BURST
“This is an administrative thing. I’d rather talk about parks.”
That’s how Vancouver park board commissioner Brennan Bastyovanszky introduced his motion to seek legal advice on whether the board can disqualify commissioner Marie-Claire Howard over her repeated absences from public meetings.
Howard missed six of 10 park board meetings this year and took in Monday’s meeting remotely, as has usually been the case when she attends.
The Vancouver Charter would allow the board to remove Howard if she were to miss four straight meetings without having been granted a leave of absence. Howard has twice showed up for that fourth meeting this year, though she missed portions due to difficulties with the remote connection.
The motion introduced Monday called for the city’s legal staff to advise the board what to do next about the absences.
But it quickly descended into a back-and-forth about whether the motion was “politically motivated” and whether Howard was being “publicly shamed” in the process.
Commissioner Tom Digby introduced an amended motion that sought to have Howard declared in a conflict of interest by attending a meeting in which she has a “pecuniary interest” — that is, a meeting to decide whether she can continue as a commissioner and continue to draw a salary.
“We shifted from attendance to a conflict of interest,” said commissioner Jas Virdi. “We’re just looking at excuses to remove commissioner Howard, it’s so evident.”
Digby countered that the motion is in the public interest: “This is a public responsibility on us to bring this question, and simply to ask it.”
He said making excuses for Howard’s absences, including that she was dealing with the death of her mother earlier this year, misses the point.
“There’s allegations that we lack compassion, there’s allegations that this is a trivial matter and we should just move on,” said Digby. “In fact, the reason why we’re here is because commissioners have a public obligation to expect and to bring attention to the fact that one of their members is collecting full-time pay and having part-time attendance.”
Howard, like Virdi and Angela Haer, ran under the ABC Vancouver banner and supports Mayor Ken Sim’s position that the business of Vancouver parks and recreation should be brought under the auspices of the regular city council. That has led to dysfunction as many debates have descended into arguments between commissioners who support the idea of an elected board and those who would have it abolished.
Vancouver is the only municipality in Canada with an elected park board, a point of pride for many but a political redundancy in the eyes of others.
The question of Howard’s attendance has become the flashpoint in that continuing debate, and it still wasn’t resolved at Monday’s meeting.
After much discussion, the board voted to refer the issue to legal counsel for advice on what to do next.