Category Archives: Urban Life and Local Government

B.C. police boards and community engagement

April 9, 2012 By in Crime, Urban Life and Local Government Tags: 2 Comments

Of the 28 municipalities in British Columbia’s Lower Mainland, 22 are served by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police under a  federal-provincial-municipal contract. Six  cities have local police departments governed by citizen boards.  We’re talking about Abbotsford, the City of Vancouver, West Vancouver, Port Moody, Delta and New Westminster.

The latest B.C. Government survey of police operations finds about 2,040 Mounties  doing local policing in Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley District compared with 1,940 city police.  There’ve been recent concerns about the RCMP on several scores; the city police departments and their citizen boards offer an alternative model for organizing and governing police services. Continue reading →

Public transit and politics in Metro Vancouver

March 23, 2012 By in Transit, Skytrain, LRT, Urban Life and Local Government Tags: , Leave a comment

The Premier of British Columbia, Christy Clark, has expressed her intention to audit Metro Vancouver’s transportation authority and reduce operating costs.

Regional mayors went out on a limb last year with apparent provincial support, approving a $70 million supplementary transit plan with a $30 million revenue shortfall.  New revenues were to be identified in 2012, but the process has become  messy.  The Premier’s statement, offered without backup documentation, can be seen as a poke at the mayors and TransLink staff.   She is clearly banking on the belief that public opinion is on her side. Continue reading →

How much is your public library worth to you?

March 5, 2012 By in Housing, Real Estate and Property Taxes, Urban Life and Local Government Tags: , , 1 Comment

In a 2004 opinion survey by the Fraser Valley Regional Library, 88.4 per cent of 2,000 respondents judged their local library to be “a vital part of the community.”

The Government of B.C. reports annually on library costs and library use.  The latest report shows that about 45 per cent of Metro Vancouver/ Fraser Valley are library cardholders. This number does not measure active users, but it testifies to widespread  good intentions.

In 2010, local governments in Fraseropolis spent an average of $41 per resident on public library operations, or a total of $106.6 million.  Local government contributed more than 85 per cent of library revenues; fines, provincial grants and private donations made up most of the rest. Continue reading →

Four best practices in civic engagement

March 1, 2012 By in Urban Life and Local Government Tags: 2 Comments

Municipal services in urban British Columbia are a bargain compared to what they would cost on the private market.  For less than $2,000 a year, a representative household in Burnaby or Richmond receives police protection, fire protection, street operation and maintenance, sewer and water hookups, orderly development, park maintenance  and numerous other benefits.

However, the role of municipal government is under-rated — a result, in my view, of often unpopular decision-making processes and poor communication.   Public discourse is dominated by complaining, organized and unorganized, about government’s cost and lack of accountability.   Electoral upsets over budgeting or management  questions are common enough. Three Fraser Valley mayors were turfed in the November 2011 elections.  In Maple Ridge, a mayoral challenger with zero background in community affairs tapped a generalized sense of anti-local-government outrage and took 40 per cent of the vote.  Continue reading →