Straight Issues

Sam sets a curious course

by Pieta Woolley on September 14th, 2006 at 7:00 AM
    1 of 1 2 of 1

      David Cadman, Vancouver city council's last remaining COPE councillor, had a Walt Whitman moment last week. On the phone with the Georgia Straight, he echoed the poet's 1865 homage to assassinated U.S. president Abraham Lincoln. In “O Captain! My Captain!”, the narrator grieves that although onlookers wait ashore for a ship to dock, “For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning”, the captain can't respond because he's dead.

      Mayor Sam Sullivan isn't dead, but Cadman noted that he isn't that responsive, either. Invoking an image of the open ocean, Cadman said: “I've never seen a council so rudderless. On that agenda [council and committee agendas for September 12 and 14], there's nothing that pops out and says, ‘Substance is happening here.' We have a rudderless council with a mayor with no agenda or goals.”

      Sullivan set his compass on December 5, 2005

      > The mayor's inaugural address took place two weeks after he was elected.

      > In the address, he promised to clarify the roles, relationships, and responsibilities of council, staff, and citizens. (Was supposed to finish in January 2006. Still not finished.)

      > He promised to rebalance the tax burden between businesses and residences, so businesses would pay lower taxes. It shifted by one percent this year.

      > He promised to facilitate the development of Southeast False Creek, “one of our best examples of a truly sustainable neighbourhood”. His council then reneged on part of the day-care and mid-range–housing plans in the first part of the development.

      > Sullivan promised a “renewed emphasis on supporting the arts and artists”. His council raised cultural funding by $700,000 in his last budget, short of the $1 million promised by the previous council.

      > He said he would introduce a policy to limit the expansion of gambling.

      > He said he would challenge the police board to get more value for citizens' money.

      > He promised to encourage the city's TransLink representatives to increase bus service and reduce fares to affordable levels. Plus, he promised to ask them to expand the U-Pass system.

      > He suggested a curbside organic waste composting program.

      > He said, “It is time to end the endless debates....We have a city that needs leadership.”

      This week's regular council agenda, the first after a two-month break, included approving eight public toilets, allocating public-art money, changing collections policies at cultural institutions, and introducing the new youth council. Council plans to consider banning the sale of fireworks to unlicensed buyers on September 14.

      Cadman pointed out that a quarter of the way through its term, Sullivan's NPA council has failed to secure money from Ottawa to build up the 19 social-housing sites that have been set aside by the city. No new initiatives have soothed the scars of the Downtown Eastside. And he noted that only one pillar of the four-pillar drug strategy has begun.

      Sullivan, on the other hand, said he has big-issue plans for the fall. Realistically, he said, Vancouver's most haunting problems are not municipal issues; housing, health, and cultural funding are mostly the purview of the provincial and federal governments. However, Sullivan said he's planning to lobby hard in Ottawa and Victoria this fall.

      “I believe the affordability of housing is really important,” he told the Straight. “We [city council] have some ability to influence housing prices through creating more supply. That's where the concept of eco-density comes in.”

      On his lobbying trip to Ottawa, Sullivan said he plans to ask about federal funding for affordable housing, again. He said he has done so on his previous three trips to the capital. As for co-op housing, which Ottawa stopped funding in 1993, Sullivan said he hasn't mentioned it to any MPs yet. “I think of social housing as pretty broad-based. I haven't brought that level of detail to it.”

      Vision Vancouver councillor George Chow, who said he is a “big supporter” of co-op housing, questioned whether Ottawa hears Sullivan.

      “I don't know how effective he is as a lobbyist,” Chow told the Straight, “whether he can bend ears. Certainly, it's worth trying. He should try to raise more issues publicly to put pressure on the government.”

      Cadman said he is suspicious of Sullivan's trips to Ottawa. He's still waiting to hear exactly what the mayor discussed the last time he went. He even filed a freedom-of-information request to find out what reports city staff prepared for the visit. So far, he has not received a response.

      Sullivan's out-of-council agenda is packed this season. On September 20, he'll be in Toronto for the big-city-mayors conference, trumpeting his vision of eco-density on a national stage for the first time. At the end of the month, he's hosting a four-pillars and crime-prevention conference. Council will likely vote on his “311” project, a phone service for the city designed to streamline communication between citizens and the bureaucracy. On November 1, the civic youth council meets for the first time.

      The Wal-Mart decision will likely emerge from the depths once again this fall. So will the “3R” (roles, responsibilities, relationships) review of the city's citizen groups.

      The city's original captain, George Vancouver, found success through taking on far more than your average ship boss, in cartography, inventing new navigation practices, diplomacy, and health care for his crew.

      The city's captain, Sullivan, must choose how much outside of his jurisdiction he can manage.

      Comments