Inexperienced Party’s Tom Digby: “We are sadly pressured into a problem not of our building.”
Green Party park commissioner Tom Digby designs to introduce a movement at the Feb. 5 park board conference to request up to $20,000 be spent on attorneys to look for authorized suggestions on “the deserves and chance of success” of quashing Mayor Ken Sim’s move to abolish the elected board.
The ask for is in reaction to Sim’s announcement in December and later on movement authorized by his ABC the vast majority of councillors to abolish the board and bring parks and recreation underneath regulate of city council.
“We are regretably compelled into a problem not of our making,” Digby said. “And we feel there is a robust basis to push back towards the mayor on authorized grounds, as properly as political grounds. But we require at the very least these two prongs of the strategy doing work in tandem.”
Digby’s motion specifically requests independent counsel. He explained that in-dwelling attorneys performing for the Metropolis of Vancouver simply cannot be tasked with mediating an difficulty between the city and the park board.
Tied to Digby’s ask for is an additional movement that he and the 3 previous ABC commissioners passed in December 2023 to direct park board personnel not to take part in any changeover options that would guide to abolition of the board.
Digby explained he thinks his ask for to seek out lawful advice will pass, noting he has the assistance of former ABC commissioners Laura Christensen, Scott Jensen and Brennan Bastyovanszky. Bastyovanszky outlined his support in a news launch from the Greens.
“This issue was not on the mayor’s election platform, and council has no democratic mandate to abolish another elected overall body,” he mentioned in the launch.
Sim’s shift to scrap the board needs an modification transform to the Vancouver Charter, which has to be authorized by the provincial federal government. Leading David Eby has not pushed back in opposition to the request, but has stated it’s not his government’s top rated priority.
“Local democracy is under no circumstances a completed offer,” said Digby in response to Eby not balking at Sim’s request.
“Local democracy issues to all of us, and we’ve developed this park process with general public input for 135 several years. Persons are saying it truly is a performed deal, but there is certainly no foundation for that. It may well just be an undone deal.”
At a news convention previous 7 days, Sim and town manager Paul Mochrie explained that session proceeds with Initially Nations, unions and other individuals who could or would be afflicted by the abolition of the elected board.
Glacier Media requested Sim at the information meeting whether abolition was lawful.
He very first responded by declaring that he and his celebration were being “very clear” just before the October 2022 election that his group of candidates was likely to attempt to “fix the framework of the elected park board and if it didn’t work, we would go to the province to make changes.”
Then he claimed: “It’s really crystal clear that all we need to do is make a Charter transform in the Vancouver Constitution. And that’s the approach. It’s pretty spelled out there.”
In April 2021, ahead of Sim secured ABC Vancouver’s mayoral nomination, he issued a press release with the subject matter line, “abolish the park board.”
In August 2022, Glacier Media asked Sim about whether he was going to make excellent on his promise to scrap the board. He didn’t deliver a indeed or no solution.
“We won’t be able to wait two to 3 many years for legislative modifications to the Vancouver Constitution [to cede jurisdiction to city hall],” he stated at the time.
“We believe that the provincial governing administration is likely to be preoccupied [with the NDP leadership race], so it will not get the comprehensive focus that we need to have from them. Our infrastructure is crumbling, and we have to leap in now. So we pivoted. We are working a bunch of amazingly gifted candidates with assorted lived encounters that are going to help us reshape our parks.”
Meanwhile, Digby’s colleagues on council — Pete Fry and Adriane Carr — will host a city hall meeting Feb. 1 at town corridor with OneCity Coun. Christine Boyle about the mayor’s program to scrap the board.
The meeting runs from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.
The Feb. 5 park board conference, exactly where Digby will introduce his motion, begins at 6:30 p.m. at the board’s workplace in Stanley Park.
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