Support your municipality

Right now, the City of Vancouver is $50 million in the hole. By law, municipalities aren't allowed to run a deficit, so they have to find a way of balancing the books. The city has been holding a series of public forums for citizens. What they want to know is kind of basic. Would you rather cut services or raise property taxes? They assume that people don't want property taxes raised more than 2%. But this means services are going to have to be trimmed.

Last night, I went to the open forum in my neighbourhood. Yes, that is now how I spend my Friday nights. In a small, back room of the Kensington Community centre, myself, an elderly couple, three men with obvious mental illnesses, a librarian, and a couple of blue-collar types listened to the power point presentation. The talk was conducted by two city councilors, and half way through, a slightly tussled Mayor Gregor Robertson tip toed in. He had biked the 40 minutes up hill from downtown. Basically, the city is $50 mill in the hole, they have trimmed as much "fat" as they could, which accounted for about $20 mil of that. They need to do something. They need to hear from us.

The councilors looked tired and as if they were going throug the motions. Periodically through the power point, various angry citizens, mostly the three representing the mentally ill, interupted to make a point about what the city was doing wrong. The councilors were respectful, nodding their head and asking people to save it for the end.

The power point illustrated for me how hugely important the mechanism of municiple government is. Water, garbage, libraries, community centres. One woman commented that since the recession, and Vancover has been hit bad, demand for community services has risen sharply. People depend on these services when times are rough. But it's when times are rough that the city cuts their funding. The councilor shrugged. She knew, but that's why we were all there - to find a solution. It was a bit depressing that more people wouldn't turn up for something so important. It felt good to be in a forum where our officials HAD to listen to what we had to say, no matter how rambly and whack-job it was.

One man with a pronounced stutter started to give a speech on loopholes in municiple serivce charges, and how they're related to the work of Hobes. I turned around and recognizedhim immediately. It was William Lim, a bird-like man with a white monk's crown of hair and his pant legs bound up in reflector tape. Back when I was a kid, he was a Ph. D student of my step father's, a Chinese poet who would send boxes of real holly to us for Christmas, and leave poems composed in Chinese script on our fridge. By the time he got to the erosion of democracy in his speech he paused, and said "you want me to sit down now, don't you?" Everyone laughed, because we all kind of did.

After writing out my comments, I turned to leave. I realized I had forgot my helmet and turned back to look for it. "Looking for this?" the mayor asked me. "I'm looking to buy a helmet. Is this a good one?"

"Haven't had to test it yet, sir, luckily for me," I replied.

Mayor Robertson went on to tell me that thhis was a typical croud for the open houses they had been putting on, how disappointed he was. He thanked me profusely for coming. I think he was truely appreciative that I wasn't a 65 year old man with a chip on my shoulder.

Mayor Robertson has been enacting real change within city hall, and it seems as if he's been paying a price for that. There's been an old guard in for 50 years now, one that doesn't question where election funds come from, one that turns a blind eye to conflict of interest and suspicious transactions. Vancouver may be one of the most corrept municipalities in Canada, with no real regulation or oversight. The province has approved a look into municiple election reform, which is sorely needed.

I'm starting to have a bit of empathy for city politicians. They opened up the floor for recommendations, no one came, but when they make their decisions, the general public are going to get all up in arms. Why not be a part of the entire process rather than only indulging in anger once the decisions have been made? Mayor Robertson talked about how the province and the feds have cut billions in community servcies and expect the coty to pick up the slack. But the cities don't get any bigger of a piece of the tax pie.

As I walked out, William Lim ran out of the room calling my name. We exchanged numbers. Gerry still had a few of his poetry books from twenty-five years ago, and he wanted them back.