MAYOR PRAISES COUNCIL’S WORK ON MARATHON MEETING
When Vancouver’s new mayor used the expression “warts and all” Wednesday evening to describe the day’s proceedings at city hall, he meant it as praise for what his new council had accomplished.
It’s been busy.
Last week, the new mayor and council had their first meeting, where everyone was all smiles and harmony, hours after their inauguration ceremony, as they quickly ran through a few unanimous votes on who would take various roles on council. On Tuesday, council’s first regular meeting took most of the day but was relatively straightforward, as they heard reports on the overdose crisis and cultural grants.
But Wednesday was the true first test of how the new mayor and council — including an unprecedented number of newcomers and a diversity of party affiliations — will be able to work together. It also provided an early look at where and how the new council might find themselves at loggerheads, as for the first time in decades, no single political party has a majority.
It was also a test of their endurance, as 149 speakers had registered to speak on 10 agenda items, including several motions introduced by rookie councillors at their first possible opportunity. Some of these initial motions — including a proposal to rescind the previous council’s decision to allow duplexes in single-family neighbourhoods and a motion seeking to protect tenants from “renovictions” — were likely to be contentious.
George Affleck, a former NPA councillor who did not seek reelection this year, said he could not recall having 10 motions on notice on a single agenda in his two terms on council. Similarly, while public hearings sometimes draw large numbers of speakers, having 149 people sign up to speak on motions on notice is, Affleck said, “crazy.”
Affleck said he would advise councillors, particularly newcomers, to spend time working with experienced city staff on their motions before introducing them. Wednesday’s meeting also included, as could be expected considering the number of newcomers to their roles, plenty of growing pains.
“Do you understand what we’re voting on?”
“If I was in fact voting on the amendment to the amendment, can someone please rescind that for me?”
“Is everyone having fun?” “Okay, we have a few technical difficulties.”
“Hmmm. So many interesting procedural nuances.”
“Thank you for your patience, everyone in the room.”
A few times, councillors’ microphones caught audible sighs.
At least once, a councillor laughed and joked: “It’s going to be a long four years.”
The city clerks, diligent unsung heroes of the council chambers, had to do plenty of heavy lifting Wednesday, explaining rules and procedures. Although many of the council members have experience on school board, park board, or, in the mayor’s case, the federal Parliament, nine of the 11 elected last month are new to this chamber.
When the last mayor and 10 councillors were sworn in four years ago, they brought, among them, 21 terms of council experience. This new mayor and council bring a combined total of three terms of council experience.
Despite all the procedural confusions and technical difficulties and hour-plus debates on how to change a few words of a single motion, the tenor of the meeting was still, for the most part, collegial. After hours of debate, council voted around 5 p.m. to pass the first motion of the day, which Mayor Kennedy Stewart welcomed as “a great accomplishment for council.”
Council approved a motion, introduced by Green Coun. Adriane Carr, directing city staff to begin “scoping of an expedited work plan and timeline to co-develop with Vancouver residents and stakeholders a citywide plan.”
Carr, the longest-serving councillor, was chairing her first council meeting Wednesday, in her new role as chair of the committee on policy and strategic priorities. She said the first steps toward the city-wide plan represent “a new era that is going to be very different.”
“What happened in the meeting just now was, in fact, this collaborative process,” Carr told reporters. “Differences of opinion? Yes. But a real attempt to come together, to work jointly on this plan.”
After the motion was passed, Stewart told reporters he was “really proud of the debate we’ve had here.”
“The public always wants transparency. Well, they’re getting it here. They’re getting us warts and all, going out there hashing it out in front of people, and that’s really important,” Stewart said. “Of course there’s going to be bumps along the road, but in the end, we’ve all voted for something we’re really excited about.”
But while council celebrated taking those initial steps toward a city-wide plan, a lot of work remains on this week’s agenda.
Council was slated to continue through Wednesday evening until 10 p.m., resuming Thursday morning at 9:30 a.m. By 6 p.m. Wednesday, council had heard from five speakers, and it was not immediately clear how many of the remaining 140 or so registered speakers they would hear from by the end of the night.