 | Saturday, May 14, 2022
Reading this online? Sign up to get this delivered to your inbox every Friday. | | Burnaby’s mayor is running again. Is anyone going to challenge him? | | |  | | | B.C.’s largest city (Vancouver) has five major candidates running for mayor at this point and 10 separate political parties trying to overhaul the power balance at city hall.
B.C.’s second-largest city (Surrey) has two major candidates and a lot of people kicking the tires on whether they can mount a challenge to an incumbent facing a criminal charge.
But in B.C.’s third-largest city?
The question is whether anybody will care at all.
“It’ll be interesting to see whether or not someone comes forward … or whether he slides in without having an election,” said Burnaby Coun. Colleen Jordan.
“He” is Burnaby’s incumbent mayor, Mike Hurley. Elected four years ago in a massive upset of longtime mayor Derek Corrigan, Hurley — a former firefighter with no political experience — had to contend with a city hall of seven people from Corrigan’s party (the Burnaby Citizens Association) and one Green Party councillor (famous punk rocker Joey S. Keithley).
However, a novel thing in today’s political climate ended up happening. Hurley worked to gain the trust of councillors he campaigned against and rarely said anything inflammatory.
“I work collaboratively with everyone. I’m not going to beat people over the head,” he said.
“I knew that I would have to pick my battles … and to be fair, you know, I gained a lot out of the experience of the counsellors that were there because they probably saved me from making a few mistakes along the way
He moved forward on his one big election promise — rental policies that gave greater protection for demovictions than anywhere else in Metro Vancouver — and otherwise pursued a relatively status quo agenda.
And now, neither the Greens nor BCA are planning on running a candidate to challenge Hurley. |  | “There were some times where we didn't always vote the same way, but they weren't the big policy things,” said Coun. Sav Dhaliwal, who became Metro Vancouver chair in part due to Hurley’s support.
“If you can work as a team with an independent mayor who seems to be just as progressive as we expected ourselves to be and the public has spoken, there's no point in thinking just because we're a different party we should have a mayor,” said Dhaliwal.
As a result, Burnaby looks set to return to what characterized its elections before 2018: minimal mayoral competition, with much less attention than other municipalities in the region.
Not that Hurley will be complaining. | | | | |  | | | The news release from the City of Langley was to the point, but it left plenty of questions.
“Council for the City of Langley made a decision to issue a motion of censure and sanction against Mayor Val van den Broek,” a spokesperson for the city wrote in a statement on Wednesday.
It said she broke the city's respectful workplace policy, compensation act and health and safety guidelines.
“Council took the matter very seriously and would not have taken such actions over a minor concern,” it said.
But the reasons weren't given, citing confidentiality concerns.
It’s part of what appears to be a new trend: local political punishment over HR issues being decided behind closed doors. In the last two years, councillors in Maple Ridge and Port Coquitlam have also been censured by their fellow councillors for workplace issues, along with two school trustees in Victoria
Each time, the reasons weren’t given by the municipality and the politicians censured had been on the losing end of several policy votes in prior months.
In those instances, it's been followed by legal action from those removed in attempts to clear their name and have a legal way to explain why they thought the action was taken.
For her part, Van den Broek hasn’t threatened a lawsuit but is planning to seek re-election in October.
This trend is why some local politicians have called for a provincial ombudsperson to deal with such issues — the argument being that local councils have a tough time policing themselves once there are allegations of improper behaviour.
Whether the province will begin providing guidelines is unknown. But the increase in closed-door censure notices — and the increase in municipal legal costs that stem from them — is something we’ll continue to monitor. | | |  | | | 2. Spallumcheen | A few months ago, we mentioned a municipality that sold off a person’s property without giving fair notice, and now a similar situation has unfolded in another one. Anthony Morgan owed about $6,700 in property taxes when Spallumcheen put it up for sale without telling him, and now he’s won a court case, gotten an apology — and soon will get $352,316.
Read more | | | |  | | | 3. West Vancouver | It’s just one property, but there has been a lot of attention paid to West Vancouver’s efforts to build 167 units of below-market rental and seniors housing on land it owns, as other municipalities debate whether the price and effort are worth the payoff. Council voted in favour to move the project forward this week, with a bigger debate over the leaseholders coming next month. Read more in the North Shore News | | | | | |  | | | 4. Prince George | A surprising number of infrastructure projects have gone over budget in B.C.’s northern capital (or is it central-northern capital?) and the trend continues with a new pool complex that is an extra $4 million over budget. One councillor who approved the increase noted that at least now, there is greater oversight given to elected officials, which wasn’t the case in the past.
Read more | | | |  | | | 5. Lytton | Sometimes towns sign off on film shoots for $50,000. Usually, it doesn’t cause headlines — but when it’s in a town that burned down, and the film shoot shows the town still empty, and the music in the background is “I’m Walking On Sunshine,” you can imagine the result. For the record, the mayor is promising a September return for residents, while Ottawa once again pledged help this week. Read more | | | | | | Share this newsletter | | or subscribe if this was
forwarded to you. | | | | That's it for this week! In the meantime, check out the latest headlines at cbc.ca/bc and follow our municipal affairs reporter Justin McElroy on Twitter. And if you have any questions you might want answered in a future mailbag, drop Justin a line at metromatters@cbc.ca. | | | |
