NPA condemns halting school-closure process; COPE applauds staff report
A veteran NPA trustee claims that the board of education has just "wasted over $100,000 on a meaningless public consultation process".
Ken Denike made the comment in a news release. This came shortly after a staff report recommended no decisions on school closures until after the election in November 2011.
"If East Side parents were hoping for a clear indication of where to place their child in Vancouver's public school system, that decision was made a little harder by today's announcement by Vision Vancouver," Denike said. "The fact that we've gone through all this public consultation process, and Vision Vancouver is announcing their decision in advance of Tuesday's presentation of the report shows how little they respect public process. What's the point in having the public meeting if Vision are already giving it their seal of approval?"
The staff report, which was released today (December 5), recommended stalling the school-closure process until March 1, 2012. Public consultations were held this year involving the possible closure of five schools: Champlain Heights annex, McBridge annex, Queen Alexandra, Sir Guy Carleton, and Sir William Macdonald.
Vision and COPE trustees have supported the recommendations.
COPE has announced that it plans to bring forward amendments at a meeting on Tuesday (December 7).
"Neighbourhoods have been very clear during our consultation process about their concerns," COPE trustee Jane Bouey said in a party news release. "Our amendments will reflect more comprehensively the views that were put forward by neighbourhoods across the city."
There are four Vision trustees, three COPE trustees, and two NPA trustees on the nine-member board.
Comments
5 Comments
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Dec 5, 2010 at 5:02pm
More meaningless, partisan whining from the NPA.
Jane Bouey
Dec 5, 2010 at 5:25pm
The NPA doesn't seem to understand that a meaningful consultation process can change people's minds. I know that many trustees (and staff) entered into the process thinking differently then, than they do now. But that would be those of us with "open" minds. It also doesn't mean there won't be changes to the report flowing out of discussions over the next week. As it says in the story above - COPE trustees plan to put forward constructive amendments.
tim.
Dec 5, 2010 at 7:48pm
i can see the NPA school trustees lamenting "grrr... schools aren't being closed!"
Taxpayers R Us
Dec 6, 2010 at 12:36am
I'm no NPA fan, but this was the same argument made when the Hornby bike lane construction started while Vision was in the middle of a public consultation meeting to get the OK for it.
Drop the partisan bullshit. The important thing here is we have a party that really, really doesn't care what we think, and this is another great example of it.
Support their causes all you want, however if you don't support a democratic process governing the government, you belong in a communist country.
Scott Miller
Dec 7, 2010 at 12:28pm
The 2005-2008 NPD board, of which NPA trustees Ken Denike and Carole Gibson were members, also had the option of closing several annexes and other schools in Vancouver during its tenure, and received a report that indicated which ones should be considered. The NPA board chose to only start a closure process in the UBC-Dunbar area, rather than looking at options across the whole city, and (after a lenghthy consultation process) also decided to keep Queen Elizabeth Annex open rather than close it -- and did nothing about all the other schools in the report that could have been considered for closure. Instead, they kept that report secret. It was only released when the new Board was elected in the fall of 2008.
The inconsistency between what the 2005-2008 NPA board did (consult only a single possible school closure in only one neighbourhood and deciding to keep the school open) and what the two NPA trustees are saying now (condeming the current majority on the Board for *gasp* listenning to the students and parents at the schools) is remarkable.