Alternative Approval Process Having a say in Lions Bay?
Tuesday, December 11, 2012 @ 3:46 AM
By Peter Ewart
Lions Bay is a village on the shores of Howe Sound at the foot of British Columbia’s Coast mountains. Although it is located on the far northwest corner of the Metropolitan Vancouver Regional District (the Sea to Sky Highway to Whistler runs right through it), this small community of about 1400 residents has a decidedly rural feel, with large lots, towering trees, and quiet streets. The motto on the village’s coat-of-arms seems quite appropriate. “Splendour in Serenity,” it states.
Perched on a heavily-forested mountain slope, most houses have a panoramic view of the ocean below, as well as Bowen and Gambier Islands. Across the shimmering waters of Georgia Strait, the mountainous spine of Vancouver Island is visible on the horizon. Sunsets – locals will testify – are particularly spectacular.
But for the last several months, in the midst of this beautiful scenery and laid-back life style, a struggle has been going on within the Lions Bay community. The issue has been a controversial $700,000 borrowing proposal the current mayor and council put forward to renovate the village hall, along with municipal offices and council chambers.
How did this borrowing proposal come about? In Mayor Brenda Broughton’s opinion, both the existing hall and municipal office buildings were in need of substantial repair and renewal, and it was time to “invest in community-centred infrastructure on behalf of all citizens and our core sense of community.” According to the mayor, the decision was being made by “a fiscally responsible Council” to create a community centre that was “beautiful, yet modest, meeting the needs of the Community, adding value as a positive reflection of our community.”
However, in order to carry out this repair and renewal, the Village Council needed authorization to borrow up to $700,000 (through the provincially-operated Municipal Finance Authority) which would supplement an already approved $440,000 grant through the BC Community Recreation Program, as well as $200,000 taken from the Village’s own reserve funds.
According to provincial legislation (under the Community Charter), to borrow the $700,000, the Village Council had to either submit the authorization to a referendum or opt to utilize the Alternative Approval Process (AAP). As is common for municipal level governments these days, the Village Council chose the AAP route. Under the AAP, citizens concerned about such a major loan authorization are required to gather the signatures of 10% of eligible voters in the village if they wished to block it.
As it turned out, many residents of the village were strongly opposed to the $700,000 loan, considering the entire project to be a misplaced priority, given the deteriorating and crumbling state of the village’s water and road infrastructure. At the present time, the village’s water pipes are losing an estimated 2/3 of their water because of leaks. One example – a recent water main rupture that cost upwards of $600,000 to fix. Another example – a significant water pipe leak that has remained unrepaired for several months now. Still another – fire hoses being used in place of broken pipes.
In addition to the above problems, the village’s water tanks, which are the reservoirs for its water supply, are in need of major repair. Water shortage and turbidity (resulting in boil water advisories) are ongoing issues, and road maintenance is also a serious problem, compounded by the leaking pipe system and steep slope of the village terrain. In the village administration’s General Capital Projects report for 2012, it is estimated that the total investment required for infrastructure maintenance and repair could amount to as much as $4 million over the next several years.
But there were other issues as well. Some residents believe that the mayor and village council, too often, have had a habit of pushing things through “under the radar” so to speak, without providing full information to residents. For example, in a bulletin to residents, the mayor and council claimed that just $200,000 (as part of the current 5 year fiscal period) was being taken from the village reserve funds for the Community Centre and municipal offices project. Yet residents got their hands on an earlier grant application which revealed that an additional $200,000 was scheduled to be withdrawn in 2013 (as part of the next fiscal period). In addition, complaints were made that council had not adequately informed residents that a major donor (whose potential support had been used early on to promote the project) had actually withdrawn from the project.
Another concern was that the name given the project, i.e. “Community Centre Renewal”, does not accurately reflect that the $700,000 loan authorization was actually dedicated to the municipal offices / council chambers renovation and not the Village Hall itself (which already had enough designated funding).
For her part, Mayor Broughton has argued that she and the village council did not realize that the municipal offices and council chambers needed significant repair until the engineering consultant reported back on the condition of the Village Hall (which sits next to the municipal offices). Furthermore, she claims that council has not made an absolute decision on whether to renovate the municipal offices / council chambers as part of the community centre renovation package, and will only use the $700,000 loan for that purpose “should it be needed”. In addition, she maintains that proper public consultation on the issue has been carried out with village council holding “three Public Information Meetings and two Stakeholder meetings, to obtain public feedback.”
However, residents were not convinced and, besides raising concerns at village council meetings, began gathering signatures (through the Alternative Approval Process) that would require council to either submit the loan proposal to a referendum, descope the project or scrap it altogether.
But, as these residents discovered, the AAP is not a user-friendly process by a long shot. In fact, in many ways, it is downright anti-democratic. A common complaint about the AAP is that it is a kind of “negative billing” process that puts the onus on citizen volunteers to do all the heavy lifting of gathering the signatures of 10% of eligible voters (as opposed to a straightforward referendum where both sides on an issue have to get out the vote).
Residents also did not like the fact that they had to put their names and addresses down on the AAP response form (a kind of electoral ballot), which was then handed into the village office. Some were concerned about potential retaliation. Indeed, many people in the province who have utilized the AAP see such a requirement as a violation of the basic democratic right to a secret ballot.
This problem was compounded in the Lions Bay case when, in the middle of the campaign by residents to gather signatures for the AAP, village council issued a bulletin which advised residents who had already submitted electoral response forms, that they could “change their mind” and ask for the form, i.e. ballot, back if they so wished.
This raised concerns among some residents that pressure could potentially be exerted by village officials on individuals who had already submitted elector response forms. It also raised concerns as to which officials, elected or unelected, might have access to these signed forms.
Unfortunately, according to the provincial government’s Community Charter, substantial parts of the AAP process are left for each municipal government to formulate, resulting in arbitrary rules and regulations of various kinds such as the above “change your mind and withdraw your ballot” practice indicates. As the Secretary-treasurer of the Village of Lions Bay has specified, “Alternative Approval Process elector response forms will be accepted only if they are in the form establish [sic] by the Village of Lions Bay.”
And so it was that village officials inserted into the first bulleted point under the “Instructions” heading of the Elector Response Form, the sentence: “If you are not opposed to the passing of Bylaw No. 452 [i.e. the $700,000 loan proposal], you need do nothing.”
To be fair, the next bulleted line had a sentence with instructions concerning “if you are opposed …” Nonetheless, it is interesting that the first option a resident reads under the instructions is the suggestion of “doing nothing.” And the fact remains that this sentence was arbitrarily inserted by Lions Bay village officials (e.g. the Prince George AAP form contains no such language).
Another problem is that the Lions Bay elector response form does not appear to be in line with the provincial government’s Community Charter legislation. For example, Section 86 (1) (b) of the legislation specifies that, with elector response forms, “electors are provided with an opportunity to indicate that council may not proceed with the bylaw, agreement or other matter unless it is approved by assent of the electors.” As the Ministry of Community, Sport & Cultural Development website notes, the AAP allows voters “to advise their local government … that a referendum should be held” and that “the local government cannot proceed with the proposed bylaw … without holding referendum.”
However, the Lions Bay form stresses in the first sentence that any elector signing the form is simply “opposed” to the bylaw. There is no mention of advising the local government “that a referendum should be held.” In contrast, the elector response form put out by the City of Prince George last spring during its River Road dike AAP states that the bylaw in that case must be “approved by a referendum vote.”
There is a not so subtle difference here. The Lions Bay form forces the signer to “oppose” the bylaw outright, which narrows the number of people who could potentially sign it and excludes people who may support the bylaw but believe that it should go to referendum simply on democratic principle. The experience of organizers during the Prince George AAP was that, indeed, some people who signed the form fit this latter category.
During the Lions Bay AAP, there were other aspects of the process that caused confusion, including how many people could sign each form and so on. But, despite all the difficulties, residents were successful in collecting far more signatures than were necessary to mount a challenge to the $700,000 loan bylaw. The AAP required that at least 107 eligible residents of the village sign the form (10% of the electorate). However, 285 actually filled out the form, which amounted to almost 50% of the voters who cast a ballot in the last village election.
This result is a victory for local democracy and for the citizens of Lions Bay who took the initiative on this AAP. All the credit goes to them and their hard work in challenging this controversial funding proposal.
However, this victory (and the recent one last Spring in Prince George) is not a vindication of the problems associated with the Alternative Approval Process. It is becoming increasingly clear that people in Lions Bay, Prince George, and other communities throughout BC want more of a say on major local government decisions, and they want user-friendly mechanisms to carry this out.
In that regard, the AAP needs to be overhauled or scrapped altogether, and better, more democratic processes adopted. Residents of several municipalities in the province are already exchanging information about how to work together to bring this about.
Peter Ewart is a columnist and writer based in Prince George, British Columbia. He can be reached at: peter.ewart@shaw.ca
Comments
Thank you Peter!
We experiences similar difficulties in Valemount a couple of years ago with an “Alternative Approval Process” (AAP)
In our case we were forced to obtain one (1) signature per form, and to add insult to injury (at our own expense), we were forced to print both sides of each form even though when inquiries were made of the Ministry, the second side of the form was beyond the terms of reference of “the Act”.
Peter, I think we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg of what is wrong with the “Community Charter”. It is often a tool used against the community.
Thank you for opening the discussion. It seems that the problems experiences in Lions Bay are NOT unique to that location.
deMOCKracy
John Grogan
Robson Valley East
I think we can thank all those that represent the taxpayers for the increase to 10% for an AAP. If I am not mistaken this was voted by the mayors etc at one of the UMBC meetings down south and lobbied to the province on our behalf. :P
It would be up to just about every person in a municipality and regional district to lobby for a change – not likely that will happen…..
Some of our Councillors would have you believe that the AAP is a fair and just system. However as it now stands, it isnt, never has been, and never will be.
The UBCM raised the number of signtures required from 5% to 10% a number of years ago, and I think everyone knows why they did this. So it is highly unlikely that they could be convinced to roll it back to 5%.
We could however through discussions and meetings with our local Council, have them do everything possible to have **big ticket** items, added to the ballot during Municipal elections. This would not really be a big issue when you consider that we have an election every 3 years. Or we could have our local Council pass a bylaw that requires all borrowing over and above say $1 Million dollars automatically go to a referendum at cost, or be added to a Municipal election ballet.
Going to a referendum during an election is really a sane and democratic way to handle these issues. It gives both sides the opportunity to discuss the issue, and at the end of the day gives he taxpayers the ability to vote the issue up or down.
I think in the not to distant future we will have to get something going on this issue, or we will just get more, and more, of the same.
Council needs to understand that when a majority of citizens vote NO to an issue, this means NO.
For the record (guesswhat) I believe it is my RIGHT as an individual and as a resident in Prince George as it is my obligation as a Canadian to improve the democracy in this country. I take it your defeatist attitude was just an error in judgement. Great post Peter Ewart. If there is any way that I can help my “e” mail address is bobturner.carenchristenson@gmail.com
Surefire – Guess what? You do not know me :) I am far from having a “defeatist” attitude…
My statment reflects voters in general. I for one have voted in every election and will continue as it is my RIGHT(by the way it was not for Green locally).
I agree with Palopu on how the citizens can change things – I would be supporting it, as hell will freeze over before they roll it back to 5%. Most voters just don’t do anything – it is up to a few others to “improve” democracy.
Read my post again – and check who may have has an “error in judgment” A few voters will not put it back to 5% but a majority may have a chance..or find another way as Palapu suggests.
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