Who are we?

Civix West Vancouver Elector Society

(see BC incorporation certificate below)

Who are we?

• This section has been prepared by Claus Jensen, President and founding Director of Civix West Vancouver Elector Society

We are a small core of volunteers who are all West Vancouver residents and very concerned about the direction of this Council and that major decisions with significant financial and quality of life consequences are being made without adequate consultation. Some on Council seem to pay more attention to the views of residents outside West Vancouver than those who live in West Vancouver and pay taxes here.

We do not want West Vancouver to become like much of greater Vancouver with significant density and high rises. We can and should be different. We want to enhance the village like atmosphere ( NOT destroy it) with our beautiful waterfront , hills, forests and parks and support a vibrant business community”

The core volunteers

Nigel Malkin

Claus Jensen

plus 700 West Vancouver residents who collaborated by way of surveys, meetings and letters.

History

It all started with Nigel Malkin ,a local businessman and resident, taking exception to Councils’ decision to support closure of two traffic lanes on Marine Drive for the B Line Bus and to remove many parking stalls that are essential for businesses. This would have undoubtedly caused traffic gridlock on the main transportation artery in West Vancouver.

With the eye on the next Municipal election in October 2022 we have established CivixWestVan.ca. Many other individual residents and community groups were involved in shaping the philosophy and founding principles of CivixWestVan.ca. Thank you to everyone that provided input. We support more direct democracy in West Vancouver and want your opinions and thoughts to further refine the philosophy and principles.

The District of West Vancouver uses a term called ‘Instances of input’ when, for example, staff are gathering input from the community (which in WestVan’s case really means anyone in Greater Vancouver). Here is an explanation that I received from a planning team member after asking for a definition.

Please see breakdown of rounded instances of input received below. Instances of input received range from comments on interactive display boards, conversations at discussions cafés, input received at stakeholder meetings, maps from youth workshops and more. One individual can generate multiple instances of input in the form of individual recommendations, comments, responses and suggestions. The reason input has been analyzed this way is because one person can provide input on housing, economy, neighbourhood character, and many more. Each of those individual comments are then separated and used to inform their respective elements of the plan. The collective sum of that input equals x (sic) instances over all engagement opportunities. All input received has been made available since the start of this project and can be found in the transcripts in the Document Library section on the webpage.

I am going to use the District West Vancouver definition of ‘instances of input’ to report to you the magnitude of support for the principals of this organization. Here are a few events that enabled us to shape:

• dozens of meetings over a 16 month period in my basement where ‘post it notes’ were used to record each person’s opinion. The basics of the current Civix Platform was formulated during these meetings

• survey of WestVan residents who were asked about the draft platform. During this survey people were asked for their comments.

  • 20,545 words

  • 1,278 sentences

In total there were about 14,638 instances of input on the content of the draft platform over a 14 month period. This from a guesstimated 700 unique West Vancouver residents who had to certify they were West Vancouver residents.

If in you heart you feel that the replacement of the old White Spot at Taylor Way and Marine with high rise concrete and glass towers or the building of Grosvenor in Ambleside adds to the charm and character of WestVan are OK then Civix is likely not for you. If you would like to retain the charm and size of West Vancouver then your opinion likely aligns with this group of volunteers.

• The only way to change decisions at Council is to get new Councillors who have a Vision for West Vancouver that is consistent with the CivixWestVan.ca platform. This includes a change in the focus of Municipal decision making from being Council and Staff centric to Resident centric. This would be semi-direct democracy where residents would have a vote on all significant community decisions ( e.g Arts Centre)