“We waste taxpayers' money”: ABC commissioner on Park Board’s existence

"We waste taxpayers' money": ABC commissioner on Vancouver Park Board's existence

ABC commissioner Jas Virdi (left) and independent commissioner Brennan Bastyovanszky (right) during the Vancouver Park Board meeting on December 11, 2023. (Vancouver Park Board)

The commissioners of the Vancouver Park Board held their first public meeting on Monday evening ever since Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim announced his proposal last week to abolish the separate elected entity governing parks and recreation.

This was also the first meeting where the mayor’s ABC Vancouver party did not have a majority control in the park board, with commissioners Scott Jensen, Laura Christensen, and Brennan Bastyovanszky now sitting as independents and indicating they will form a majority with Green Party Commissioner John Digby in more decisions. Marie-Claire Howard, Angela Haer, and Jas Virdi are now ABC’s remaining commissioners.

There was no avoiding the elephant in the room, with the meeting bookended by Bastyovanszky’s urgent motion on “reaffirming park board independence” to “save the park board.”

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Sim’s proposal is to formally ask the provincial government to amend the Vancouver Charter to no longer require a group of separately elected officials to oversee the parks and recreation system. Instead, the responsibilities of the park board would be transferred to the mayor and City Council for governance, and to the City system for operations.

Defiant new majority in favour of self-preservation

Bastyovanszky’s motion in defiance was approved in a 4-3 vote by the newly recalibrated majority. It directs park board staff to continue with all planning and projects, not to reprioritize any work in light of the mayor’s motion, and not allocate any resources to the mayor’s transition working group for abolishing the park board.

As well, if City Council passes the mayor’s abolition motion, the park board will send a letter to Premier David Eby and BC Minister of Municipal Affairs Anne Kang to affirm their opposition. This decision ultimately lies with the provincial government.

During the brief, but tense, deliberations, Bastyovanszky asserted Sim’s move amounts to “breaking the campaign promise made by ABC to fix the park board.”

“The mayor’s office has no jurisdiction in the park board, and has no authority to recommend the abolition of it,” he continued.

Bastyovanszky and Jensen asserted there has been little to no communication between the Park Board and the Mayor and City Council, with Jensen, who was the chair of the Park Board over the past year, stating he has not had a conversation with Sim in the last six months.

“The mayor and council have not spent any time on trying to help the park board on fixing any issues. They’ve identified the problems that this board has been dealing with. We’ve inherited some, and all seven of us made an oath to fix it. We were given a mandate by the city to spend four years working on it,” said Bastyovanszky.

He asserts the mayor and City Council have not responded to the park board’s request for more financial support to address some of the most pressing challenges for the parks and recreation system, given that the Mayor and City Council fully control the park board’s budget.

“We’ve not been able to have a single conversation with the mayor and council in 12 months that indicates they are genuine in fixing the park board,” added Bastyovanszky.

“We waste taxpayers’ money”

ABC Commissioner Jas Virdi did not hold back in sharing his thoughts about the effectiveness of the park board, after seeing its inner workings from his first year in office.

“I’m going to be very honest here. I feel sick to my stomach coming here every day. When I first got elected, I was so happy to be a part of the Park Board. I thought we were going to make changes; we have a full majority, we are going to do things,” said Virdi. “But later on, I learned that all of our motions get passed, but nothing gets done. Our motions get piled in a category called ‘unfunded motions.’

“We do these expensive studies around these unfunded motions and we waste tons of money doing this, and yet nothing gets done.”

Virdi also bluntly asserted the board wastes taxpayer money, including on food for commissioners and the events they attend. He questions the whole existence of the Park Board, since City Council completely holds its purse strings, and effectively has the direct final say on any initiatives, projects, and strategies approved by the commissioners.

“I think we need not two boards making the same decision, we need one board making the decision. When Council makes the decision, they have the skin in the game because they are the ones ultimately funding the motion,” added Virdi.

“We waste taxpayers’ money, and we get nothing done. Our board is redundant and inefficient.”

City Council is expected to debate and decide on Sim’s motion in a public meeting on Wednesday.

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