Vancouver’s mayor says he’s annoyed the province has but to make authorized modifications that may allow the abolition of town’s elected park board.
Ken Sim requested the provincial authorities to amend the Vancouver Constitution in December 2023, a crucial step in his plan to dissolve the Vancouver Park Board.
The next spring, Premier David Eby signalled the government was “committed” to creating the modifications after the 2024 provincial election, ought to he be re-elected.
These modifications haven’t occurred quick sufficient, Sim mentioned Wednesday.
“We’re annoyed proper now, I simply need to be very clear, we have now accomplished the whole lot the province has requested of us,” he mentioned.
“We’ve got help from all three First Nations … when (the province) requested for a monetary plan, we got here again with it, the unions are on board.”
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Eby, in the meantime, mentioned he acknowledged the problem was a precedence for the mayor and had been working with town “to make sure all of the geese are in a row.”
Nevertheless, he pinned the shortage of motion on the file on gradual progress on the provincial legislative agenda.
“There are lots of new MLAs, they’re discovering their ft, they’re asking questions they should ask, however it has resulted in a lowered legislative schedule, and the park board, sadly, was a casualty of that,” Eby mentioned.
Abolishing the park board has confirmed controversial.
Sim campaigned on maintaining and fixing the elected physique within the 2022 municipal election, however months later, reversed course, saying it was too damaged to restore.
Sim argues that chopping the physique would remove crimson tape and redundancies, whereas saving town about $7 million a yr.
Critics — together with 4 sitting park board commissioners, three who initially ran underneath Sim’s ABC Slate — say it fulfils an vital democratic position, and that Sim doesn’t have the mandate to remove it.
Group centre associations and the opposition BC Conservatives have additionally come out in opposition to scrapping the park board.
As the method drags on, the prospect of the park board’s future changing into a marketing campaign concern within the 2026 municipal election grows.
That’s one thing former park board chair Aaron Jasper says he’d want to see.
“If he feels that strongly about it, then he ought to make this a key a part of his platform and run on it within the subsequent election,” Jasper mentioned.
“Give attention to the vital stuff. We’ve got a psychological well being disaster, we have now an opioid disaster, we have now a housing disaster. There are such a lot of extra vital issues.”
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