Vancouver Park Board to consider legal counsel to save board

A legal motion is going to the Vancouver Park Board Monday night as one commissioner wants legal counsel to look into the mayor’s action to abandon the elected board.

Park Board Commissioner Tom Digby says what Ken Sim is doing is unconstitutional.

He believes Sim’s motion to dissolve the park board and assume it under the city council’s control is unconstitutional.

“In December, we were effectively mugged by the mayor in a surprise attack when he announced that he intended to abolish the elected Park Board,” Digby told CityNews last week. “It was completely unexpected because he had no rationale, he had no explanation for why the board had to be abolished now, after 135 years.”

At the time, Sim said the changes to the Park Board would allow the city to manage Vancouver’s parks and recreation services “more collaboratively and in harmony with the city’s broader perspectives.” He added the “system is broken” and cited the fact that Vancouver is the only municipality with an elected Park Board, as a reason to abolish it.

On Monday, Digby’s motion, titled “Independent Legal Advice for Judicial Review of Mayor’s Motion,” will be presented at a Park Board meeting.

“We put together a very large counter-response to the mayor and one of those components is, we need to retain legal counsel so that we can review what the city is doing,” he said. “We think the mayor is working way beyond his authorized jurisdiction under the Vancouver Charter.”

Sim has already announced an independent body that will replace the board, and report to council directly.

–With files from Pippa Norman and Robyn Crawford