We know you’re busy and may not be able to watch or attend regular council meetings so we thought you might like a bi-monthly recap to keep you abreast of New Westminster politics.

Here’s a recap from our latest council meeting on Jan 8th.

CITY COUNCIL WORKSHOP (DAY) 
Our workshop consisted of going through the capital plan. Here are 4 items we’d like to bring to your attention.

Queen’s Park Petting Farm Masterplan: 
The capital plan includes almost half a million dollars to convert our beloved petting zoo into an urban farm featuring a mushroom wall. Our councillors asked to have this line item removed because there are so many other priorities for these funds including upgrading the adjacent children’s play park so kids can remain active and fit but we lost 4:2. 

Active Transport Network plan 
Nearly $19M has been set aside in this budget of which its stated priority is to protect ‘pedestrians’, which is fitting due to recent pedestrian casualties. This said, the money will be spent on…you guessed it, more dedicated bike lines (check out the one already installed in Uptown on 6th Street)! Staff have admitted that they are planning on putting 20-30kms of dedicated bike lines in our city which means roads are going to be ripped up yet, again. There has been no mention of which streets will be involved or whether or not they will include bike meridians. Councillor Fontaine questioned why we are putting in ’20-30kms’ of bike lanes if ‘pedestrians’ are the City’s stated ‘top priority’ for active transportation. Councillor Henderson said bikes lines are there to protect pedestrians. One could argue this would be a tertiary benefit by getting cyclists off sidewalks, but where are the investments in things that could prevent more casualties like better lighting and signage?!  Councillor Fontaine moved an amendment that this plan should focus on its stated priority, which is pedestrians. Council, begrudgingly, adopted it. But even staff said Fontaine’s amendment would not change staff’s plans to build a LOT more bike lanes over the next few years. 

Queen’s Park street light (2nd street & 6th Ave)
You may remember Councillors Fontaine & Minhas moved a motion back in November to upgrade the lights at the famous 6th ave / 2nd St intersection near Herbert Spencer elementary school. Staff looked into the feasibility of this but came back saying it was not a priority for them to spend 500K on this, even though it would massively benefit students and Queen’s park residents, despite the fact we have nearly $15M in our Growing Communities fund, which is money from the province for exactly these kinds of things. And remember…the mushroom wall urban farm in Queen’s Park is around $500K, money that could have been spent to upgrade this light as the residents have asked. 

Capital plan ($200M) 
After staff presented the entire capital plan, they asked if we supported it. Due to the fact it was too heavily focused on bike lanes and not enough on pedestrians, including funds for a number of questionable projects, both our Councillors voted NO, but lost 4:2.

EVENING COUNCIL MEETING 
Ceasefire in Gaza 

You may have heard about the protests and controversy due to this motion. If you are unaware, Councillor Nadine Nakagawa put forth a motion asking that the City of New Westminster write a letter to Trudeau urging the Canadian government to immediately ask for a Ceasefire in Gaza. You are probably well aware that City Councillors are elected to fix potholes, increase spaces in community sports and balance budgets; not deal with foreign policy. This is virtue signalling at its core! As a result, both our Councillors removed themselves from chambers during the vote on this motion. To understand the delicacy of why they did so, please watch both Councillors Fontaine & Minhas‘s speeches to Council to hear it directly from them.

Issues with staff: 
Councillor Fontaine had 1 motion (see image) that he wanted to put forward for this meeting requesting transparent information be shared about our Mayor’s trip to Dubai. Staff said he needed to put it forth by Dec 27th to appear on the Jan 8th agenda. He did so, then received an email that it was too late because the cut off date was actually moved back to Dec 22nd. Fontaine later asked council to suspend procedure and put it as a Notice of Motion for the next meeting on January 22, and they agreed with a vote of 6-0.

Information report: 

Later in the evening, a staff report was on the agenda (but not debatable) which covered off some of the rationale for staff to attend an environmental conference in Dubai, UAE. Note that all overseas trips by staff need to be approved by Council in advance – no exceptions – but that NEVER happened in this case due to ‘an oversight’.

Johnstone responded to media inquiries about his trip saying there was an information report coming to council on Monday night and all questions would be answered in that report. However, only details about the staff travel were included, not the Mayor’s, and due to the Mayor’s absence, Council was NOT able to ask appropriate questions. Thus, in effect, he made the media and public believe they would get responses to unanswered questions.

So to wrap up, both a staff report and a motion by Coun. Fontaine on the Dubai Debacle will be fully debated on Jan 22, unless Community First punts the report past the upcoming School Board by-election being held on Feb 3. 

FOR THE RECORD 

In case you didn’t know, our very own Daniel Fontaine started his own podcast entitled, For the Record. He has 8 previous podcasts about civic politics and urban issues in New West and our region. To learn more about this evening’s events, subscribe at Spotify, Amazon or Google to be notified when Episode 9 is released. You can learn more by visiting www.danielfontaine.ca.