IMAGE: Councillor Paul Minhas and I visit with VP Dave Cunningham at the E-Comm Center in Vancouver.
It’s hard to believe last week both Councillor Paul Minhas and I celebrated 100 days in office. To say the time has flown by is a big understatement.
Paul and I are really having lots of fun and enjoying our time on Council. We’re also pleased to see that progress is being made on a number of important files – even if success is still being measured in inches, not feet.
Over the last three months we’ve introduced over a dozen motions (ideas, concepts and directives to staff) which have been debated and discussed on the chamber floor. In fact, we put forward so many ideas/concepts, that a report came before Council this month recommending we be limited to one per meeting on a go forward basis.
Needless to say, Paul and I fought this and at the end of the day Council agreed with us that this type of action requires a lot more discussion and debate.
Based on what we heard in Council during the debate, had the staff report not been tabled, it likely would have been approved by a vote of 5-2. If so, the rules by which Council is governed would have been established by the Community First majority – not by the entire Council.
There have been a lot of other accomplishments (motions passed) in the first few months including:
- A motion to catalogue and report how much federal and provincial downloading is costing local taxpayers
- A request to meet with NDP MLAs Aman Singh and Jennifer Whiteside to discuss when the long-awaited free school bus from Queensborough to NWSS will get rolling
- A motion requiring staff to publish reports on the City’s website a minimum of 5 business days before the public meeting
A series of other motions pertaining to the installation of a new turf field at Ryall Park and improvements to Queensborough’s transportation network were also referred to committee for further investigation. Council is also still mulling over our recommendations to create a new Finance and Audit Committee as well as several other task forces and advisory committees.
If you want to keep up regarding the monthly activities of Council, I highly recommend you sign up for our free New West Progressives (NWP) e-newsletter. Just click here and it takes less than 30 seconds to ensure you stay on top of the activities happening at City Hall and the School Board.
Overall these are truly busy days for me as MICHIFCO, my new consulting company, has taken off like a rocket! In just a few short months I’ve been retained by a number of amazing clients in both British Columbia and Alberta. Remember, if you’re looking for a seasoned facilitator, executive coach or someone to assist with your strategic planning or program review, give me a shout!
My work with MICHIFCO has been incredibly stimulating, but I’m definitely getting to learn about the challenges and paperwork involved with running a small business in this province. I’m not kidding when I say you almost need an army of consultants just to keep your consulting firm above water and on top of all the government agencies you need to deal with each month.
Looking Forward
In the coming months I’ll be working with Councillor Minhas to put forward some significant amendments and recommendations for our 2023 operating and capital budgets. We’re hopeful that at least two other councillors will see our proposed changes as reasonable and they raise their hands in support (that will give us the 4 votes we need). But we’ll see if that is how it all unfolds soon enough.
I’m also planning on attending a few national and regional conferences this year. I will be at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) conference in Toronto late May for a few days. I don’t plan on being at FCM every year, but given this is the first one post election, I thought it was a good one to attend.
I’m also scheduled to attend the Lower Mainland Local Government Association (LMLGA), the Council of Councils and the Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) convention in Vancouver this fall. Each of these offer an opportunity for municipal officials to hear speakers, attend interesting workshops and share ideas/concepts with each other in the hallway!
While I haven’t been writing as much as I’d like to these days, I still hope to have a short post like this at least once per month. In the meantime, if you have any ideas, concerns, suggestions, kudos or would just like to vent to your local city councillor, you can always fire me an email at dfontaine@newwestcity.ca. Talk soon!
