NPA Board
It is settled: The NPA will remain the NPA and will NOT change its name to Vancouver First or anything else.
In a General Meeting this evening the membership overwhelmingly rejected a special resolution that would have changed the name of our association.
I want to thank the Committee chaired by Bill McCreery that put together two surveys of current and ex-members and collated all the data. And I want to thank all the members that took time out of a beautiful evening to come have their say. It was a good discussion.
Now it is time to focus on our real job: finding excellent candidates to run in the 2011 election and helping them get elected.
The NPA Board of Directors announced today that it will hold early nominations for NPA candidates for the three levels of civic government: • Vancouver City Council, • Vancouver School Board and • Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation. Nominations for candidates will be held on November 20, 2010 with a second set of nominations to be held in the spring of 2011. “We are hearing a growing level of frustration from residents and businesses with the current administration,” says NPA President Michael Davis. “Policies like homeless shelters for chickens could be driving some of that. The Park Board budget has been gutted by Council and Vancouver kids will be feeling the affects of that all summer long. Meanwhile the Vancouver School Board seems intent on waging a very loud war with the province. The kids will end up suffering for that too. We need candidates in place who can speak to these issues.” The NPA early nomination will happen one year out from the next municipal election in Vancouver. The NPA board will announce the number of candidate positions that will be decided in November and the rules for the nomination process in September 2010.
Dear friends:
Two weeks ago, we asked you what you thought about the NPA’s name. The response to our online survey was substantial and very helpful. Based on that survey, we have compiled a short list of potential alternative names. We’d like to know what you think. Please help us by clicking here to take a quick one-question survey.
The final decision on the name of our organization will be decided by a vote of the membership at a Special General Meeting on June 30th – details will be forthcoming soon.
Thank you!
NPA Special Review Committee
Dear friends:
We are only eighteen months away from the Vancouver civic election of November 2011. Make no mistake: we intend to win that election. However, we will only succeed with your help.
You can help right now by giving us a few minutes of your time – and your opinion.
At our recent AGM, a special review committee was struck to review the present name of the NPA, as well as other potential names. With a mandate to report back to the membership at a Special General Meeting in June, the committee has been working quickly over the last few weeks.
To make an informed recommendation, we need your input. We have assembled a brief anonymous survey to help the committee gather your thoughts and better understand your views. You can access that survey online at: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/npaname
We look forward to hearing your thoughts in person in June. The debate promises to be spirited; we would have it no other way.
Thank you very much for your help.
NPA Board
It has been a tough year for many, with big challenges. On a worldwide scale we face seemingly insurmountable issues: economic turmoil, climate change, population growth, pollution, war, collapsing fish and wildlife stocks. It can seem overwhelming at times.
John Moonen is an experienced veteran in government relations, communications, public affairs, and political strategy. Kirk Miller is the former Chair and General Manager of BC’s Agricultural Land Commission. Bill Yuen is a professional engineer, former NPA School Board trustee and active community volunteer.
The Board also elected new executive officers: President Michael Davis, Vice President Manjot Hallen, Secretary Gavin Dew, and Treasurer Jeevan Khunkhun.
“At the end of the day, we’re all volunteers with limited time. Several Board members have agreed to step up and take on pieces of the work I’ve been doing, so that reduces the load.
I am very excited about our fantastic new board members, like Simon Jackson and the three we appointed tonight. I know they’re going to add new energy and skills to the strong team we have in place already.
And, we are starting to make some good progress on the fundamentals. For example, we have just launched our new website, and Sean Bickerton is hosting another issues-based community forum on the arts in January to follow up on the success of Michael Geller’s recent forum.
We still have a long rebuild in front of us, and we’re realistic about where we stand. But these early wins tell me we are starting to move in the right direction. With this team on the board, I think we can make some great progress in the coming months.”
Last night, I stopped by the ThinkCity debate on the 2010 City Budget in order to deliver the NPA response, and to hear Paul Sullivan of the Fair Tax Coalition and Professor Douglas McArthur spar over the new budget.
It was highly educational, quite entertaining and there was a thorough and lively exchange of views between the two main proponents and the audience.
It was disappointing that Vision didn’t see fit to send a representative to the debate after the strong support they received from ThinkCity before the election. I felt the comments offered by the COPE representative and myself as the NPA representative added value to the discussion and addressed points not raised in the debate.
My own remarks follow:
My name is Sean Bickerton and I speak today as a member of the Board of Directors of the Non-Partisan Association, a former candidate for City Council during the last civic election, a small business owner and resident of Vancouver.
We’re told that our city is facing a $60,000,000 budget shortfall, and that after identifying $30,000,000 in one-off savings, our Mayor is now looking to identify an additional $30,000,000 in savings through staff and program cuts. I feel it’s a shame we didn’t know about this shortfall before they started firing the stop non-political staff at City Hall, costing taxpayers millions in severance packages and new-hire incentives.
Nonetheless, while alarming, the budget crisis offers an unprecedented opportunity to bring the city together and re-examine our priorities and I commend ThinkCity for doing exactly that this evening. Working together and taking the best ideas offered, we could implement far-reaching, imaginative solutions that would avoid painful cuts to critical services while saving the city money in the long run, not just this budget cycle.
Unfortunately, though, consultation has been poor at best, and Mayor Robertson is resorting instead to short-term, short-sighted measures that don’t change the fundamentals, and could leave us in bad shape for years to come.
It is particularly painful to see hours at libraries, sports facilities and community centres being cut, and our beloved McMillan-Bloedel Conservatory axed when alternative financing is available. If we don’t invest in our youth and those facing challenges today, we will pay an even greater price for that neglect long into the future.
Where I agree with the Mayor is the need to keep any tax increase under 2% during hard times. I also agree with continuing the politically difficult tax shift from small businesses at least, which are currently taxed on their property at the highest rate in Canada. Small businesses generate 60% of all new jobs, and in a city with few head offices, we need to foster small business and entrepreneurship.
I’m also pleased to see Mayor Robertson’s administration restore its support for our embattled arts sector after cutting the arts budget 9% his first year in office. The arts are vital to Vancouver’s creative economy and need our support right now.
I’m so concerned about the state of the arts in Vancouver that I’m hosting a high-levl review on January 30 in the Revue Stage at the Arts Club Theatre on Granville Island. I encourage you to join a blue-ribbon panel of top leaders in the City’s Arts, Business and Funding communities for a review of the city’s inadequate arts infrastructure alongside a parallel effort to address the need for more sustainable funding models in these wrenching economic times. So I want to salute Council’s renewed arts support in this context.
But where I find myself in disagreement with the Mayor’s misplaced priorities is with his insistence on hiring 100 new police officers at a cost of $12,000,000 a year when we already have the highest number of police per capita in Canada and crime rates have droped 20% over the past four years.
There is a better solution. Our police spend 1/3 of their time dealing with mental-health-related issues. Why not hire ten social workers to ensure that two are on call 24/7 working in direct support of the police, freeing them for more urgent priorities? It would cost less than $1,000,000 / year instead of $12,000,000, and the net savings of $11,000,000 equals 1/3 of the total savings the Mayor is seeking.
Other savings opportunities abound. Peter Ladner reports in Business In Vancouver magazine that there are $30,000,000 in unpaid fines and bylaw violations owing to the city, and suggests asking the the province to stop renewing drivers licenses until all city fines are paid. That would solve the problem in one stroke.
He also suggests asking all city managers to forego salary increases next year, which would produce $1,5 million in savings. If the unions would agree to do the same – in exchange for no staff layoffs – that would produce another $20,000,000 in savings.
For me, cutting libraries and parks while adding 100 additional police we don’t need makes absolutely no sense and may generate a self-fulfilling prophecy of a lost generation. I urge Mayor Robertson and Council to re-think these wrong-headed priorities and bring the city together instead of dividing us with short-sighted cuts to core services.
My thanks to ThinkCity for bringing us together this evening, and my thanks to you for your kind attention.
Thank you!
