Sim says Vancouver Park Board ‘not fixable’

Vancouver’s mayor is doubling down on his push to get rid of the elected Vancouver Park Board.

After the mayor gave his annual State of the City address, The Leader Spirit reports his plan remains on track.

Ken Sim is adamant the board, which has been around for more than 130 years, will not be sticking around as long as he’s mayor.

“During the last election, we stated many times, that we were going to try and fix the elected park board, and if it wasn’t fixable we would go to the province and make a change,” he said.

“And people heard that and guess what, they gave us an overwhelming majority to make the changes that we need to make.”

He says the board has what he calls governance issues, which is why he moved a motion to get rid of it.

“We tried to fix it, we were very clear we were going to try and fix it first, and it’s not fixable, in our opinion,” he said.

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Now, Sim says he and his council are “using the tools” allocated to them in the Vancouver Charter to “fix the parks system.”

To do this, however, a change has to be made to the Vancouver Charter, which needs to be given the green light by the province, which has not happened.

The city recently released details about the transition, saying an independent body will take over and report directly to council.