Vancouver library board trustee replacement raises questions

A Vancouver library board trustee won’t be getting another term in her role, and her replacement has some raising questions.

Trustees are appointed for a two-year term, to a maximum of eight.

Melody Ma says it’s convention that trustees are allowed to continue for another term, if they express an interest, which she says she did, and can be considered if there are no performance issues.

“I was recommended for reappointment by the independent sub-committee of the VPL that forwards their recommendation to the council,” she told CityNews.

However, it seems that recommendation wasn’t taken. Instead, the decision to appoint Parveen Mangat was made in a closed meeting. Mangat donated $1,250 to the now-governing ABC Party during the last civic election.

“Due to the fact that this process is conducted in-camera, any rationale for the specific Nomination Sub-Committee decisions are not publicly available,” the Vancouver mayor’s office said in a statement.

Ma says she’s upset about the situation.

“So to just put this in perspective, every other sitting independent trustee who was up for reappointment — which was half of us — were reappointed,” she said.

“I had a lot of work in progress that I was doing as a library trustee within the VPL, as well as outside of the VPL. So I’m definitely disappointed that I’m unable to continue that work.”

CityNews has asked the mayor’s office to give Mangat an opportunity to respond to this story, but a spokesperson initially suggested she didn’t have Mangat’s contact information.

Green Party coun. Pete Fry says, given his previous work with Ma on the board, he “did not support not reassigning Melody Ma.”

“In this case, I don’t believe, actually, that the reporting back to the council as a whole actually needs to be in-camera, but it is sort of a pattern of secrecy that we see more often of late in conducting business without full transparency,” he told CityNews.

“I found Melody to be a very productive member of the library board. She brought a lot to the table, and I could speculate that, possibly, some of the concerns around Melody may be some of her political advocacy,” Fry said.

However, he adds she “didn’t bring that” to her work at the library.

“Under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, we’re all entitled to our freedom of expression, freedom of opinion, freedom of association. I don’t think that should have bearing on our professional lives,” he said.