 | Friday, October 08, 2021
Reading this online? Sign up to get this delivered to your inbox every Friday. | | Vancouver council’s reputation reinforced by parking permit vote | | |  | | | Vancouver city hall has a reputation these days for having a council wracked by paralysis and endless meetings led by a transactional mayor who fails to inspire passion.
It’s not entirely accurate. But after a week like this, you can be forgiven for having that impression.
Consider Wednesday's council vote to reject paid permit parking across the city, a policy that would have put a $45 yearly fee on overnight street parking across Vancouver (instead of the localized permits that exist for a few neighbourhoods across the city), along with a $500 or $1,000 fee on new high-emission vehicles that park on the street.
It was applauded by some and criticized by others, mostly along the same battle lines as most tax and spending debates.
However, city council unanimously approved declaring a climate emergency in 2019. Staff then spent months developing proposals to reduce the city’s carbon pollution by 50 per cent by 2030, including the idea of parking permits.
Council approved the concept of parking permits, along with many other climate-related measures nearly a year ago. Staff then sent the concept out for consultation, modified the plan based on feedback and brought it forward for a vote.
Where, at the end of a process that went on for more than two years, it failed.
And it failed because Mayor Kennedy Stewart, after supporting climate related measures his entire term, voted against it.“If it had passed, a few years from now a landscaper living in a basement suite who buys a used 2023 pickup truck for work would pay over $1,000 a year while their landlord would pay nothing — even if the homeowner drives a Ferrari,” the mayor wrote.
“That’s just not fair.”
Which begs several questions: if it wasn’t fair, why did the mayor support the plan a year ago? Why didn’t he offer any amendments on the day of the vote? Why didn’t he put forward motions ahead of time to tweak the concept? Or aggressively lobby the province to allow Vancouver to regulate more than just street space when it comes to vehicle use, which created the inequity in the proposed policy that inspired much of the backlash?
The likely answer is Stewart saw the criticism in the last couple weeks, saw an election a year away and decided to side with the five councillors originally elected under the NPA banner.
Politics can make strange bedfellows.
“I’ve asked staff to find a better way forward, and I am confident they will,” wrote Stewart.
Which may happen. Whether it will change people’s impression of this council before the next election is another matter. | | |  | | | 1. Dawson Creek | | | While most of the pandemic is managed by the province, municipal governments continue to face pressures, often from citizens who want cities to usurp provincial regulations around vaccines or masks. Case in point: Dawson Creek, where a recent council meeting ended up being shared in COVID-19 disinformation groups worldwide.
Read more | | |  | | | 2. Pouce Coupe | The entire Peace region has low vaccine rates relative to the rest of B.C., and plenty of community controversies centred around pandemic policies. In Pouce Coupe, Mayor Lorraine Michetti was removed from all boards and committees this week, a few days after she questioned the number of unvaccinated people in hospitals.
Read more in Energetic City | | | |  | | | 3. Pitt Meadows | But there are tensions between councillors in communities across B.C. Pitt Meadows Coun. Anena Simpson is not attending council meetings in person, claiming it’s because she doesn’t support vaccine mandates. The municipality doesn’t actually have such a rule for city hall, but one can read between the lines of the dispute. Read more in the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows News | | | | | |  | | | 4. Penticton | In non-pandemic local news, Penticton continues to have more than its fair share of controversies: Mayor John Vassilaki is pushing for the city to hire more police officers, saying it is facing a crime “crisis.” Somewhat ironically, he’s also being accused of his own crime by his brother, in a nasty family dispute over a jointly-owned business.
Read more in Global News | | | |  | | | 5. Metro Vancouver | Regional governments get less attention than city halls, but the work they do is vital — and expensive. A billion dollar wastewater plant replacement in Metro Vancouver is now indefinitely delayed, and it raises questions about the timeline and budget for all the other multi-billion wastewater upgrades planned over the next decade.
Read more | | | | | |  | | | 6. Coquitlam | Is it worth it to have a byelection to elect a single councillor for less than a year? Coquitlam has asked the provincial government for permission not to fill the seat of Bonita Zarillo, elected as an NDP MP last month — though given how few votes in Coquitlam are very close, the answer is unlikely to matter politically one way or another.
Read more in the TriCity News | | | |  | | | 7. Lytton | It’s now been 100 days since most of the town burned down, and there’s still been no substantive update on when temporary housing might be enacted and what responsibilities local and provincial governments will have when a rebuild begins in earnest. You can forgive the local MLA for wondering what the next steps are.
Read more in the Hope Standard | | | | | | Share this newsletter | | or subscribe if this was
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