New mayor has lots of time for the media
Stewart offers the kind of accessibility this city hasn’t seen in a long time, if ever
Kennedy Stewart has said he wants to do things differently around city hall. And when Vancouver’s new mayor provided an update Tuesday on the busy early days of his administration, he presented it in a different way.
Tuesday was slated as the first of a series of regularly scheduled media briefings from the new mayor, as Stewart provided an update on last week’s packed agenda including council business, meetings with senior governments, and community events, before opening it up to reporters’ questions on any subject.
This style of regular media availability is more common with provincial politicians and at the federal level, where Stewart previously served as an NDP member of Parliament. But it hasn’t been seen at Vancouver City Hall, or at least not in a long time.
One reporter asked Tuesday about the changes to city hall’s media outreach under the new mayor. Stewart replied: “As an MP for seven years, I always made myself accessible to the media, and so I didn’t want to change that. I think it’s an important public duty to do this as an elected official . ... Part of this is trying to make sure that citizens feel like we’re being transparent here.”
During Tuesday’s 25-minute briefing, Stewart discussed three key motions passed last week by council. The first motion approved by the new council directed staff to start on a city-wide plan, a major undertaking that Stewart said “citizens should be pretty excited about.” The motion, introduced by Green Coun. Adriane Carr and seconded by Non-Partisan Association Coun. Colleen Hardwick, states that while the city launched a neighbourhood-byneighbourhood CityPlan process in 1992, it was stopped in 2010 by council before its completion, and the City of Vancouver’s only complete city-wide plan was written almost a century ago. The motion, which was altered by a series of amendments from councillors last week after considerable debate, directed staff to begin scoping a work plan and timeline for the city-wide plan, and report back to council in the first quarter of next year.
A second motion, introduced by Green Coun. Pete Fry and seconded by OneCity Coun. Christine Boyle, directed city staff to report back on steps to create a “Renter’s Office” in Vancouver, which will “target, track, resource and support Vancouver renters and renter issues,” including providing a point of contact for renter issues such as renovictions and maintenance standards. During this year’s election campaign, Stewart had similarly promised to hire a “renter’s advocate” at city hall.
The third motion was to create an opioid task force, to help the city deal with the ongoing public health emergency posed by illicit drug overdoses. Stewart said Tuesday he’s already been in discussions with concerned parties and is “looking forward to getting something back to council in December” on the next steps.
On Tuesday, the mayor fielded a question about Luke Harrison, who’s leaving his role as CEO of the City of Vancouver’s Vancouver Affordable Housing Agency for a job at modular home building company Horizon North.
During Stewart’s mayoral campaign earlier this year, he pledged to end the “unsavoury pursuit and premature hiring ” of senior city staffers by corporations doing business with the city, citing the potential for real or perceived conflicts. In July, following a public outcry over Vancouver’s head of real estate services Bill Aujla departing city hall for a position at Aquilini Development, Stewart released a statement promising to reform conflict-of-interest rules and impose a mandatory “cooling off ” period prohibiting private firms that do business with the city from hiring senior city staff for 12 months after they leave their positions. On Tuesday, Stewart told reporters he understood, from recent conversations with the city manager’s office, that Harrison’s recent move to Horizon North did not appear to break any rules or represent a real conflict of interest.
However, Stewart said, the “larger issue” is that there can be an “appearance of conflict, or a public uneasiness about what’s happening, so that’s why I do intend to bring forward a motion to council shortly that will outline how we can give the public more confidence when these personnel shifts happen.”
In addition to the “cooling off ” period and new conflict-of-interest measures, Stewart pledged to introduce a lobbyist registry at city hall, which he said “would give the citizens more confidence and ... be more transparent.”
“I can’t do anything now about (Harrison’s) move, but future moves, I think, should fall under these new pieces of legislation,” Stewart said, adding he wants to consult with both fellow councillors and the provincial government about proposed changes, but wants to move forward with them “very soon.”