Arts Centre Referendum:

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Arts Center Video .. do you want a referendum? Click if you have not seen video before

West Vancouver council passed a motion to spend another $150,000 to “engage again - more” (read council did not like what the community was telling us and so council will go back again and again until council gets the answer council wants) with the public about the proposed Arts Centre to be built on the tennis courts located in Ambleside Park or?

As you can see in the below transcript Mayor Booth said “….

 I do think these two sites, I’m really agnostic as between the two, but I think these two are our sites and I will be talking about those as our sites ……

This is not a referendum.  We’re elected to make these decisions 

…… I’m not interested in counting up, I’m not actually even interested in the split of 50/50 [for tennis court location] to be honest. 

Please read the complete transcript below

What Mayor Booth did NOT say was that 12% of people who took the District of West Vancouver sponsored survey [not the CiviX survey] about the Arts Centre declared that they were from North Vancouver; 22% of survey takers did not declare their residency. Only 66% of people taking the DWV survey declared they were West Vancouver residents.

And yet staff included NON West Vancouver residents in the survey results even though it is West Vancouver taxpayers who will be on the “hook” for the capital cost and annual operating losses. (FYI, we have filed a freedom of information request about how the non West Vancouver residents voted because District staff refused to disclose how the non residents voted and yet included them in the results and influenced council’s decision making.

Also left unsaid is the “Public Consultations” tend to be controlled by the DWV planning department and members of committees are usually selected by the Mayor and usually are never representative of the whole community. This was clearly illustrated in the recent Horseshoe Bay Local area plan. Only a very small percentage of committee members even lived in Horseshoe Bay. While this is “qualitative” feedback it is NOT statistically valid or statistically representative of the community wishes at all.

Check out this link for a discussion about the importance and validity of statistical surveys.

CiviX’s core platform is that the correct way to measure community opinion is to use statistically valid surveys of ONLY West Vancouver resident-taxpayers because that is who council ‘reports to” … in theory.

Click here to take the referendum poll-survey vote yes or no

 

Transcript of Mayor Booths comments immediately prior to council voting on the Arts Facility file ….    : Arts Facilities Site ... file 0116-20-AFCA

REPORT TO COUNCI for 26 July 2021, item 5 council meeting

https://westvancouver.ca/sites/default/files/dwv/council-agendas/2021/jul/26/21jul26-5.pdf


TRANSCRIPT TAKEN FROM VIDEO RECORDING OF COUNCIL MEETING.  MAYOR BOOTH SPEAKING

I am going to say a few words.  I first of all just want to really thank people that called in and wrote in because I actually could not have said the things better.  And so I don’t even want to repeat all the good pithy things that were said.  But what they did do is they stimulated me thinking about some really key concepts so I’m going to come at this in a little different way.  First of all and these are all kind of C words.

 

The first word is creativity and that makes really a lot of sense cause we’re talking about the arts and we’re talking about culture.  And I think we’re going to have to have a lot of creativity.  And when people said to take the politics out of this, I think that staff have got the message loud and clear that forming a separate entity and putting our citizens to work and the best minds to work.  And we're taking this out of the council governance political realm is an important step.  So I fully support looking at a creative governance model.  And I also support looking at creative funding.  I actually keep on running up against the word ‘fundraising' in the motion, I’m not going to recommend an amendment.  But I really do think we have to think ‘funding' because that’s grants, and it’s partnerships, and it’s sponsorships, and it’s private donors, and it’s community, and there’s a lot of things that fall under that umbrella.

 

I also think that we need cohesion and commitment and that comes at the council level and I do believe just listening to all the speakers and also to hear it from you know people that have been around like Councillor Soprovich since this was first discussed in the 90’s.  Well, this council has done things that have been talked about for 20 years - Brissenden, Klee Wyck, Neighbourhood Character, Asset Levy.  So I’m under no illusion that we will not be able to take advantage of this time.  Because I do, I’m so encouraged by the support, the work, the planets in my mind are lining up for us to make a decision on this too.

 

And I said commitment.  I do think these two sites, I’m really agnostic as between the two, but I think these two are our sites and I will be talking about those as our sites because I think you need to be able to put a picture together for the community.

 

And I like that term cultural hub a lot.  Because that’s really what this is.  It’s not an Art Gallery.  It’s not an exclusive venue for a certain.  It’s a cultural hub captures a gathering place and a vibrant exciting place.

 

Courage.  You know we talk a lot about educating and I agree with that, we want an informed citizenry, but we’re elected to make a decision.  We’re elected to have the courage.  We have to do our homework.  We have to get out there and talk to people, not just the people that come to us, not just the people that fill out surveys.  This is not a referendum.  We’re elected to make these decisions and we have to do our homework and use our powers of reason to make the right decision for the community.  I’m not interested in counting up, I’m not actually even interested in the split of 50/50 to be honest.  Because what I’m interested in is the qualitative response and the qualitative feedback and not the quantitative.

 

And then the last thing that I’m going to commit to, to the community, is that I will be a champion for this as the Mayor because, as Councillor Cameron pointed out is very important.  The way that the Polygon got built in North Van was Darryl Mussato.  He was committed to it and he championed it and I really believe in this so this it’s not a problem for me to champion this.  Because I already have a vision and I’m super excited about that.  I am really proud.  If we didn’t have anything to offer then I wouldn’t be doing this but I went to the Virtual Home Tour for the first year.  They did it virtually.  The West Coast Modern Home tour.  And we were only 50 in Kay Meek.  They didn’t allow a lot.  We reached a worldwide audience.  And I was so proud of the film that was put together.  I was telling some of my colleagues.  They had drones filming each of the houses so you were getting birds eye view of things that you never saw before.  They interviewed all the owners so you got to hear the stories.  And it made me think you know isn’t it the way that when we have all this talent in our own community that we don’t celebrate it as much as the rest of the world.  And I don’t even want to list artists because I know I would leave someone out.  But we have the talent in this community and we should be showcasing it.  And we should be nurturing it, and that’s another word I heard, in our young people, in our up and coming artists.  I mean we’re doing art therapy at the Seniors Centre for people with dementia.  That is a program that we started here.  So it crosses the spectrum.

Is this easy.  No, it is not easy.  That’s why it hasn’t been done.  But maybe I’m sounding a little bit hokey but I like to quote JFK.  Who says, who said ‘We go to the moon not because it is easy, we go to the moon because it is hard’.  And I believe in this project and I’m very supportive of it but I feel a community is leading us and that’s the best place to be as a politician because the community is leading us in this direction. “