NEWS photo Brad Ledwidge

Bucket brigade

JIM Houston, at The Mensroom in West Vancouver, collects money for the West

Vancouver fire department. The department's aerial ladder truck is broken.

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Happiness measured

Martin Millerchip
News Reporter martin@nsnews.com

WHIT is it about the North Shore
that makes it such a great place to
live? And is it getting better or worse?

North Vancouver District staff and council
will be grappling with such questions as they trv
to measure the quality of lite in die municipality
and the happiness of its residents.

Coun. Trevor Carolan first raised the possi
bility of measuring how good a job the district is
daing in maintaining its citizens’ quality of lite in
February, 1998. Since then staff has been refin-
ing what indicators to use and how to report on
the topic.

Carolan suggested Monday that like the
Buddhist monks of Bhutan who debate the
Gross National Hapriness of their country every
vear, the district could measure Nec Municipal
Happiness.

“We're looking at atime here where alloca-
tion of precious tax dollars has become critical,”
Carolan told the News. “We work in an envi-
ronment where the people who shout the loud-
est get the attention, but is that the best expen-
diture of tax dollars?

“T really believe chat if we come up with an
effective quality of life index it will help us to
spend the money where it will make peaple hap-
piest, where it does the most good.”

Council voted 6-1 Monday to endorse the
annual reporting approach recommended by
corporate services director David C. Stuart who

svgvested that:

@ the information be collected for the district as
a whole and, where possible, the three

broad geographic areas ins the municipaliry,
Seymour (East}, Lynn Valley (Central) and
Capilano (West);

@ the information be reported in the spring, at
the same time that staff report to council on the
Past vear’s corporate performance;

@ the first repart should occur in 2000 and
where the informatjon is available it should be
provided back to 1990.

The current format for the district’s annual
report would be modified to consist of the fol-
lowing sections:

B corporate tinancial/service oversiew;

B referendum overview;

& divisional performance indicators and activi-
ties; and

@ quality of lite indicators.

Examples of the many indicators to be
tracked include:
the environment — water quality, noise levels;
B® housing — house prices, rental rates, social
housing units per capita;

@ traffic and transportation — traffic volume
long key corridors, transit usage, accidents;

@ recreation, arts and culture — participation in
recreation programs (per capita);

@ infrastructure — condition and breakdown
(Watermain, sanitary sewer, storm) sewer and
roadwork repair/replacement); and

B public health and satety — crime rates, (youth,
property, domestic, violence and drugs), causes
of death.

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