“ity council seeks

additional public input

Public Involvement Program meant lo case conflict

NORTH VANCOUVER City
is (aking steps to improve how
it communicates with the
city’s residents on contentious
cily issues,

Robert Galster
Contributing Writer

Assistant engineer Hugh Mekuy
is dejected and inspired by the
amount of resident outrage aimed at
various city hall measures, actions
presumably drawn up with the best
of city hall intentions.

The apparent lack of communi-
cation between the city and ils resi-
dents inspired him to develop and
subsequently implement a system
meant to gauge the need and degree
of public involvement necessiry for
effective decision-making.

Five North Vancouver City staff
members and six members of the
community make up the new Public
Involvement Program (PIP) team.
The group is drafting a manual to
help counci! decide when and how
to pursue the public's involvement.

“The engineering department
has had several situations where
we've recommended one thing to
- the council and the public have rec-

ommended another, creating the
potential for conflict,” said McKay.
“So we felt we needed to improve
the way we brought solutions to the
general public.” :

McKay says that involving the
public in designing the process
should make the system more
accessible,

‘Asa pilot project to test its ideas
and concepts, the PIP team. is

-. involved in the issue of finding a

solution to-a dispute over trail uses
in Mosquito Creek Park. ;
The process involved : a commu-

NEWS photo Paul McGrat

HUGH MCKAY, assistant engineer with North Vancouver City,
explains proposed and existing areas of the Mosquito Creek
trail network to people gathered at a recent workshop.

nity meeting held March 30.
Participants exchanged ideas and
identified conflict areas.

“What makes this unique is that
the meeting is handled in a different
way,” said Karen Milne, one of the
community members on the PIP.

- team.

“The staff members act only as
facilitators and more of a round-
table discussion takes place.”

A community workshop was

held on Wednesday, April 13, to

identify priorities and a consensus
on various uses of park trails.

‘The experience of working with
the public in coming up with solu-
tions to the mixed use of trails in
Mosquito Creek Park will then be
used to generate a standard
approach to future public consulta-
tions.

With the help of two consul-
tants, the PIP team plans to com-
plete the manual and submit a final
draft to council by the end of April.

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BUDGET COMMENTS

Two votes related to the recent
budget have now taken place in
Parliament. Predictably every Liberal
MP voted in favour of both the bud-
get and a Bill which authorizes the
borrowing of another $37 billion. Of
course, every Reform MP voted
against beth the budget and borrow-
ing the $37 billion.

We proposed an amendment that -

would cap spending but that was
rejected by Government membsis
and the Bloc.

| was waiting for these votes to
be over before writing about the bud-
get in case some government mem-
bers could be convinced that borrow-
ing so much more money was the
wrong thing to do. Unfortunately the
Borrowing Act and the Budget Motion
both passed on Wednesday March
23, 1994,

THE DEBATE

It took from February 22nd until
March 23rd to complete the permit-
ted five days of debate on the bud-
get. The Government split up the five
days’ of debate, taking the heat off
them, and: making it harder for the
news media to monitor the proceed-
ings. The result was minimal news
coverage for the opposition parties
despite passionate speeches and
constant questioning. .

On Monday March 8, 1994,
Sheila Finestone, Secretary ‘of State
(Multiculturalism) for the Liberals
spoke in favour of the Borrowing Act.
During her speech she turned to the
public gallery where there was a
group of students and said that she
‘was talking about their future.

When the speech was over |

asked Ms. Finestone: “Did the
Honourable Member ever ask her
children and her grandchildren or the

young peopte in this gallery whether ~ §

they wanted $37 billion added to the
mortgage for their future?" (Hansard
March 8/94)

_ Ms. Finestone replied that her
children told her that the government
was moving in the right direction.
Frankly | found that hard to believe.
Why would the youna people of
today approve of the government
creating a debt which ultimately had
to be paid off by those same young
people? They wilt have higher taxes
and a lower standard of living as a
result of this borrowing,

THE SPEECHES

On the same day | gave a speech
in which t explained how | felt as |
listened to the budget being present-
ed. | had felt a little bit of anger, a lit-
tle bit of despair, but mostly a terri-
ble sense of sadness.

! telt sadness because | have
seen the same path taken in New”
Zealand. The denial that there is a
problem, the failure to act soon
enough, the rejection of the idea that
the government must cut spending,
until the day of reckoning.

If you watched my speech on the
Parliamentary Channel [ hope | con-
veyed the seriousness of the prob-
lem as | asked Government members
to vote against a mortgage on their
children’s future. You have now been
committed to another $40 billion in
debt this year and the recent rises in
interest rates and dramatic drop in
the dollar make it look like things will
be much worse than we thought,

DEBT CLOCK:
National Debt at APR 20, 1994 10:51:51 is $51, 716,596,366.64
and growing by $1,473.50 per second.
Debt per Taxpayer: $36,404.57 per Capita: $17,989.69