterparks.org

Source URL: http://blogs.theprovince.com/2012/07/12/stuart-mackinnon-just-because-we-can-build-a-seawall-extension-doesnt-mean-we-should/

Developing Vancouver's municipal golf courses could be "disastrous for biodiversity"

By Matthew Burrows, July 12, 2012 Straight.com

Mayor Gregor Robertson may downplay the value of city-owned golf courses such as Langara for their green space and biodiversity—and dream of housing developments on bulldozed links—but nature experts disagree.

“In recent years, a lot of the golf courses, particularly in Vancouver, have changed their tune to a much happier degree for wildlife,” Mike Mackintosh, urban-wildlife manager and 30-year veteran at the Vancouver park board, told the Straight by phone. “The reduced use of herbicides and fungicides…has been very good.”

Asked about biodiversity, Mackintosh said the courses generally have ponds, thickets, hedgerows, and areas of planted trees “that do provide habitat for a much greater diversity of species than we used to see”.

Last month, Robertson told the Vancouver Sun it was “debatable” whether Langara Golf Course “is valuable green space”.

“The public can’t access it; it is not biodiverse and there is no strong business case,” the paper quoted the mayor as saying on June 26. Robertson went on to say that he was amenable to the idea of allowing housing on the golf-course lands.

The mayor was not available for an interview with the paper before the Straight’s deadline.
Then, at their July 9 meeting, Vancouver park-board commissioners voted 4–2 in favour of Vision Vancouver vice chair Aaron Jasper’s motion to ask staff to “compile and report back usage and revenue metrics” of Vancouver’s golf and pitch-and-putt courses; the motion was amended to state that there was no suggested use of golf-course land for commercial or residential developments.

According to the park-board website, Vancouver’s three major municipal 18-hole courses—Fraserview, McCleery, and Langara—together comprise 186 hectares, almost 15 percent of the city’s parkland. The site also states that all three provide “prime habitat for numerous
species of birds, mammals and aquatic wildlife”.

The Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary System of Canada has certified all three courses, the board site also notes.

Jasper told media last week that Langara could be turned into a nine-hole golf course and the rest of the site made into parkland or the entire property could become a public park.
Jude Grass, a naturalist who worked for 24 years with B.C. Parks and Metro Vancouver Parks, chairs the birding section of Nature Vancouver (formerly the Vancouver Natural History Society). She said the consequences of developing housing on the Langara course are obvious: “That would be disastrous for biodiversity,” she said by phone.

Grass said the results of turning the course into parkland might not be much better for wildlife. “I think I would be against turning it into a park, because the city always seems to want to put in playing fields and lights,” she said. She added that Nature Vancouver’s 2011 bird count for the Langara course identified 70 species, and “I suspect it’s a lot more than that.” She also noted that it probably even supports deer.

Robyn Worcester, a biologist with the Stanley Park Ecology Society, told the Straight that lots of wild animals make their homes on the properties. “I know the golf courses are hot spots for coyotes, and I know that they have some waterfowl in the ponds, like geese and mallards and gadwall, and I know that they do have a variety of songbirds in the spring and fall entering into there, as well as bats,” she said by phone.

Worcester said she wasn’t sure how high the “small mammal” population was on the courses, but she noted that coyotes eat mice, rats, and other such animals and that there is probably at least one coyote den on each of the properties.

The Cambie Corridor Plan approved by city council in May 2011 includes the provision of “much needed habitat for local wildlife”, as well as strategies that “enhance and connect both aquatic and terrestrial biodiversity” in the corridor, which includes Langara Golf Course. The plan also included the Langara course in a list of the corridor’s “significant natural habitats”, and noted that the opportunity to “enhance…biodiversity within parks” was “especially high, given the scale of open space such as Queen Elizabeth Park and the Langara Golf Course”.

---

Source URL: http://www.straight.com/article-729471/vancouver/golf-course-biodiversity-could-be-threatened