Matt Todd's Pursuit of Idyll Minds

Everyone knows that the newspaper can’t possibly give the whole story on an issue, but yet so many people react as though they have all the facts because they read about it in the Peace Arch News.

Myth: The tallest building approved for the Town Centre is 23 stories.
Despite this persistent popular myth, the building is 21 stories. That’s a simple fact. If you don’t believe me, go to City Hall, ask to see the building plans and count the floors yourself.

Just because a promotional illustration from very early in the design stage appeared to have 23 floors if you counted the windows doesn’t mean that is what is being built. What matters — what is accurate — is the plans approved by the City, not the promotional concept drawing. I’m certain that if the developer had anticipated the hassles of a clutch of conspiracy theorists nitpicking over the number of windows on a conceptual drawing, they would have had the artist redo it.

Myth: The mayor tried to stick the City with a $35,000 bill for the bears.
The mayor did not try to get the City to pay for the bears. She made a clumsy error of protocol and procedure. She did not break any rules or laws. She made an error. She feels dumb, apologized and fixed it without spending a penny of City money. Let’s move on, already. It’s long past time to get over it.

Myth: The City had to appoint a committee to figure out what to do with the bears.
A Public Art Committee was already needed to deal with a completely different donation of public art. It is actually more expensive and proposed for a more prominent location than any of the bears. But the way it sounds in the news is that the committee had to be set up just to deal with Judy’s bears. It does make the story more interesting, unfortunately it’s not true.

Last May I wrote a post titled responsibility. I wondered why some people choose to get angry at others when it becomes apparent that they themselves had erred or was seen to be unaware of something. There is no better example of this than the political acrobatic feats being performed in Ottawa. Incredible efforts have been invested in avoiding responsibility for Canada’s air pollution.

Earlier this week I wrote about the economic myopia of the current debate. Partisan mud slinging has been effective at making everyone look dumb and ineffective. But in wasting so much time and energy attempting to force “the other guy” to admit to having made mistakes or not trying hard enough, mistakes are being made and nothing meaningful is getting done. So, whether they accept it or not, they are each responsible for the Government’s inaction.

Where is the leadership on this issue? Accepting responsibility is essential to leadership. Leadership cannot be taken without accepting responsibility.

What Harper’s caucus seems to unwilling to understand is that there is only one Government of Canada. Over the history of our country, different political parties have held the majority of parliament, but each has been engaged in the same institution – the Government of Canada. In order to break out of this counter-productive finger-pointing game, Canada must accept responsibility for its choices and actions.

To all those with mud on their hands: get over yourself. Stop trying to assign blame for the past. We need to work together on this one. Discuss the issues without mentioning any political party. Talk about ideas without staking ownership. Let’s figure out what we want for the future and what each of us is willing to contribute.

The controversy and debate around greenhouse gasses and climate change is all very entertaining. Unfortunately it is also distracting.

Climate change is a certainty — it’s a natural cycle that isn’t going to stop simply because there are humans all over the place now and they would really rather things just stay the way they are. The degree to which emissions from human machinery and politicians are affecting that natural cycle is debatable. And debated it is, hotly. But by focusing on that debate, Canada is missing the point.

There is a long list of reasons for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, concerns about climate change is only one of them. It should be no surprise that many people have a hard time thinking that rising sea levels and warmer temperatures are a bad thing. And the anxious fretting that, if someone in White Rock drives to the store to pick up some orange juice, it will help melt some ice at the North Pole some time over the next 100 years and some sheep in the New Zealand highlands might go blind… it’s all far too abstract. But that’s OK because there are more than enough reasons affecting humans now, right here close to home — things that everyone can understand and agree are not good.

• skyrocketing asthma

• cardiovascular distress caused by air pollution

• waterways polluted by petrochemicals and brake dust washing into storm sewers

• local salmon streams too polluted to support fish

• driving linked to increased obesity, decreased heart and mental health

• economic inefficiencies of gasoline production and distribution

• waste of energy inherent to the internal combustion engine

• serious but underappreciated impacts of engine noise on human health and wildlife

• strain on low-income Canadians in maintaining combustion vehicles

Those are just off the top of my head. I’m sure there are many, many more reasons to question the resistance to public transit, alternate energies, and new vehicle technologies.

I think one of the most counter-productive arguments is that aggressively reducing air pollution would cause harm to our economy. I find this ridiculous for two reasons.

First, our dependence on petroleum is causing incalculable harm to our economy. A truly wise economist would look further than the next few years to determine costs — they would look generations into the future. As much as our current energy systems fuel our economy, they are also inefficient, expensive to maintain, and produce damaging waste.

Second, our need for transportation, food and goods will not diminish. There will continue to be consumer demand for products and services. Skeptics have tried to scare us into thinking we would have to reduce our standard of living to be less polluting — as if pollution is the price we pay for a high quality of life.

Aside from wondering how high that quality really is with so many health problems caused by pollution, I can’t help but think that this is incredibly myopic. Surely, at this time in human history, we should be able appreciate change. We have seen an exponentially increasing rate of change over the past 200 years. How we live our lives has changed dramatically in the past 10 years, but we have adapted — as they did 30 years ago, 50 years ago, 80 years ago, … 100 years ago. We have adapted to new technologies and used those advances to improve our quality of life.

I believe the same would be true of finding more energy efficient means of fueling our manufacturing processes, heating our homes, powering our devices, propelling our vehicles. It would also be true of creating effective public transportation systems, and safer walking and cycling routes.

So, enough of the debate over greenhouse gasses already! Let’s get on with making our economy stronger while improving our quality of life — by reducing energy consumption and increasing energy efficiency.

I don’t understand it, therefore it is stupid

Why is this so common? Why would anyone, confused about why something was done in a particular way, jump to the conclusion that whomever did it is obviously stupid? Why assume the right to judge their intelligence?

Under Council direction to create a more inclusive, consultative, and open-minded corporate culture, City Staff have been making great progress in resolving issues without using coercion or resorting to confrontation. I hope Council can learn to do that too. We have been strongly advocating the change within staff, but yet seem to be having a hard time breaking the habit ourselves.

This has never been more blatant than this past Monday when dealing with concerns about a particular boat moored at the pier. Councillor Coleridge said City Hall “needs more power”, should use a “hammer” on the Semiahmoo First Nation (whose members are responsible for the boat), and that the City needs “more rules and regulations”. I couldn’t disagree more… on each point: Power doesn’t solve problems; Using a hammer will only create problems in the long run; Spinning more red tape just for the sake of exercising power just creates more work for City staff.

I’d rather not be a power-tripping, coercive City Council with a fondness for red tape. I don’t think that’s good leadership for our community.

On this issue, Council directed that the boat be removed, and that a bylaw be written saying that no one can use the east float for long-term moorage and setting fees for its use.

That might all sound reasonable enough, until it is considered that there has not been a problem in the past — all this is in response to one boat. And they asked permission before they began using it — it’s not as if they’re squatters who just arrived one day without saying anything and never left.

So there are two things that make me uncomfortable with this decision.

First, it is supreme overkill. This is a huge amount of work for City staff to respond (not to mention on-going enforcement) to a single event that hasn’t occurred in the past and, considering the unique circumstances (First Nation fishing boat that first asked permission to moor there), there is nothing to suggest that it would happen again.

Creating a bylaw makes things very inflexible. It becomes more difficult to weigh the circumstances at hand and give latitude if reasonable. Bylaws are black & white and adversarial. They don’t encourage friendly problem-solving.

There are a long list of situations in which that rigid consistency is very important. But in the case of maintaining the east float as short-term visitor moorage, there hasn’t been a problem in the past and likely won’t be in the future, so I see no need to bureaucratize it.

Second, this is a very simple problem which only requires a very simple solution. I am very confident that a brief meeting of Semiahmoo and City representatives would find a mutually acceptable resolution. They might come to the exact same conclusion as Council — that the boat should be removed. But consulting them would have been respectful. It would have also allowed for the real possibility that there might be other solutions or negotiated compromises that could be found through dialogue.

Forcing someone to do something is not how to build respectful and constructive relationships. I feel that, in deciding to force them to remove the boat and threaten them by making a new bylaw without even attempting to talk with them first, Council has acted incredibly rudely.

The Mayor insisted that the message would be conveyed “diplomatically”. But my concern is about the message, not how it is delivered. No matter how politely or sensitively they are told, it doesn’t change the fact that they were not consulted prior to the decision being made. They had an agreement to park their boat at the pier, and then the City decided to have it removed without talking with them. What kind of values does this reflect?

I frequently hear people telling me that a city council should, in this representative democracy, represent the interests of the community. Councillors in White Rock are seemingly unwilling to trust and communicate openly with one another — makes me think that perhaps we really are a good reflection of the city. There are entrenched and polarized camps in the city who politely treat each other with cynicism. Sounds just like City Council to me.

I believe the culture of City Hall is changing. It is becoming more customer focused and open-minded. This has been a steady evolution over the past 3+ years, beginning with a small but pivotal change in staff. However, it seems some challenges persist.

One of the attitudes I hope to have purged from City Hall is that public consultation isn’t necessary because it’s always the same people who show up and we already know what they are going to say. The short-circuiting assumption here is that the only purpose of public consultation is to hear new information from people we wouldn’t expect.

But what about helping people understand the issues affecting their community? What about giving them an opportunity to hear about the options or challenges being considered by decision-makers?

Maybe it is usually all the same people who show up. And maybe they often say exactly what we would expect them to say. But giving them that opportunity maintains or strengthens relationships with people who are interested and care enough to show up.

These are people who want to understand. Giving them access to the experts developing plans and giving advice to City Council empowers them, helps them feel valued as members of their community. It also ensures they understand the issues at hand and have correct information to base their opinions upon.

This is important because these are types of people who will talk about what they’ve learned. They spread the information through the word-of-mouth network in the community. They also bring the questions and concerns they’ve heard in the community. This isn’t their elected or appointed responsibility, it’s just in their personality.

They are the mavens of our community. Their role is incredibly important, as described in Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point. The City’s communications must respect and address the unique interests of mavens. It is a mutually beneficial relationship.

The problem we fear is that, by listening, mavens will expect us to follow their advice. It’s a funny reaction – as to say, if we listen to people, they will be disappointed if we don’t do what they say, so let’s just not listen. Attempting to avoid this expectation by isolating the City from citizens does far more damage than good.

I think we’ve been making great progress. I’m very proud of the changes Mr. Pollock and Mr. Richardson have brought to the City. But we still have work to do.

We need to ensure we don’t neglect our mavens, but City communications isn’t just about being available to mavens. The new standard practice is to tell people stuff then ask them to write down their response. It’s easy and safe – minimizes the potential for uncomfortable confrontation. This is a huge advance in City communications in that it allows people access to the experts developing plans and giving advice to City Council. But it is still an insular exercise.

We need to foster the kind of dialogue and cross-pollination that makes an idea stronger or build greater understanding of an issue. For this, we will need to move beyond the walls of City Hall and beyond the safety of a tightly structured questionnaire. Mavens will come to us – we should welcome them and be ready for them – but for everyone else, we need to reach out and go to them.

They’ve got egos like hairdos. They’re different everyday, depending on how they slept the night before.
– Ani DiFranco

Ani was singing about musicians, but she might as well have been talking about politicians.

I believe the vast majority of elected people got involved because they care about the people around them. They care about their communities and want to make them better places to live. They want to help people.

I hear that Jean Chrétien once replied, when asked what makes a successful politician, that it’s the one who wins. The problem is that some are trying so hard to appear effective and get credit — to win — that it ends up being more about the politician than the community.

As an elected person, to achieve a goal, it seems I have to do this bizarre dance of egos.

This past month, I had set up an opportunity for youth to share their thoughts and ideas with their representative to the OCP review process. But the councillor chairing the OCP task force has now commanded that I not get youth involved.

She doesn’t want any other councillors to be associated with the OCP review in any way, no matter how peripheral or indirect. Apparently I am “ruining the process” by encouraging school principals to get students to participate, and offering to host workshops on facilitating meetings and note-taking so that they can go out and meet with their peers just exactly like the adult groups will be doing. She was even upset that I sat in the audience to watch the task force meeting.

In attempting to discuss her concerns (the only reasons given were variations of “because I said so”) it became clear that she holds an intense feeling of ownership over the process. The worst part is that others seem willing to give up on what they agree is a good idea fully in keeping with Council’s intentions. Is one politician’s ego a great enough barrier that youth could be deprived of full and meaningful participation in setting the vision for their community?

I can’t think of a worse reason.

The Peace Arch News felt it fit to put White Rock’s budget on the front page of yesterday’s edition, but then only dedicated a few paragraphs to the subject. As you would expect from an attempt to boil down a city’s five year financial plan into such a short article, a lot of important information was missing.

The first problem is that the headline declares a $118 tax jump. But that is the average for a single detached house. Those make up only half of the homes in White Rock. The other half are condos, for which the average tax increase is $55. The headline is alarmist and misleading to at least half the taxpayers in White Rock.

Councillor Peddemors is quoted as saying that another RCMP dispatcher is required to “ensure we’re self-sufficient.” The article threatens that without the additional staff, “White Rock would have to use Surrey’s dispatchers.”

This is true, but the article gives no mention of the motivation for maintaining this independence. Unlike Surrey, White Rock has a philosophy of “no call too small”. In order for that to continue, White Rock must have an independent dispatch. It’s not about guarding our line in the sand. It’s about maintaining the higher standard of service our taxpayers expect.

The article also, as a by-product of expedience, gives the wrong impression on fuel costs. It says that the city will spend “$28,000 more on fuel for its fleet of vehicles.” While there is an increase in the budget for fuel, it isn’t in anticipation of increased spending on fuel. It simply reflects what was spent last year. The dramatic jump in gas prices last year caused fuel spending to go over budget. Knowing that gas prices aren’t going down, City staff have budgeted for the same amount that was spent last year.

It’s interesting that the article glossed over the fact that the City will become debt-free this year. For all the moaning and abuse directed at the City and Council about taxation and questions of fiscal restraint, the reality is that White Rock is doing exceptionally well. Come April, the City will have no long-term debt, we are already ahead of most other local cities in catching up on road and sewer maintenance, and our taxes are dropping from the top of the regional list toward the middle. That all sounds like good news to me, though you won’t read it in The Peace Arch News.

People like to talk about thinking outside the box. But sometimes we need to think about the box itself.

What happens when something doesn’t break the rules… but you just know it isn’t right? Or the other way around, what if it breaks the rules, but yet you know it’s right?

I’m thinking the difference is context.

The rules can’t possibly anticipate all the possible options or things that could happen. Principles tell you how to measure the options. Rules ask whether something fits inside the box. Principles help you figure out if it belongs in that particular box.

The latest examples of this are the Victoria/Vidal and Johnston/Thrift proposals.

The proponents of the Victoria project insist that their project fits inside the box, but it seems obvious to everyone but them that it doesn’t fit in with the rest of the neighbourhood. Most dramatic is that the facade of the building is 5 storeys whereas nothing around it is more than 3. Yet, it fits within the zoning bylaw.

Some might say that this is a sign that the zoning bylaw needs to be changed. But that might only create different problems on other lots. The zone applies to a large area with a wide range of circumstances. It might be impossible to draft a bylaw that would fit each one.

The proponents of the Thrift project admit it doesn’t fit inside the box. They are asking Council to judge the proposal based on selected principles. But the principle they’re trying to ignore is that their property is supposed to be a transition from the tallest buildings in the city to the shortest.

In supporting the proposal, I believe Council is also ignoring the context of this particular property. They are assuming that what is good for the block between Bryant and Johnston should be good for Johnston to George. But they have much different contexts – different principles apply.

These two proposals illustrate a conundrum. Some would argue that the Thrift proposal proves that the City should have strict rules because it is too easy to become confused by or manipulate the inherent flexibility of principles. However, others will say the Victoria proposal proves that leaving ambiguous principles aside to rely only on firm rules might force the City to allow something that doesn’t fit with the surrounding neighbourhood.

I believe City Council needs to give more consideration to the principles within our OCP and planning documents than the rules in our zoning bylaws. It’s harder to live by principles – sometimes it can be confusing to figure out the best choice, and it requires more time and care think things through – but they allow flexibility for creativity and force consideration of context.

The question is, does our council have the capacity to weigh out the unique circumstances of each property – to measure each individual box against its surroundings – and the guts to make sure developers honour our established principles – to design buildings appropriate to the uniqueness of each property?

And, do our citizens have the capacity to understand and trust the concept of context if it results in rules being applied differently to different sites – that each property represents a unique box to think within?