Vancouver Politicians and Public Consultation

Last week, we published a series of posts on what candidates for Mayor, City Council and Parks Board thought about public consultation, based on responses to a survey conducted by the  Vancouver Public Space Network.  The first question is of particular interest to PlaceSpeak as it deals with public engagement.

Now that the elections is over, we’d like to first congratulate the winners.  We would also like our to remind our readers what the successful candidates had to say. Our aim is to hold everybody accountable and move towards a more inclusive public consultation system in for the city.

Mayor 

Gregor Robertson (Vision Vancouver)

Vision Vancouver has reinstated citizen advisory committees for a wide range of groups that are not always represented at City Council.

Building on the successful Talk Green to Us program at the city, which engaged over 35,000 people in the development of the Greenest City 2020 Action Plan, we will develop new ways to reach our diverse communities, seniors,  youth and aboriginal groups so they continue to have a voice at City Hall. This will include a wide-reaching task force on Expanding Citizen Engagement to bring forward options to make city processes more transparent, accessible, and accountable to the public.

A Vision-led Council will also develop strategies to increase voter participation with young people.

City Council

Vision Vancouver (Geoff Meggs, Raymond Louie, Andrea Reimer, Heather Deal, Tim Stevenson, Kerry Jang and Tony Tang)

Vision Vancouver has reinstated citizen advisory committees for a wide range of groups that are not always represented at City Council.

Building on the successful Talk Green to Us program at the city, which engaged over 35,000 people in the development of the Greenest City 2020 Action Plan, we will develop new ways to reach our diverse communities, seniors,  youth and aboriginal groups so they continue to have a voice at City Hall. This will include a wide-reaching task force on Expanding Citizen Engagement to bring forward options to make city processes more transparent, accessible, and accountable to the public.

A Vision-led Council will also develop strategies to increase voter participation with young people.

George Affleck (NPA)

We need to engage youth in the political process and empower them to become increasingly involved in the decisions about the city. I would encourage internet based engagement options targeting this segment of the population.

Adriane Carr, Green Party

To start with, the Council has to stop holding “sham” public hearing and token public information sessions that are too often poorly advertised and too late in the game to offer any real citizen power in decision-making. Citizens don’t engage when they know a process is merely window dressing, or allows for only minor inconsequential changes or is really designed to “manufacture” consent. Citizens get angry, as with the current turmoil over “spot rezoning” of high-rise development in neighbourhoods around the city, when the vast majority of presenters express their opinion against a development but City Council votes for it anyway. If people felt that they have, and really do have real power to change things, or prevent a development, or create positive change in their communities, there will be much more involvement. Council must involve citizens from the beginning in developing community plans and then abide by those plans in subsequent land use decisions.

Councillor Elizabeth Ball (NPA) did not respond to the survey

Parks Board

Vison Vancouver ( Aaron Jasper, Constance Barnes, Sarah Blythe,  Nikki Sharma, Trevor Locke)

Public input and inclusion is the foundation of a healthy, long-term parks and recreation service in Vancouver. The Vision Park Board led an extensive public consultation process to develop its new 5-year strategic plan. Input was sought from a wide cross-section of community representatives and staff for inclusion into the creation of the Park Board new goals and priorities. Building on that success, we will improve the process for public consultation with regards to all aspect of the Park Board mandate and operations. Vision Vancouver will also utilize technology to ensure that more voices have the opportunity to contribute to public discussions and to have greater impact on the opinions and thedecision-making of Park Board.

Commissioners John Coupar (NPA), and Melissa De Genova (NPA) did not respond to the survey

The PlaceSpeak team looks forward to working with all of these elected officials to enhance public consultations in the city.