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The NPA plan for more “openness and accountability” at city hall

August 12th, 2014 · 161 Comments

First written-down piece of policy from the new NPA team. Your thoughts on the specific remedies here?

Tuesday, August 12, 2014, Vancouver BC – The Non-Partisan Association’s mayoral candidate Kirk LaPointe says an NPA government would create a bylaw requiring the City to disclose information routinely, strengthen the City’s freedom of information office to ensure records are more accessible and create an Office of the Ombudsperson to represent the public as an impartial investigator of complaints about how the City is run.

LaPointe also proposes producing an independent annual report that would show how public consultations have influenced decisions the City has made in a given year.

These and other measures LaPointe pledges are designed to make City Hall more accountable to the residents it serves – something he says would restore the trust that has eroded under the current Vision Vancouver administration.

“The general public, community groups and even our politicians have to resort to formal legal requests for basic data,” LaPointe writes today on his blog, thevancouveriwant.ca. “This has been a pattern of arrogant, disrespectful and wasteful behaviour.”

LaPointe says an NPA government would also:

  • Create a much stronger electronic forum for the public to question elected officials.
  • Create a new process to make genuine community consultation a priority on all City decisions and provide more information on issues so people can better participate.
  • Go where Vancouverites are and hold at least one-quarter of Council, Park Board or School Board meetings in affected neighbourhoods.

“Vancouver is a great city, badly run,” says LaPointe. “Lifting the veil off our government and showing voters how it works can only reduce skepticism, improve dialogue and create trust and respect.”

Categories: 2014 Vancouver Civic Election