In Kitsilano, the Case of the Beloved and Broken Pool

 ‘The City of Vancouver will never see this fall to ruin,’ a former park board chair said. But will it?

Jen St. Denis The Tyee

Jen St. Denis is a reporter with The Tyee covering civic issues. Find her on X @JenStDen.

On Aug. 16, 1931 — sandwiched between an article about the Soviets ending food rations and the British prime minister’s difficulties with “the financial crisis” — a story in the Vancouver Sunday Province described the triumphant opening of Kitsilano Pool, “America’s largest swimming pool.”

According to the report, 5,000 people showed up. The Kitsilano Junior High School Band played the national anthem (“God Save the King,” in those days). The Union Jack was unfurled. And swimmers swam, racing against each other in water drawn in from the ocean that was — the newspaper promised — as much as 10 degrees warmer than the chilly waters of the Pacific.

For 93 years, Kitsilano Pool has been a beloved summer refuge for people all over Vancouver. Costing just under $8 to get in, the pool, with its 137-metre lanes and shallow area for leisurely soaks, provides stunning vistas of English Bay, the city skyline and the North Shore mountains.

But now its future is in jeopardy. Climate change has led to more intense winter storms, and the huge pool is cracked. The city has spent $3 million to do short-term fixes and has another $2 million worth of repair work planned, which will include a feasibility study on replacing the pool.

With this beloved piece of Vancouver summer in peril, we’re taking a look back at the pool with an eye to what its future holds.

‘Smelts could be raked up Kitsilano Beach with a stick’

We’re going to start our story not with the pool, but with Kitsilano Beach, because the pool and the beach are closely connected.

Kitsilano Pool sits on the west side of Kitsilano Beach. According to the Squamish Atlas, the Squamish name for the beach is Sḵw’áyus. Another name given for the same place, X̱epx̱páy̓em, means “having red cedar.”

The book Conversations with Khahtsahlano, first published in 1955, records two decades of conversations between Sḵwx̱uwú7mesh Chief X̱ats’alanexw, also known as Chief August Jack Khahtsahlano, and Vancouver’s first archivist, Maj. J.S. Matthews. Matthews included a 1932 interview with a Squamish man named Chil-lah-minst, or Jim Franks, who told him about his grandfather making canoes at a place Matthews records as Skwayoos.

Chil-lah-minst tells Matthews that loggers cut down fir trees but left the red cedar, and the logging trails made it easier to get cedar logs down to the beach to make canoes.

The beach is also pictured in an 1861 painting by an English navy lieutenant; this, Matthews believed, was the “earliest known portrayal” of Vancouver.

Sḵw’áyus is part of the Squamish Nation’s traditional territory, which spans from Point Grey to the west, Point Roberts to the south and the Elaho River headwaters in the north. Some of this territory overlaps with Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueam lands.

In the 1870s, the federal government created Reserve No. 6, which included the Squamish village Sen̓áḵw, located where Vanier Park and the foot of the Burrard Bridge are today. Sḵw’áyus was located just outside the border of the reserve.

False Creek, English Bay and the shoreline were all important sites for hunting and fishing for the Squamish. People who lived in Vancouver at the turn of the 20th century recalled how plentiful wildlife was in False Creek before industrial uses like sawmills, slaughterhouses and factories took over the area.

“In the early years of the 20th century salmon still swam up the creek as far as Cedar and Third Ave., trout were caught where Henry Hudson’s school now stands, muskrats were in the swamp around Laburnum Street, and smelts could be raked up Kitsilano Beach with a stick,” Matthews writes.

Greer’s Beach

The area now known as Kitsilano Beach initially had a different colonial name. It was first known as Greer’s Beach after Sam Greer, a man who claimed he’d bought land near the beach from four Indigenous men in 1884 for $200.

But the Canadian Pacific Railway had been given the land the Greer farm occupied as part of a 6,000-acre land grant that ensured the terminus of the railway would be located at Vancouver, not Port Moody.

Greer’s claim ended dramatically: in 1891, he was jailed for shooting a sheriff who attempted to evict him.

Canadian Pacific considered putting a hotel near the beach, but instead sold off the land around the area for new houses for the growing city of Vancouver. For both the beach and the neighbourhood, CP chose the name Kitsilano, after the well-known chief from Sen̓áḵw.

At the same time CP was selling real estate next to the beach, the City of Vancouver was attempting to take Reserve No. 6 from the Squamish to make room for the growing city.

By 1911, villagers had been forcibly removed by the provincial government. Over the following years, the reserve land was carved up bit by bit.

After a decades-long court case that started in the 1970s, the Squamish Nation got back just 10.48 acres out of the total original 80 acres of reserve land. Today, the nation is building a new housing development called Sen̓áḵw on the returned land near the Burrard Bridge.

This beach needs a pool

By the beginning of the 20th century, with a new streetcar line out to the growing neighbourhood of Kitsilano, the beach had become a popular spot in the summer. Plans were floated to build a vaudeville theatre, a bandstand, a baseball diamond and a playground for children. But in 1927, newspapers started to talk about an ambitious idea: building a 700-foot-long enclosed pool at one end of the beach.

In a full-page spread in the Aug. 28, 1927, edition of the Vancouver Sunday Province, the paper laid out the rationale for the plan: the western edge of the beach was “useless” for swimming and sunbathing, an enclosed pool would be safer for children and weaker swimmers, the temperature of the water would be warmer, and swimming events could go ahead in any tide condition.

The pool was finally completed in 1931 at a cost of $50,000, or just under $1 million in today’s dollars. “Relief labour” was used — that is, men unemployed because of the Depression who were given work building government projects. Outdoor pools were also constructed at New Brighton and Second Beach around the same time.

The outer wall of the pool was made of seven-foot-thick concrete walls able to withstand “pressure of the trapped water and the tide flow,” according to a 1931 Vancouver Sun story. The water that filled the pool was drawn straight from the ocean, and the water would be switched out a few times a week. Admission to the pool was free.

In 2017, Glenn Schultz, then the director of parks and beaches for the Vancouver Park Board, told CBC that filling the pool directly from the ocean led to the occasional mud shark or octopus getting into the pool, along with a lot of seaweed.

The original pool also had a sandy bottom, he said, although a ledge was built to make a portion of the pool shallow enough for young children.

In the 1960s, the sandy bottom — which made the water quite murky — was replaced by a concrete floor.

Throughout the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s, Kitsilano Pool provided summer fun with the occasional over-the-top event. In 1936, Hawaiian divers showed off their skills at an event in the pool, according to a column published in the Vancouver Sun in 1978. In 1950, a “60-foot tubular ski jump” was constructed at the pool as part of an event for tourism promotion.

“Exhibition ski jumping took place in the evening and was concluded by flaming torches being carried by skiers as they leapt over the jump. Flaming straw was placed at the top of the landing hill and jumpers leaped through the flames,” reads an article in the Province.

Don’t worry — no one was hurt. “Canadian Ski Patrol was on hand at all times to control the crowd and attend to the safety of the jumpers,” the article concludes.

Unfortunately, the water was gross

But by the mid-1970s, there was a problem. Even though some chlorine was being mixed into the ocean water that filled the pool, the water didn’t meet new health regulations adopted by the province.

The problem was even worse for New Brighton Pool, located on Burrard Inlet, which used the same fill-and-draw design as Kitsilano Pool. In 1971, both pools were denied the health permits they needed to open.

Vancouver city councillors were outraged that new provincial regulations would force them to spend millions to update all three fill-and-draw pools. (A fourth pool, at Lumbermen’s Arch in Stanley Park, ended up being removed and turned into a water park.)

“I think we are getting a snow job,” a 1977 Vancouver Sun article quotes city Coun. Harry Rankin saying. “A set of standards are being imposed on us which is completely unreal.” Rankin argued that the water quality in Kitsilano Pool was better in the 1970s than when it first opened because raw sewage was no longer being dumped into the ocean near the pool.

At a meeting of outraged residents in 1976, the city’s chief medical health officer said the pool water had been found to have coliform counts 12 times higher than what was considered safe.

City councillors tried as much as possible to reduce costs, and there was a proposal to split the pool up into three separate pools to make it easier to maintain.

But residents made it clear that they wanted to keep the same size and shape of the pool.

So, in 1979, Kitsilano Pool reopened to the public as an enclosed pool that was no longer directly connected to the ocean, although the pool was still filled with a mix of potable water and filtered ocean water.

The total cost of the new pool was $1.89 million ($7.9 million in today’s dollars), with $750,000 provided by the federal government. The city’s outdoor pools, previously free, now came with a price tag for entry: 75 cents, or $2.75 in today’s dollars, for an adult to swim at Kitsilano Pool.

In a 1978 column in the Vancouver Sun, former Vancouver resident Dorothy Wardrop lamented that the new pool was heated (an unnecessary luxury, she argued) and shared her memories of swimming in the pool after it opened in 1931.

“We rarely missed a day hiking up and down the eight blocks to swim in the pool from May to September. Sometimes we would go twice a day. Mondays and Thursdays we would swim in the ocean, as they were the days when the pool was emptied and cleaned.

“Sometimes we would go for a swim early in the morning. How delightful that was! Other times we would go for a late evening swim under the moon and stars.”

Wardrop also remembered the natural landscape in place before the pool was built: “bullrushes and salt grass... where the sand met the sea.”

‘The City of Vancouver will never see this fall to ruin’

In 2018, the pool was renovated for $3.3 million to stop water leaking through the joints of the aging concrete base. The refurbishment also allowed for sea water to be drawn into the pool throughout the swimming season, eliminating the need to use tap water.

But Wardrop’s description of the natural landscape the pool replaced highlights a problem the city is going to continue to struggle with: the seawall is beloved by residents and tourists, but it disrupts the natural state of the shoreline. Human-made infrastructure located close to the ocean is going to continue to be vulnerable to climate change as sea levels rise and winter storms become more intense.

Second Beach Pool is also bordered by the seawall, making it vulnerable to the same threat.

In Kitsilano Beach Park, the seawall wraps around the 137-metre-long pool. The ocean, the seawall and the water table are balanced to keep the pool intact. The pool stays filled with water in the winter to ensure pressure from the water table wouldn’t crush it if left empty.

In January 2022, a winter storm caused major damage to the seawall around Stanley Park and to Kitsilano Pool. A high tide and a storm pushed water up against the seawall, moving blocks of stone and concrete around like Lego blocks and tearing out chunks of asphalt.

“The water went right over the seawall and into the pool, and these winds were sustained for about... six hours,” Dave Hutch, then director of parks planning and development with the Vancouver Park Board, previously told The Tyee.

While Second Beach Pool is slightly higher than Kitsilano Pool, it’s also vulnerable to storm damage in the future.

“Things like the pool and the seawall, right along the edge of the water — they really weren’t designed for this kind of extreme weather,” Hutch said. “They were designed at a time when sea levels were lower, and storm surges weren’t as great.”

During the annual spring cleanup of the pool after the January 2022 storm, park board staff discovered cracks in the bottom of the pool, and shifts in the huge concrete slabs that make up the pool floor. While the pool was repaired enough to open in August 2022 and for the full 2023 season, it was still leaking an enormous amount of water — 30,000 litres per hour.

This year, the pool was supposed to be closed all summer. But reopening it was a priority for Mayor Ken Sim. After repair work, Kits Pool was again open to swimmers as of last week.

The broken pool has become a political issue. Some park board commissioners have blamed the city for a pattern of deferred maintenance of park facilities. Sim — who has promised to get rid of the elected park board — has been keen to take credit for opening the pool, crediting advice from a mining company CEO who provided pro bono engineering expertise. Meanwhile, the long-term future of the pool is up in the air: park board staff have said the pool is now at the end of its life.

In 2018, former park board chair Stuart Mackinnon said the pool was “an icon and a gem, and the City of Vancouver will never see this fall to ruin.

“It’s something that has to be maintained, like Stanley Park,” he added. “Kits Pool is one of the images people think about when they think about Vancouver.” 

For the original article with photographs, go here

Florida's balloon ban will protect sea turtles, birds and other marine life

Back in September 2017, I brought a motion to the Vancouver Park Board to ban balloons in our parks. This was because of the terrible toll they take on wildlife. The motion was defeated 5-2. Well, in Florida at least, the time has come to get serious about it. Here is an article from today's news:

Florida's balloon ban will protect sea turtles, birds and other marine life

CP News Wednesday, June 26, 2024

By The Associated Press

Sea turtles, marine birds and children under 7 will be protected under a new Florida law that bans the intentional release of balloons.

The law, signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday, replaces an existing ban of releasing ten or more balloons within 24 hours. The Legislature approved the bill with bipartisan support in March and the law is praised by environmentalists.

"Balloons rank among the¿deadliest ocean plastic for¿key wildlife¿and are¿the deadliest form of plastic debris for seabirds. Florida's new law will help save ocean animals from these preventable deaths," said Hunter Miller, a Florida representative of the Washington-based environmental group Oceana.

The law will exempt children under 7. Anyone else can be fined for littering for intentionally releasing a single balloon. The new law also removes an exemption for biodegradable balloons. DeSantis signed the bill in private and didn't make a statement on it.

The bill analysis prepared for lawmakers notes balloon releases are common at weddings, funerals, sporting events, graduations and various celebrations.

Following efforts to limit plastic bags and straws, the push by environmentalists against balloon releases has gained traction. The Florida Legislature has previously barred local governments from banning plastic bags. In 2019, DeSantis vetoed a bill that would have temporarily banned local governments from outlawing plastic straws.

Florida is a large peninsula with no point further than 60 miles (97 kilometers) from the Atlantic Ocean or Gulf of Mexico. Balloons can stay afloat for days - and winds and currents can carry them far from their initial release point.

Once they deflate and fall, sea turtles confuse them for one of their favorite foods: jellyfish. Birds, manatees, whales and other marine life also eat balloons, which can block their digestive systems, leading to starvation.

"Balloon litter in waterbodies affects more than 260 species worldwide and has been identified as among the five deadliest types of marine debris in terms of the risk that it poses to marine wildlife," said the legislative analysis, adding that animals can also get tangled in balloon strings.

A Plea for Parks and Green Spaces: Park People’s Concerns about the Potential Dismantling of the Vancouver Parks Board

 December 13, 2023

Dave Harvey parkpeople.ca

Putting Parks and the Needs of Vancouver’s Communities First

Park People, Canada’s national city parks advocacy organization, is extremely concerned that efforts to scrap the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation will take away from much-needed work to meet the park needs of the city’s communities. 

“There are major challenges facing our parks,” said Masheed Salehomoum, Park People’s Manager, Vancouver. 

“Maintenance budgets are falling behind, new park development is challenged to keep up with growth, changes in park use and changes in our climate are putting severe strain on our park system. Blowing up the century-old structure of how we deliver vital park services will result in a complex, lengthy and ultimately distracting process.” 

A debate was opened during the recent election on the future of the Park Board, but Mayor Sim firmly closed the door on that debate and committed to keeping the Board. Now, there is an effort for the Council to vote on this issue with only one week’s notice. Restructuring and amalgamating park services in other Canadian cities has resulted in many years of disruption and confusion, taking a toll on park staff who are already pressed to deliver services. Park People believes the primary focus should remain to safeguard Vancouver’s parks and to ensure they remain accessible, well-maintained, and vibrant spaces for all. 

The Park Board is working on some Canadian-leading initiatives, from park equity efforts in VanPlay to ongoing decolonization work through initiatives like the Local Food Systems Action Plan. Let’s not lose momentum for that important work in pursuing better parks and stronger communities. Let’s prioritize the needs of the people over structural changes and ensure that Vancouver’s parks continue to thrive, providing solace and joy to all who enjoy them.

Established in 2011, Park People works with others to advance parks as an essential part of the transition to equitable cities where people and the rest of nature thrive. At a time when we need to radically reimagine how we live in cities, Park People supports and connects Canada’s city park changemakers, influences decision-makers to invest in city parks, and amplifies the programs, practices and policies that inspire the transformative power of parks for cities.

original posting: https://parkpeople.ca/blog/park-peoples-statement-on-potential-elimination-of-vancouver-board-of-parks-and-recreation

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.