Vancouver Park Board seeks legal counsel

Vancouver Park Board seeks legal counsel

A Vancouver Park Board Commissioner is hoping some legal counsel will help save the board.

Tom Digby is bringing forward a movement following 7 days, asking for lawful counsel to look into Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim’s endeavor to remove the Park Board.

He thinks Sim’s movement is unconstitutional.

“In December, we were being proficiently mugged by the mayor in a surprise assault when he introduced that he supposed to abolish the elected Park Board,” Digby said. “It was fully sudden for the reason that he had no rationale, he experienced no rationalization for why the board experienced to be abolished now, after 135 yrs.”

At the time, Sim mentioned the improvements to the Park Board would make it possible for the metropolis to manage Vancouver’s parks and recreation providers “more collaboratively and in harmony with the city’s broader views.” He added the “system is broken” and cited the actuality that Vancouver is the only municipality with an elected Park Board, as a explanation to abolish it.

On Feb. 5, Digby’s motion, titled “Independent Legal Assistance for Judicial Critique of Mayor’s Movement,” will be offered at a Park Board meeting.

“We put jointly a pretty massive counter reaction to the mayor and just one of those parts is, we have to have to retain authorized counsel so that we can evaluate what the metropolis is carrying out,” he explained. “We imagine the mayor is performing way outside of his licensed jurisdiction less than the Vancouver Charter.”

Digby suggests he’s operating with a few other independent Park Board commissioners, Laura Christensen, Brennan Bastyovanszky, and Scott Jensen, who say they have been taken out from the mayor’s social gathering when they mayor’s chief of staff said they reportedly selected “not to assistance the mayor” on the dissolution of the Park Board.

He suggests all four of them have agreed an elected Park Board is a central aspect of democracy in Vancouver, and he’s hopeful the motion will be a results.

“The cause (the Park Board has) existed for 135 a long time is to stand in the way and make confident the people’s voice is listened to all over crucial selections about parks in the city,” Digby reported.

Considering the fact that signing up for with each other to combat back towards the mayor, Digby states he has acquired hundreds of messages of guidance for an elected Park Board, together with from previous commissioners who “never agreed on anything historically.”

“This is not a struggle (the mayor) is probably to acquire,” Digby said.

On Feb. 1, a various assembly will be held by City Councillors Adriane Carr, Christine Boyle and Pete Fry at City Hall to listen to the public’s views on the long term of the Park Board. It will previous from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. and advance registration is necessary.

Digby suggests this is the first time a mayor has attempted to abolish the Park Board, and he doesn’t believe Sim’s movement will stick.

“I’m hoping we’ll get back on the typical study course in reasonably limited buy and we will not have to have considerably authorized involvement, due to the fact the rules are very clear for everyone except this individual mayor,” he reported.

CityNews has achieved out to Mayor Ken Sim’s office for remark.