Matt Todd's Pursuit of Idyll Minds

These are the steps I think the City should take to becoming a smoke-free city.

2006 • patios declared smoke-free, signage at city entrances and key locations stating that White Rock will be a smoke-free city by 2010

2007 • smoking areas designated

2008 • all public places declared smoke-free – no smoking permitted anywhere in the city except in designated smoking areas

2009 • enforcement begins – up to this point the smoke-free spaces and designated smoking areas will have been recommendations

2010 • tobacco products required to be hidden from minors

Property taxation is how we all pitch in to help pay for services that everyone who visits here, lives here and works here, uses and benefits from. Each property contributes towards the costs of running the city, providing those services.

It is important to make principled decisions. It helps to stay rational and not simply react emotionally to an issue without fully thinking it through and looking out for any possible unintended consequences. It also ensures decisions are consistent and everyone gets treated fairly. I believe the City should follow these principles whenever considering a grant or tax exemption.

1. Must be a registered charity
Being a registered charity is a high standard and requires a much greater degree of accountability than an unregistered group or registered non-profit society. That certification from senior levels of government is an important safeguard for White Rock taxpayers subsidizing community service organizations.

2. Must provide free services to White Rock residents
White Rock residents must receive a direct benefit. The services offered must be provided to residents of White Rock free of charge. There should be no subsidy of any business regardless of whether the profits benefit a charity or not. That would not be fair to others in the community, especially competing businesses.

3. Must own the property
The benefit of the tax subsidy must be to the benefit of the charity only. Lease or rental from a third party landowner must not be subsidized and market rates must not become distorted by property tax subsidies.

4. Property be used as the location for delivery of services
The intention is to support the delivery of services, not to subsidize businesses. Real estate investment is a business. If the land is not being used to deliver services, then it is a business investment. In the interest of fairness, no business should receive government subsidies.

This past weekend I read Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. It deals with intuition – how it works, when to trust it, and how to influence it. As an elected person, I found it very interesting to apply his ideas to the problem of disconnect between so-called “common sense” and the decisions elected people make. As it bubbles in my head, I’m sure I’ll write more entries on this. In the meantime, Gladwell’s blog has a posting that describes the difference between the insider and outsider’s perspective better than I could.

"If you want to change the way you act, change the way you think."

Ken Jones told me this when I was explaining that I sometimes realize that I don’t like the way I’m reacting to things – that I disagree with myself. I look within for assumptions that lead to the judgments or biases causing me to behave in a way I don’t like, or pulling me towards a conclusion or belief that clashes with my principles. I talked for a few minutes, but he said it better in a few words.

All public spaces in White Rock – indoor and outdoor – should be smoke-free by 2010. This would allow businesses a transition period and give advance notice of the change so that it isn’t a surprise to citizens and visitors. Some measures should be implemented each year leading up to the year 2010 – starting with a ban of smoking on restaurant patios in 2007.

Jared Diamond, in Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, writes about the differing fortunes of Haiti and the Dominican Republic despite the two countries sharing the same island.

“While [...] environmental differences did contribute to the different economic trajectories of the two countries, a larger part of the explanation involved social and political differences, of which there were many that eventually penalized the Haitian economy relative to the Dominican economy. In that sense, the differing development of the two countries were overdetermined: numerous separate factors coincided in tipping the result in the same direction.” (pg 339)

I find that last line very interesting – many things seeming to be totally unrelated all contributing to the same result. I see that often from my role as a City Councillor.

I also find myself thinking about the same idea in reverse. What about single policies or projects that have a range of impacts otherwise unrelated and difficult to anticipate?

Sometimes it’s very challenging to motivate people to make changes when they see the benefits as being very small. The sum of the many small benefits is hard to appreciate when those pieces appear so far apart.

My thoughts after viewing the Arthur Erickson show at the Vancouver Art Gallery…

Our pioneer mentality that we must conquer nature is suicidal. It is creating an environment that is alien, dirty, and dangerous.

Must our cities be a subversion of nature, a denial of the local geography, environment, ecosystem?

This Arthur Erickson speech from 1972 sounds like it could have been made last year and been just as relevant.

Our self-destructive path begins with the way we plan our transportation systems and public spaces.

On a separate, but arguably related issue, Erickson says, “there has never been a device which embodied greater antipathy to the idea of community than the North American grid…”

Some people tell me that White Rock is too small to be viable, too small to be efficient, and should or will inevitably have to rejoin Surrey. I used to be resigned to this as being a real possibility. And I thought, really what’s the difference in a resident’s day-to-day life? They will still call this area White Rock, just like Cloverdale, Ocean Park and Crescent Beach all have their own established unique identities. But now I see how being small gives an advantage to something that cannot be measured in dollars and cents: democracy.

In White Rock, the city is small enough that you have a good chance of bumping into an elected official on the street or in the grocery store. If you have a problem with a city service, you don’t have to leave your community to solve it. You can actually talk with the people making decisions. The staff and elected representatives have a relatively high degree of awareness of your neighbourhood. There aren’t multiple layers of receptionists and assistants between you and the city manager, city planner, or a city councillor. The city is small enough that you can expect personal attention. It’s reasonable to expect to be heard. That creates a stage for good citizen participation in governance and public decision-making.

But what about the money?

Though I haven’t studied it, my belief, after watching how White Rock works from the inside, is that there actually would not be a significant net decrease in staff if White Rock were to amalgamate with Surrey. The only way that would happen is if there were a reduction in service, which of course could happen without amalgamation. The work being done by White Rock staff is work that would have to be completed regardless of the jurisdiction’s size. Unless there are staff in Surrey sitting around needing more to do, I don’t see how White Rock’s staff wouldn’t still be required.

While there would be some advantages and improvements in service due to amalgamation, such as garbage and recycling picked up on the same day every week, there are disadvantages and reductions in service (such as the police per person ratio) that would probably make you want to go back to paying the extra 10-15% on your taxes to be a smaller city. This series of observations and assumptions seems validated by second-hand information that the big-city mergers in the east didn’t actually result in any net savings. Money that was saved in one area had to be increased in others.

If amalgamation simply results in decision-making further removed from residents in their neighbourhoods and diluted elected representation, I don’t see it being worth losing that kind of democratic ideal in hopes of a small monetary savings.

As can be seen in how Surrey is developing, obviously the expectation of better coordinated planning is not a certainty within a larger city. I suggest Surrey is too large. Surrey should 4 cities: Whalley, Cloverdale, White Rock, and Newton. Newton should amalgamate with a separated portion of North Delta. Cloverdale should amalgamate with Langley City and a portion of Langley Township. And White Rock and South Surrey should be a city unto itself. To provide for those efficiencies in operations that might be lost, and to ensure better coordination of services and planning, I see a stronger role for the regional government. This would be an expansion of current practice. Cities already team up to buy some products in bulk, negotiate labour contracts, provide delivery of public transportation, drinking water, sanitary sewer and air quality services.

I believe one of White Rock’s greatest disadvantages is that it doesn’t have the capacity to hire experts to help find new solutions in urban and social planning. Surrey is beginning to invest in that type of expertise, but the region as a whole relies heavily on the City of Vancouver to provide that type of leadership. Their taxpayers pay for the research and pilot projects, then the smaller cities learn from them. But this really should be a function of the regional government. That would shift the cost of that research, and the benefit, more equitably throughout the region.

I believe the model of local government described above would facilitate both greater access for citizens to decision-making and decision makers, and improve local service with better coordination regionally.

So, instead of asking, “is White Rock too small?”, maybe the question should be “is Surrey too big?”

The following are excerpts from a pdf promoting The Magic of Dialogue: Transforming Conflict into Cooperation a book by Daniel Yankelovich. He is the “public opinion expert” who guided a pivotal public process which resulted in the citizens of San Diego accepting the creation of a regional district government, despite a local cultural adversity to government.

“Dialogue differs from debate, discussion and deliberation. In debate, participants compete to win, defending one’s views against others and searching for conclusions that ratify one’s position. In dialogue, participants collaborate toward a common understanding, exploring common ground and listening to find agreement.

“Dialogue is essential for transforming conflict into cooperation. It requires the absence of coercive influences (all participants must be treated as equals), listening with empathy, and bringing assumptions into the open. He documents how dialogue can achieve results by building trust and understanding.

“Most people have two purposes for dialogue: to strengthen personal relationships and to solve problems. Today, the second purpose is growing in importance: increasingly, we find ourselves facing problems requiring more shared understanding than in the past… Traditional top-down styles of leadership in semi-isolation from others is increasingly out of vogue. It is being replaced by what I have come to think of a “relational leadership” with others, rather than handing down visions, strategies, and plans as if they were commandments from the mountaintop.

“in this diverse and less hierarchical world, decision-makers need to learn to argue less and dialogue more. In this sense, he is giving practical advice to help realize John Gardner’s wisdom that some people just need a “good listening to.”

http://www.regionalstewardship.org/Documents/Book_MagicofDialogue.pdf

Pioneers Of Change produced an excellent research document on different methods used to engage a community in decision-making from around the world.

principles: “how would we like to be together as we pursue our purpose?”

dialogue: “conversation with a centre, not sides”

freedom: “you should have the maximum degree of freedom as long as it is not at the expense of the freedom of others.”