'There clearly is dysfunction': Vancouver's park board-council infighting likely to continue for months

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When Vancouver park commissioners voted 4-3 Monday to reject a reconfiguration bike and car traffic into Stanley Park, the decision was described as both proof of the importance of Vancouver’s elected park board — unique among B.C. cities — and proof that it should be abolished.

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It was the latest chapter of the fracas between members of Vancouver’s elected park board and city council. Considering the obvious tensions between the two bodies, and the delayed timeline for the board’s expected dissolution, it might not be the last.

“There clearly is dysfunction. There clearly is animus on both sides,” said Kareem Allam, who managed the successful 2022 election campaign for ABC and Mayor Ken Sim before returning to the private sector. “It’s not good for Vancouver taxpayers.”

“I would just beg everyone to get in a room and sort it out for the good of the city,” Allam said. “And I know that they can get in a room and hammer it out together because they were able to find alignment during the last election campaign. … Figure it out, guys. I know you can.”

Sim, who in December announced his intent to dissolve the elected park board and brings parks under council’s control, said the board “let down Vancouverites” with an “irrational decision not to grow and expand park space in the West End.”

The plan aimed to reintroduce two-way car traffic along Beach Avenue west of Denman Street. The project, which was estimated to cost $16 million, would expand the road to allow car traffic both in and out of Stanley Park. Currently, cars can only drive into the park at that spot, and not out.

The city has the authority to change traffic patterns on the roads. But the proposed plan includes reconfiguring Morton Park — the grassy patch near the intersection of Denman and Beach that is home to the famous A-maze-ing Laughter statues — which means it also required park board approval.

In May, this plan was approved by council’s ABC majority, subject to “park board approval.” At the same meeting, the ABC councillors also rejected a $300 million, 30-year vision for the West End waterfront, which the park board had previously supported.

On Monday, the plan to add another vehicle lane was shot down by the board’s sole Green commissioner and three independents who left ABC last December following Sim’s announcement about ending the board. Instead, they supported an amendment directing park staff to report on “near term options” for reallocating $10 million — the park board’s portion of the proposed two-way traffic project — to other elements of the West End waterfront plan rejected by council, including renewal of the English Bay bathhouse, a beachside café, and a skate park.

The three remaining ABC commissioners, who support the board’s abolition, favoured the ABC council majority’s two-way car traffic plan.

In a post on X, Sim wrote: “This is what happens when two different organizations are responsible for the same thing. The elected park board’s decision is a setback for Vancouverites, but it is only temporary. When the city takes over parks and recreation services next year, we will ensure our parks and facilities serve our community to their fullest potential.”

Meanwhile, Green commissioner Tom Digby called the same decision a big win.

“Our job, as elected park board commissioners, is to defend the parks and beauty of Vancouver,” Digby said Tuesday. “And we succeeded last night.”

“Just because we have a mayor who’s an investment banker and (has a business degree) and he thinks it would be more efficient to operate without democracy, that doesn’t mean he’s right,” Digby said.

Sim wrote that the board “said no to safer streets by turning down a fully funded AAA bike lane” — using an abbreviation that means all ages and abilities.

Digby retorted that there already is currently a popular all ages and abilities bike lane along Beach Avenue. The board, he said, was actually rejecting spending $16 million to move that existing bike lane to make way for more cars, arguing those funds could be better spent.

This was only the latest example of discord.

Sim has pointed to the deteriorating Kitsilano pool as proof of the elected park board’s inability to maintain key assets. But park board defenders contend this is the city’s fault, not the board’s.

Independent park board chair Brennan Bastyovanszky told Postmedia News last week that Kits pool’s maintenance has been a city responsibility since 2014 and the board has been “begging the city to fund repairs” ever since.

Similarly, when B.C. Premier David Eby announced in March that he would follow through on council’s request to abolish the park board after the next provincial election, both sides of this debate hailed it as a win — Sim welcomed the premier’s commitment, while the mayor’s opponents praised the premier for not rushing the changes through early this year, as Sim wanted.

And because the board’s dissolution has not happened as quickly as ABC initially expected — the mayor predicted last year it would be completed in the first half of this year, but now he expects next year — it seems likely these kinds of quarrels and potshots might continue until whenever the board is eventually wound down, or something else happens.

dfumano@postmedia.com

twitter.com/fumano

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