Tag: Life

Community Update – June 29

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

I spent most of last week doing what the rest of you were doing: sweating. I worked, I rode my bike, I attended several community events as outlined below, but mostly I sweated.

QB meeting

On Wednesday, I stopped off at the Queensborough Community Centre after work to see what the conversation was around the Eastern Queensborough Neighbourhood Node plan. Both City Planners and the Developer were on site to talk to Q’boro residents and answer questions about the plan we discussed in Council a few days earlier. The room was full (which is great to see in any Open House!) and seemed generally positive. The most frequent comments I heard from residents were concerns related to traffic (no surprise there) and a general feeling that local retail couldn’t come to eastern Q’Boro soon enough!

On Thursday, I was able to attend the NWSS graduation ceremony. I serve on the City’s Youth Advisory Committee and have spent some time meeting Youth Ambassadors and other volunteers in the school community, so there were a few familiar faces walking across the stage. Or, in a few cases, strutting across… GradI was only a little chagrined to see that mine was the only bike in the rack, amongst the couple of thousand students, parents, siblings, supporters and dignitaries at Queens Park Arena that night! Well, I guess it was kind of a fancy-dress occasion.

The second place where my bike was the only one in the rack that night was at the Annual General Meeting of the Royal City Curling Club. I’m not on the Board anymore, but the new team is doing a great job. We had a very successful season: our ice is basically sold out, our leagues are nearly full, our Junior and Little Rocks programs are as successful as they have ever been, and revenues were stable enough that we were able to retire the last of our debt after a few years of solid financial work. I sure am proud of the volunteers and staff of the Club – the best curling facility in the Lower Mainland by far.

Saturday a few members of Council and the New Westminster Youth Ambassadors attended a fundraiser at the New Westminster Lawn Bowling Club. Council was challenged by the Ambassadors to a mini-tournament in the hot afternoon sun. The team of Trentadue and Johnstone showed their rookie status by being outscored by about 13-1 over two games. However, the Mayor and Councillor Harper showed their experience and guile by taking a tight final game, and securing the Challenge Cup for City Hall:Bowles

In there defense, the second place Ambassador team had graduated High School two days previously, and were working on a combined 4 hours of sleep.

Saturday was such a nice evening, that @MsNWimby and I spent the evening on a long walk along the River, enjoying two exceptional New Westminster lounging activities, one at the Urban Beach at Pier Park:recline

Another at the far western end of the Boardwalk, where the first Biennale piece provides a unique lounging / river watching / selfie / breath-holding-contest / being-a-goof experience:

blowing

On Sunday, Council joined several thousand people at Ryall Park in Queensborough to celebrate the 9th annual Nagar Kirtan and celebration honouring the 5th Sikh Guru , Guru Arjan Dev Ji organized by the Gurdwara Sahib Sukh Sagar. As always with the Sikh community, the crowds were huge, the music engrossing, the organization remarkable and efficient, and the food plentiful, delicious, and free. It is an amazing event the entire community is welcome to, and Council was honoured to be invited to the stage to address the assembly. If you get a chance to attend a Nagar Kirtan (Sikh Parade), do so!

Finally, the weekend ended with the celebration of the first birthday of one of New Westminster’s best new businesses. Steel and Oak Brewing has had a remarkable first year, and has clearly found a winning formula: exceptional product, a talented and adventurous brewmaster, an eye for design, social media savvy, and a gregarious and professional staff. Happy Birthday S&O and congratulations to Jorden and James. It’s been fun watching you guys succeed after all of the hard work and stress of the previous year! Sand) bday

Short note on progress.

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 3 Comments.

It was such a beautiful weekend in New Westminster. I had a couple of events downtown on Saturday, and enjoyed my time wandering around between them, and something occurred to me.

The Northwest Fan Fest was occurring at the Anvil Centre. There were something like 10,000 people drawn to downtown New West on the weekend, spilling out onto the street, filling the sidewalks and Hyack Square – geeking out and having fun.

fanfest

And they spilled over to Pier Park, to mix with the usual families and locals using what is coming to be seen as one of the great public spaces in the lower mainland.

Pier Park2

Yet this is the weekend when a full half of the Parkade was closed to start the repairs, which will eventually see the west side removed. Parking chaos? Hardly.

parkade
Saturday, early afternoon. Yes, every parking spot behind me was closed for construction.

And I was reminded why I ran for Council. This City is on such a positive path. We are moving forward, setting plans and reaching for a better future. There are bumps along the way, some tough decisions to make, and some difficult setting of priorities.

But during the last election, not 6 months ago, there were people running who thought this was a waste of money that no-one would ever use:

20150530_121234
Westminster Pier Park. Saturday, May 30. Early afternoon.

Yet this was a valuable resource we cannot possibly afford to be without:

parkade empty
@HulkParkade, with all parking behind me closed and thousands of people in town for Fan Fest, Saturday, May 30, 2015, early afternoon.

I am happy to say I spent 10 hours in Council meetings today with people who see a more positive vision for the City, and we are moving ahead.

Too Busy!

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

This is another in my semi-regular series of excuses for not updating this blog in a timely enough manner. I have been busy.

To clarify what that means, I think people know I have a job. Regular take-a-lunch-box-to-the-office 5-days-a-week three-weeks-vacation fill-out-timesheet type stuff. Fortunately, my employer has adopted a fortnight flex day schedule for all employees (meaning I work 7.75 hours for 9 days every fortnight, and get every second Monday off) and my employer has agreed to a small concession of unpaid leave for alternate Mondays when I have New West Council duties (which turns out to only be about 12 days a year). This still means I spend (on average) 35 hours a week completing Comfort Letter requests, administering dewatering agreements, reviewing Site Profiles, managing contaminated sites investigation and remediation projects and coordinating the technical aspects of PS3260 Accounting Standards compliance. It is fun and I work with a great team of people, so no complaints on my part. But it does eat into my time.

This week (as an aside, but to demonstrate the general chaos of my life right now), I took a couple of hours of my vacation time (with prior approval from my boss) to have a morning meeting with representatives from The Shops at New Westminster Station, Fraser Health, TransLink Police, NW Police Department, and New West Bylaw Enforcement to do a walkaround at New Westminster Station and the surrounding bus loops, retail areas and sidewalks to discuss a collaborative approach to making the area a more inviting pedestrian and public space, with an emphasis on how the various Provincial and City anti-smoking bylaws could be applied to address one of the primary complaints about the area (see pic above). Wow, that was a long sentence. I hope to be able to report an update on that meeting soon.

After work most nights, my schedule is rather chaotic. This week, I had a frustrating committee meeting with the Royal Lancers on Tuesday, and pinch-hit for Councillor Harper to chair a much more positive and productive Residents’ Association Forum on Wednesday. Thursday is free (hence me writing this), but I have, since Monday’s Council Day, received about 50 e-mails to my Council address, which will take some time to triage and decide what requires a response. Some may even require multiple e-mail exchanges with staff or others to gather the data required for a useful response. If you e-mailed me and I have not responded yet, my apologies. I have read it, and will try to get back to you as soon as practicable. And on Friday, I receive the Council Package I need to review in detail before Monday. I also have to organize my Jane’s Walk for Saturday, so that will have to be done tonight or Friday night, as I work Friday. I will probably get something figured out by Saturday Morning.

This is not meant to be a whine. I chose my path (and as has been joked, I went door-to-door begging for it!). So this is more an explanation why my blogging and other correspondence is, occasionally, less timely than I would like it to be. There are a few “Ask Pat” posts in the queue, and I am late assembling the April 27 Council Report. It also explains the lack of copy editing on this blog – any attempts at scanning for typos likely occurred after midnight.

On the plus side, I did get a great bike ride in on Sunday morning, and the New West Lit Fest last weekend was a great event, so it isn’t all toil. Actually, I am loving it.

Remembering what I haven’t known

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

I have always had that strangely-Canadian Generation X respectful detachment from Remembrance Day. I proudly wear a poppy, I go to a Cenotaph or Memorial on November 11th, I show respect to the women and men in full uniform, but I recognize I don’t know what is in their head, and I’m cautious to include myself in their personal experience.

What I find most amazing about Canada at Remembrance Day is that these veterans and those we lost, fought and died overseas. Canada didn’t fight a revolution to become a free nation, and in almost 150 years of being a nation, we have never faced a serious threat of invasion (Fenian Raids notwithstanding). However, we have forged strong alliances with other nations across the border and across the oceans, and we have been quick to engage in the fight when we see our allies being attacked, their right to self-determination or the rights of their citizens being undermined. Sometimes because we knew we may be next if we didn’t take the fight to them, but more commonly because it was the right thing to do. Two World Wars, Korea, Cypress, Croatia, Rwanda, Afghanistan… the list is long of places Canadians went to protect people under threat, or simply to stand between belligerents while peaceful resolutions were sought.

I try to understand these conflicts, and the sacrifices made by individuals for the greater cause, but it was never personal for me. I have an uncle who served in Vietnam and some more distant cousins with military careers, and when I lived in the Mid-West, I made friends with a few people who eventually got called up and served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thankfully, they all got back alive and well. So I have been, through luck and happenstance, distanced from the real impacts of war.

I never knew my Grandfathers, both died before I was born and I have very little knowledge about them. Writing this, it occurs to me I don’t even know their full names. It’s not that they were not mentioned in my household, but more that when I was growing up, my extended family was stretched all over Canada and the United States, so occasions to spend time together were limited, and talk of my Parent’s childhood was not a common subject around the house. I know both of my parents had difficult relationships with their fathers, but those are their stories to tell, not mine.

I knew my Mom was born just after her sister, at the beginning of WW2, and that their brothers were born well after; the narrative in my family was that gap was the time when my grandfather “went off to war”. I also know he struggled in his later life with things that sound much like what we would currently attribute to PTSD, but I am too far removed from that reality to know what the story really is.

What I never knew until this summer was his father’s fate. My parents spent some time in Europe this summer, their first time touring the continent, and my Mom sent us back this picture.

I now know my Great Grandfather was named Henry James Leavitt, he is one of the 11,285 people commemorated at the Vimy Memorial, and he never met his son who eventually went on to fight in the Artillery for the length of WW2, and came home changed.

This year, on Remembrance Day, I will be thinking about those who served to bring the freedoms we enjoy as Canadians to people they didn’t know. I will think about people who came back changed, those who did not come back, and the families that love them. May they all find peace.

…and that’s all I have to say about the Whitecaps.

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

Yes, I am busy these days and haven’t had the writing time I would like, but I thought it was appropriate for me to finish off the Whitecaps story here, to follow up on my earlier optimism turned into creeping suspicion. People on the doorstep are still talking about the issue, and I think there are lessons to be learned from this process that deserve a bit of a debrief.

I’m going to come right out and say I think Council made the right decision, and from listening to their comments at the meeting and in the press, they made it for the right reasons.

As many of us suspected, it came down to the money. A rushed estimate had the City adding more than $11 Million in capital improvements to Queens Park to accommodate the needs of the Whitecaps and the other park users. This compared to $3 Million the City was already budgeting to spend in similar projects over the same timeframe. The “gap” between those two amounts was the central debate.

The breakdown, from the September 15th Meeting. 

Was this the best way for the City to spend $8 Million in capital improvements for Parks and Recreation right now? How does this priority line up against the need to address the Canada Games Pool, or to provide a second sheet of ice in Queens Park, as was included in the Master Plan? (admitted bias here: Ms.NWimby is tired of having to drive to Coquitlam to play hockey when we have two skating rinks within a few blocks of our house but there is no women’s hockey in New Westminster).

To be fair, we don’t know half the deal – the amount of money the Whitecaps were willing to provide, and the potential for other revenues arising from the project. Because of the nature of in camera negotiations, and because I’m sure the Whitecaps don’t want to make their offer public knowledge, as they are likely to be shopping around to other Cities, we can only speculate on whether their contribution would be enough to cover the capital investment costs, or if the less-tangible benefits to the community would have been worth the investment. Clearly, Council did not feel the offer was good enough.

Aside from the money, there were other reasons to support or oppose this project. Some argued the cachet of hosting a USL Pro Team, while other argued it was inappropriate to have what is essentially a for-profit private business operate on publicly-owned park land. If there is one thing I lament through this process, it’s that we didn’t really have a chance to hash out those debates in a meaningful way as a community. I think it would have been instructive going forward as we plan for the next phase of our city’s growth.

Alas, the timing was too short. If the Whitecaps had come around 12 or 18 months ago with a vision, there may (or may not) have had a different result, but we definitely would have had a different process and discussion.

On that timeline, we could have done the due diligence on the plan and the cost. We could have seen a mock-up of what the proposal was and make the inevitable and sometimes subtle changes that would be required to address unforeseen issues. New Westminster baseball could have been better engaged in the planning process, and could have been empowered to build the facility of their dreams without the risk of a lost season that may have hurt their organizations’ momentum. We could have done a comprehensive evaluation of the financial impact on the community and residents (good and bad). We, the residents, could have had a discussion about costs/benefits based on an actual plan, not on conjecture and suspicion. The Whitecaps could have worked with the Queens Park Neighbourhood to reduce impacts, and with TransLink and the Justice Institute or the Uptown malls to develop parking alternatives.

We could have also had time to not mix all of this business planning with the other big debate – is this something the City wants? The (I’m sorry, but it is ideological) debate around the entire idea of having a professional sports franchise operate in our limited parks facilitates. Some oppose this as too financially risky, others on pure ideological reasons, but that important discussion in the City could not happen in a meaningful way as part of this rushed business plan

This may turn out to be a bullet we dodged, or it may turn out to be an opportunity lost, and I guess we won’t really know. However, what was lost was an opportunity for a better community discussion, again forced by an unreasonably tight deadline.

One interesting thing that did come out of this was this post-mortem article in the NewsLeader which shows the balance between boosterism for the City and prudent municipal management. This is a theme that I will be talking about more as the election goes on. If I ever find the time to write!

Hey Guys! Stay on your ass (and fill out this survey)!

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

HEY! Got a bit of free time this weekend? Surfing the web, looking for something more interesting? Admit it, if you are reading my blog, you must be pretty stinking bored… so here is a good way to slake that boredom for 5-10 minutes, and provide useful data for someone doing interesting research here in New Westminster.

If you are at all like me, your typical healthy-ish 40-ish male, you haven’t seen a doctor in quite some time. If you have kids, you likely interacted with the healthcare system, but for those of us without, we try to think about the last time we had stitches. Or maybe that’s just me, but this is kind of the point of this survey.

Fraser Health has been doing a “My Health, My Community” survey over the last couple of months, and they need a few more people to provide data before the end of the month (yes- in the next three days!). They especially need info from my cohort- healthy-ish males who may hardly ever interact with the healthcare system. Of course, the rest of you should also take part, it’s just (typically) the middle age males you need to kick in the ass to take any kind of health self-assessment at all.

The purpose of the survey is not to sell you services, but to gather better information about the health needs of the community. They need data from a bunch of locals about your life, as it relates to your risk for health conditions, and their need to provide services. They aren’t getting too personal, but they want to understand a bit about how New Westminster folks live their life and access health care, so they can do some longer-term strategic planning.

Typically for any health care situation – young (and youngish) males are lacking in their participation. They really need a few more male people to provide data. I filled out the survey a couple of weeks ago: it was easy, it took no more than 10 minutes, and it was a little fun (remembering the good old days when I used to smoke…). This from a guy who has not seen an actual doctor in about 15 years. Yeah, I should probably go get a check-up, but the survey didn’t guilt me into feeling that. Really, who has a family doctor anymore?

Back when I was whinging about how Democracy is what you do between elections – this is a chance to help your elected officials and bureaucrats make better decisions to save you money while providing the services you need. So I’m going to say it: If you don’t fill out this survey, you are not allowed to complain about the healthcare system!

But Hurry, survey ends on the 30th, and if you fill it out, you can win a new iPad. And hey, who doesn’t need a new iPad?

You are surfing the net right now, you clearly have time. Follow this link right now and help out a bit.

Hyack : the more things change…

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 2 Comments.

Last post, I suggested some hopes for (dreams of?), a better Hyack Festival in New Westminster. In doing so, I was cognizant of stepping on eggshells, because I don’t want to downplay the efforts of the hard-working volunteers who bring a bit of fun to New Westminster while holding up long-standing traditions.

This got me reading about the history of Hyack*, and I learned that questioning the organization of these major events and challenging the meaning of them has actually been one of those long-standing traditions!

The May Day Celebrations started in 1870, with the ceremony developing around securing a common identity as an agricultural town with “royal” origins – perhaps as a bit of the thumb-to-the-nose at the upstart Capital across the water. It is important to note that May Day was, in those early days, an internal celebration for the residents of New Westminster, not a regional event intended to promote the City externally to a larger regional trading region. At the turn of the Century, the City had the Pacific Exhibition and the Farmers Market to do those things.

Through the first half of the 20th century, the May Day Celebrations expanded to act both for internal cohesion and external boosterism. It was primarily an event for children, becoming an all-day fete with folk dances, the Maypole, and sporting events, with attendance by all New Westminster school children at one point made compulsory. Originally this fest was highlighted by the Anvil Battery Salute, but by the early 1950s, May Day had moved to the Friday before Victoria Day, to foster attendance by elementary students.

By the late 50’s to early 60’s, some of those institutions that held the City together and put it on the map regionally – the Miracle Mile of shops, the Exhibition, and the Farmers Market – were disappearing. During this time, there was pressure to “protect” the May Day Festival and keep it safe from “contemporary tendencies” to expand or transform the event. The Chamber of Commerce, recognizing the mercantile opportunities, suggested moving the May Day to Saturday in 1961 to allow more visitors to be drawn to town. They were thoroughly rebuked by the May Day Committee for suggesting a children’s festival should suffer the ugly encroachment of commercialism.

In the late 60’s, this transformation began regardless, partly due to ongoing pressure from different parts of the community, partly because of the coincidence with larger celebrations of the Centennials of 1958 (of New Westminster), 1966 (of the Colony), and 1967 (of Confederation). The changes were also coincident with some of the “Old Guard” of the May Day Committee starting to retire or die off. By 1966, it was a three-day festival, and in 1967, a 5-day event, including the “largest Parade in the Province’s History”, a carnival in Queens Park, sporting events, an agricultural show, and more. With more than 100,000 people showing up for the Parade (remember, this was a City with less than 40,000 residents), this was clearly a regional event to promote New Westminster, and a significant tourist draw for the local commercial interests at a time when Columbia Street was beginning to see decline. Ugly commercialism had, eventually, encroached.

This growth was not without concern. The loss of traditions and increasing cost of the larger event caused apprehension among many of the traditionalists. When conflict ensued at City Council about spiraling costs, and a concurrent push by some to build a more “professional type, money making event”, a new organizing committee for all festivals was created: one comprised of upstart younger businessmen. This group was less encumbered by old traditionalist and parochial ideas about the fete, but wanted to inject new ideas, energy, and blood into the City’s Festivals. One of their first acts of this so-called “Royal City Society” was to change the name of the May Day celebration into The “Hyack Festival”.

Funded by a 1% tax on businesses, and unfettered by the City’s bureaucracy, Hyack grew to a 10-day celebration. It didn’t replace traditions like the May Day celebrations or the Anvil Salute, but surrounded them with other events to improve the overall attractiveness. In 1972 there was reportedly “a carnival, high-wire acts, roving western singers throughout the City”. In 1973, the festival was just as big with a week of sporting events to build the excitement towards the upcoming Canada Summer Games. In 1974, the Parade moved from Columbia Street to the current Uptown route, reflecting the shifting economic fortunes of the City’s two main commercial centres. By then, visitor numbers had dropped back to the more-typical 25,000 or so people, but Hyack as an entity, and as a festival, continued to thrive. Through ups and downs, as events came and went (canoe race anyone?), this is the same Hyack festival we have today.

But where are we today? The number of events surrounding the mainstay traditions is definitely reduced, and there were clearly not 25,000 people on 6th Street last month. The traditions hold strong, and the Hyack Festivals Association has to be thanked for keeping the flame burning for 40+ years. However, the root of all of the conflict in and around Hyack for the last year seems eerily familiar: how much change is too much change? What is the most responsible way to spend Taxpayer’s Money? Do we want to have a large commercial event (dare I say “professional” or “not amateurish”) to attract people to our City, or a smaller community-building event that represents our traditions and desires? Are these two ideas incompatible?

The 2014 Hyack Festival is over, there is some new leadership of the Festival Association, and the battle for Letter-to-the-Editor dominance has apparently fizzled out. However, the conversation cannot stop now. Sustainable funding is still an uncertainty. The prominence of Hyack is being challenged by the many new neighbourhood and community groups setting up festivals and other events around town. Some of the structural concerns and visioning issues about Hyack that led to last year’s conflict have not been resolved. The worst thing that can happen right now is for the conversation about the role of the Hyack festival Association in our community to go silent.

The bitter fight was silly and distracting; we need a calm discussion. Maybe Hyack should start it. The people of New Westminster want to be engaged in the conversation, because most of us don’t want to volunteer for Hyack or wear a Green Jacket, but we all love a Parade.

*I read many sources for this Post, not the least being Earl Noah’s 1992 MA Thesis (Geography) from UBC, from which anything in quotes above was drawn. My not being a historian means I can hang any errors above on my unprofessional misinterpretation of records, and not a flaw of the records themselves!

Hyack Festival – the fete goes on

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

Well, we survived another Hyack Festival. By that, I mean Hyack survived to put on another week+ long schedule of events, culminating in the Hyack Parade.

After a year of questionable decisions, accusations, battles (petty and otherwise), victories (pyrrhic and otherwise), and Editorial Page exchanges that only increased the questions and doubts, it was good to see the Show that Must, did indeed Go On. Everyone loves a parade.

Clearly, a successful, if slightly scaled-back, Hyack Festival does not mark the end of the ongoing battle for Hyack relevancy and funding. However, it was a positive step, both for Hyack and the City, and one that did not look a certainty only a few months ago.

I attended various Hyack events this year, chatted with quite a few people at these events, and have talked to many people since. At times, these conversations led to deeper discussions about what these “traditions” we celebrate are for, and who they are for.

Before I start to get critical, I need to acknowledge that I did nothing to help organize the events of Hyack Festival. That puts me in the (very crowded) category of people who complain about something that other people – mostly volunteers – bust their ass to do to the benefit of the community, without lifting a finger myself to help them. This is pretty much the definition of a jerk.However, Hyack themselves are quick to remind us that they are an important part of the City of New Westminster and its traditions. They are also asking that the City continue to support (logistically and financially) the events Hyack organizes every year, which opens them up for a certain level of constructive ruminations. So here are my impressions, not meant to disparage the Festival or organizers, but to add to the discussion of what Hyack means to this city.

There are three 4 major events of general public interest that make up the Hyack festival: the Anvil Battery Salute, the May Day Celebrations, the Parade, and the Uptown Street Fair. Some will point out the many other associated events, but I get the sense some fall under the category of normal local events that could occur on any weekend (antique fair, petting farm opening), others seem a little inward-looking (Portland Rosarians Rose Planting, Seymour Artillery Firing), and yet others are not really open events (such as the Formal Banquet) that are more important to Hyack than to the rest of the community.

Of the main events, the Anvil Battery Salute is the one with the greatest historic relevance to New Westminster. The 21-firing salute to Queen Victoria, starting at noon on Victoria Day, is a unique, exciting, and important tradition. I just wish more people were there to see it. I could imagine it as a centrepiece of a great day in the park – the middle of a festival with everything from kid’s games to sports contests to food booths and beer gardens, music, and entertainment. Pick up Sapperton Day, drop it into the middle of the baseball field, and run the Anvil salute then, and you can see what I am getting at. Unfortunately, as a stand-alone event, it can appear to be much ado about nothing to those not aware of the tradition, and the crowd measured in the dozens this year* are a testimony to the failure to make this connection to people.

Being without kids and with a full-time job, I was not able to attend the May Day Celebrations. Wednesday, mid-day just doesn’t work for most of us working stiffs. By all accounts it was well attended, appreciated, and continues to be a highlight of the spring for many kids and parents. That the School Board puts so much effort into the event in these difficult times for that organization shows the desire of the community to protect this tradition that goes back more than 140 years.

This leaves the Hyack Parade and Uptown Street Fest. Everyone (and I have to include myself) loves a parade. It seemed there were many fewer floats this year than last year, and there were definitely more notable gaps in the crowd on the bottom half of the route that I remember from previous years, but the crowd that was there seemed into it. The same goes for the distinctly scaled-back Uptown Street Fest. With a bouncy castle and some food trucks, there was a good hour or so worth of entertainment to be had post-parade. It was well attended for the relatively small space it took up, but to suggest (as some boosters did on Twitter the day of) that it had 3x the attendees of last year’s hugely popular Uptown Festival, is fanciful.

If I was to put out one major criticism (and this is a common theme I have heard voiced), it is that these four events combined would make for a great 2- or 3-day festival. To stretch it out to 8 days over two weekends takes the momentum away from each of the events, and serves all of them a little less. Asking to general public in these busy times to dedicate two weekends to the Hyack festival, when there is only a couple of hours entertainment on each weekend, is not optimal. Given the choice of the Anvil Battery or the Parade, and going camping or to visit grandma on the other weekend, I’ll take the Parade every time (but I wish I didn’t have to choose).

Again, not being an insider, I only have my own suspicions as to why a good 2-day festival is stretched out to 8 days – mostly because the two headliner events can’t be held on the same weekend. Of course, the Anvil Battery Salute is a Victoria Day celebration, so it makes no sense to move that date. However, Victoria Day is a Monday that is not a civic holiday in the United States, and with so many parade floats and marching bands coming up from the Northwest, having the parade on this day would be problematic.

This problem is exacerbated because Hyack is the only Canadian member of the Northwest Festival Hosting Association, and the third weekend in May is already reserved for the Spokane Lilac Festival (put on some sunglasses before clicking that link). I suspect that Spokane is not interested in changing their weekend-before-Memorial-Day tradition, and competition between NFHA members is discouraged. So neither the Parade nor the Anvil Battery Salute can be moved, unless a tradition is broken.

That’s the way of it with traditions. Next post I am going to delve a little deeper into the history of these traditions in New Westminster, and tell a bit of a story about what happens when an upstart group of young business leaders step up to challenge a stale organization to be “bigger and better”, City Hall gets involved, funding gets withheld, and people challenge the parochialism and suspect impropriety of long-held traditions.

*Correction: A member of the Anvil Battery Salute team corrected me today on Twitter, saying an actual crowd count numbered the people at the Anvil Salute at 400. I am surprised, as I felt I had a lot of elbow room” in the stands, and even the photos of the event show pretty sparse crowds, but they had a count and all I have is a vague feeling, so you are better to rust the count! 

Back to Schools

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

I don’t write much in the forum about school board issues, mostly because I don’t have kids in the New Westminster school system, and there is enough politics in this town to spin anyone’s head without including the twisted and acrimonious history of schools governance. However, I am a casual observer, and I pay school taxes like anyone else, so I am not completely disinterested in the process.

That said, I am happy to hear that there is a more collaborative approach emerging at School District 40, and that the new leadership in staff is not only effective at solving some long-standing issues, but is willing to stick around for a while to see the job done. With one new school taking shape, another breaking ground, and funding (apparently) secured for the third, there are reasons to be cautiously optimistic about the future of the New Westminster School District.

Why cautious? Because the funding issue is still here, and it is not going away. At least in this case, New Westminster is in good company. The Families First government has not quite articulated how we are going to fund the school systems we need to compete in a knowledge economy (at least until we are all rolling in LNG riches). Instead, the Minister is on the road and on the radio telling all of the schools to tighten their belts, because if there is one thing our province cannot afford in these Uncertain Economic Times(tm), it is to prepare our youth for an uncertain future.

I want to emphasize: this is not a New Westminster issue. School district deficits and draconian cuts are province-wide: affecting the fastest-growing school districts as much as the ones losing enrollment; in NDP, BC Liberal, and Conservative strongholds; in the biggest districts and some of the smallest. A short sampling from the news in the last couple of weeks (in no particular order):

School District 5, in the East Kootenay, is suffering from the static provincial budget and aging infrastructure they cannot afford to replace.

School District 20 in the West Kootenay is trying to figure out how to avoid a budget deficit next year, and is looking at various options to cut staff.

School district 23 in Kelowna has no idea how to spread about the various cuts they are going to have to make to get their expenses below their revenue.

School District 37 in Delta is finding an increase in enrollment isn’t enough to offset the systemic long-term underfunding.

School District 39 in Vancouver can’t decide whether to cut athletics, music programs, or to have another spring break in November to stop the bleeding.

School District 41 in Burnaby is metering out the staff cuts, increasing class sizes, and reducing program levels to help manage its ballooning deficit.

School District 42 in Maple Ridge is trying to balance the layoffs of teachers and the layoffs of support staff to decide between quality of education and student safety.

School District 43 in the Tri-Cities is seeing a massive shortfall, in one of the fastest-growing urban areas in the province, and specifically cites a long list of provincial “downloading” of costs.

School district 61 in Victoria, yes even the Province’s Capital doesn’t get away without a serious budget shortfall, is talking about closing schools.

School District 62 in Sooke has cut its deficit by laying off workers and creating split-grade classes.

School District 68 in Nanaimo is facing a $5.4 Million shortfall, and is counting the upcoming layoffs from teaching staff.

School District 69 in Parksville is contemplating which schools to close to deal with their operations deficit.

School District 73 In Kamloops, is in relatively good shape, only trying to find room for a $1 Million shortfall.

…and this is just the start. Our school systems will not be what we want it to be until it is properly funded, but just preserving and persevering is going to take collaboration and cooperation.

If this burgeoning Parent’s Group is what it appears on the face of it (and I was not able to attend their inaugural workshop), we can add them to the many lights that are appearing at the end of the long tunnel.However, I am afraid what we need in our school system is not more voices, but more resources.