Frances Bula header image 2
← →

The NPA plan for more “openness and accountability” at city hall

August 12th, 2014 · 161 Comments

First written-down piece of policy from the new NPA team. Your thoughts on the specific remedies here?

Tuesday, August 12, 2014, Vancouver BC – The Non-Partisan Association’s mayoral candidate Kirk LaPointe says an NPA government would create a bylaw requiring the City to disclose information routinely, strengthen the City’s freedom of information office to ensure records are more accessible and create an Office of the Ombudsperson to represent the public as an impartial investigator of complaints about how the City is run.

LaPointe also proposes producing an independent annual report that would show how public consultations have influenced decisions the City has made in a given year.

These and other measures LaPointe pledges are designed to make City Hall more accountable to the residents it serves – something he says would restore the trust that has eroded under the current Vision Vancouver administration.

“The general public, community groups and even our politicians have to resort to formal legal requests for basic data,” LaPointe writes today on his blog, thevancouveriwant.ca. “This has been a pattern of arrogant, disrespectful and wasteful behaviour.”

LaPointe says an NPA government would also:

  • Create a much stronger electronic forum for the public to question elected officials.
  • Create a new process to make genuine community consultation a priority on all City decisions and provide more information on issues so people can better participate.
  • Go where Vancouverites are and hold at least one-quarter of Council, Park Board or School Board meetings in affected neighbourhoods.

“Vancouver is a great city, badly run,” says LaPointe. “Lifting the veil off our government and showing voters how it works can only reduce skepticism, improve dialogue and create trust and respect.”

Categories: 2014 Vancouver Civic Election

←  Older Comments
 →
  • Dr. Frankentower

    “the story about the two couples who want to buy a house”

    Greater Fool had a good post about this story. It was his final post of Misery Week, which included a pretty searing indictment of “condomania” here: http://www.greaterfool.ca/2014/08/14/adios-property-ladder/ , which opens with the story of the shards of glass raining down on unsuspecting pedestrians from the giddy heights of Toronto’s version of Shangri-La.

    PS. Spartikus, someone emailed me with another big flaw in your math.

    You said: “The population of Metro Vancouver is projected by government statistic agencies to grow by 1.2 million people by 2041. To achieve that requires a growth rate of only 2-3% / yr.”

    You bolded “of ONLY 2-3% / yr”, implying that it was significantly less the the CoV growth rate of 4.6% in the last census.

    However, the CoV’s growth rate was 4.6% over the last FIVE years, which works out to less that 1% per year.

    At 2.5% per year (median of Metro’s projection), the CoV growth rate would be in the range of 12.5% for a five year period – well above the 9% growth rate in the early 90s – a rate which you called the “outlier in the post-war era.”

    PPS. The BC Libs might take note just how difficult and time-consuming it is to teach remedial math to one slow kid, while the rest of the class gets bored and restless… To borrow a phrase from the wise ass in the back row who’s doing his second tour of Math 8: “To the audience at home, your patience is appreciated.”

  • Jenables

    Phew! OK, Sooo.. Jay, traveling west on prior in the morning there are two lanes for traffic. After driving up the ramp the right lane eventually ends, you must merge left but there is plenty of space. There are two lanes on main to turn left onto said viaduct, the outside one immediately terminates on the ramp in a distance of about three car lengths. (which is ridiculously dangerous) So that is four lanes of traffic turning into two lanes. The bike lane did actually create a lot more traffic. I’m not bitching per se, just stating a fact. I drove it daily before and after and it definitely did, but this was exacerbated in part to the two extremely close lights at citadel parade and beatty.There is no good technical reason why traffic would slow in the right lane as anywhere you are allowed to turn right has a turn lane, but it does anyways. It generally is about a five minute wait. Again, I’m not complaining but it simply isn’t true to state otherwise, and I’m guessing I have used it a lot more than CK, seeing as i used it daily when I worked in kits and at all times of day. (no 9-5 here)

    Jeff Leigh: I read the article on greater fool about that newsvertorial haha (you can find it throigh Dr F’s link, on the recent posts sidebar, the article is entitled la fin) I also read some of the comments, and well Jeff, it looks like I’m not the only skeptic.

    “#99 News or Paid Advertising? on 08.16.14 at 2:01 am
    The author of the story is Michael Bernard of Bernard Communications Consulting.

    http://www.indeed.com/r/Michael-Bernard/f4e7cfe1cdd5a06b?sp=0

    …is a link to one of his online CVs. In part it reads:

    “• Ongong contract writer for Vancity Savings Credit Union, developing stories on Vancity’s community activities for pitching to the mainstream media”

    Do I read correctly that it’s his paid job to praise Vancity as he gushingly does so in presenting it as news?

    I did not check to see if he is also possibly paid by any other interests that appear in the article.”

    Disturbed yet?

  • Bill

    @Jay #148

    I would guess that most volume on the viaduct originates from Venables and not from Main Street. I am not a daily user of the viaduct but I know that prior to bike lanes Dunsmuir used to be a quick way through town as the lights were synchronized and the traffic moved steadily.

  • Jeff Leigh

    @Jen #153

    “I read the article on greater fool about that newsvertorial …….Disturbed yet?”

    We don’t need to invent words like newsvertorial. I think you are referring to advertorials. In concept, a newsvertorial would be news and editorial.

    No, I am not disturbed. You should be skeptical, as I am. It is healthy. I read the article when it first came out in the Sun. If you want to paint a conspiracy around Van City and their social activities, then why would the article be about an employee of Blue Shore Financial? It is a piece about challenges to home ownership, nothing more. The hook is that the subjects want to buy a home collectively. Hope it works out for them.

    Everybody want to sell something. That is normal. The Sun wants to sell papers. A freelance writer wants to sell articles. He sold one to the Sun. I don’t find that to be sinister, myself.

  • Kirk

    @Jeff Leigh 154

    Did a freelancer sell a story to the Sun? Or, did he pay the Sun to run the story?

  • Jenables

    Well, as you pointed out this is in the business section, and you illustrate my point quite nicely. Everyone is trying to sell you something, but that does mar reporting that people expect to be unbiased, doesn’t it? Do you think it is a good idea to report on this without mentioning the many obvious pitfalls to such an arrangement? I hope these people really, really like each other. The table Whoa Bundy they are doing almost has me convinced, but the article mentions vancity will kick in half of the minimum down payment. So, is that two and a half percent down? Do you think that is responsible advice for anyone? Stakes is high. Vancity may do good in the community, but they are still a business.

  • Jay

    @jenables

    Just curious, where exactly is this five minute wait happening? Is it along Prior before the viaduct, or right on the Viaduct itself?

  • teririch

    And another pesky ‘sham’ consultation rears its legal fight back:

    http://cityhallwatch.wordpress.com/2014/08/15/new-yaletown-land-swap-brenhill/

  • Jenables

    On the viaduct, specifically from about the main St on ramp to beatty.

  • Jenables

    Oh teri that is one nasty piece of work right there. Instead of an expanded emery Barnes park, there will be a 35 storey tower with an fsr of 7.7, right? No net gain in social housing, merely replacing the lost units in a new building on richards which will also feature 320 sq ft “affordable” units renting at $1100+ per month? Am I remembering correctly? Because if you don’t have money, you should not be taking up space. Maybe those poors should sleep in their clothes, sitting up (on a toilet) with a microwave in a closet. Think of all the units they could bring on. And so affordable at 550 per month. But you live downtown!

  • Jeff Leigh

    @Kirk #155

    “Did a freelancer sell a story to the Sun? Or, did he pay the Sun to run the story?”

    I have no idea.

←  Older Comments
 →