vancouver park board to ask mayor ken sim for relief from city-imposed cuts
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vancouver park board meeting with council in vancouver on dec. 11, 2023.
arlen redekop
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the vancouver park board will ask mayor ken sim to reduce his expectation that the board cut $15 million from its budget.
last month, sim directed city staff to cut spending by $120 million in order to have a zero increase in property taxes next year. this includes an expected $15 million to be cut from the park board budget, which requires council city approval.
this prompted commissioner brennan bastyovanszky to draft a motion asking that the cut be reduced to $9.6 million, which is the proportion of the total cut in line with the eight per cent of city spending devoted to the parks board.
“the park board requests that city council reduce the 2026 budget reduction target assigned to the park board to reflect the park board’s share of the municipal tax base and thereby be limited to eight per cent of the total target, or about $9.6 million of the $120 million target, not $15 million,” bastyovanszky’s motion stated.
on tuesday night, around 20 speakers addressed park board, all in favour of the motion. these were a collection of individuals, some former commissioners, and representatives from groups like the vancouver youth soccer association, vancouver tennis association, friends of memorial south park, grandview-woodland area council and the vancouver women’s field hockey association.
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commissioner tom digby suggested asking sim not to cut any of the park board’s budget, but this was voted down.
commissioners angela haer, jas virdi and marie-claire howard — who are loyal to sim — challenged some of the speakers, suggesting they were making fear-based comments.
bastyovanszky said the cuts would “directly impact front-line community services, reduce service hours, defer maintenance, and undermine cleanliness across the city’s parks and recreation system, and will have a disproportionate impact on residents’ day to day lives.”
he noted that the board voted last month to increase some parking fees, and had produced a $4.5 million surplus last financial year, which would be given to the city.
virdi took exception to a comment from digby that park board should not be cutting costs while the vancouver police department recently reported a $17 million overrun.
virdi said that budget cuts could be made by reducing duplicated services in parks board and city offices.
digby suggested that the disproportional ask for cuts from park board was driven by sim’s agenda to disband the park board.
“it’s obvious the city is punishing the park board,” he said.
last month, the provincial government ruled it would not proceed with sim’s request to axe park board until there had been more meetings with first nations.
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