A batch of emails belonging to Vancouver park board chair Sarah Kirby-Yung has two former board members calling for her resignation.

In a telephone interview, former Vision Vancouver parks commissioner Sarah Blyth said the emails show Kirby-Yung is acting in a conflict of interest.

“She used to work as a media-relations person for the Vancouver Aquarium and it seems like she never left that job,” Blyth told the Straight. “As you can see within those emails, it is obvious that she takes the position of defending the aquarium, which is her former employer.

“So to me, it is her not doing her job properly,” Blyth continued. “And, actually, if she can’t do that for the public, then she is really not doing her job and should step down as chair.”

Kirby-Yung held the position of vice president of marketing and communications at the Vancouver Aquarium from 2008 to 2010. She was elected to the park board as a member of the Non-Partisan Association (NPA) in a 2014 election in which the aquarium’s practice of breeding whales and dolphins played a central role.

The emails in question were released by the City of Vancouver under freedom-of-information (FOI) legislation last March. They surfaced on an anonymous Twitter on October 11 and then were passed to the Straight.

Most of the emails concern an independent documentary film about the Vancouver Aquarium’s cetacean program that was released online in September 2015. The aquarium sued the filmmaker, Gary Charbonneau, claiming copyright infringement, and that case remains before the courts.

The FOI release shows that on January 25, 2016, a communications manager with Tourism Vancouver emailed concerns about the film to Kirby-Yung. The following day, Kirby-Yung forwarded that message to Margo Harper, communications manager for the park board and a former CBC and CTV producer.

“Wanted to ensure you are aware now that the film is public,” Kirby-Yung wrote. Harper replied, and the two agreed to discuss the matter further, apparently off email.

Also on January 26, Kirby-Yung sent an email about the film to the park board’s general manager, Malcolm Bromley.

“Malcolm, Just called you,” she wrote. “Please call me back as soon as you can.”

Through the afternoon, Kirby-Yung and Harper discuss how the park board should respond to media requests about the documentary and agreed on two talking points.

“The care and management of cetaceans is the responsibility of our partners at the Vancouver Aquarium,” reads the first.

And the second: “The matter of cetaceans in captivity has not been a priority for the current elected Park Board.”

Finally, on January 27, Kirby-Yung relayed the aquarium’s position to Harper.

“Aquarium are entrenching into their position nothing is bad and nothing is wrong,” she wrote.

Blyth argued that because of Kirby-Yung’s previous position with the Vancouver Aquarium, she should have recused herself from any park-board business that might concern the nonprofit facility. Blyth said the fact that Kirby-Yung has not done so and instead has placed herself at the centre of business involving the aquarium is reason for her to resign.

“She doesn’t understand the nonbiased approach of a public official,” Blyth said.

Over the course of three days, the Straight sent repeated requests for an interview to Kirby-Yung and to several members of the park board’s media-relations team. Those requests were acknowledged but no interview was granted.

The conduct of parks commissioners is governed by the Vancouver Charter. According to section 145.3 of that document, a member who as a “direct or indirect pecuniary interest in a matter”, regardless of whether or not that interest has been declared, “must not…participate in any discussion of the matter at such a meeting”.

“A person who contravenes this section is disqualified from holding office,” the charter states.

In the run-up to Kirby-Yung’s election to the board in November 2014, she responded to questions of a conflict of interest concerning the Vancouver Aquarium in an exchange on Twitter.

“I am an ex-employee of Aquarium,” Kirby-Yung wrote. “Now I work for Coast Hotels. So no conflict.”

When a citizen pressed her on the matter, Kirby-Yung responded: “Think my experience gives me deep understanding of issue. I always try 2 have a balanced view.”

Through 2014, Blyth and another former Vision Vancouver parks commissioner, Constance Barnes, led a push for revised bylaws that would have banned whale and dolphin breeding in Stanley Park. That November, the civic election saw power on the board shift from a majority of Vision commissioners to a majority aligned with the NPA. That halted Blyth and Barne’s effort to end cetacean breeding in Vancouver. (Neither Barnes nor Blyth ran for commissioner in the 2014 municipal elections.)

In a separate interview, Barnes also argued the emails show Kirby-Yung is in a conflict of interest.

“She should step down,” Barnes said. “She’s not representing the people. She’s elected to represent the people, not to represent the Vancouver Aquarium. Period.”