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City legal department called on to assess park board/city roles

September 23rd, 2009 · 43 Comments

I haven’t had the time to do any independent reporting on the kerfuffle going on at park board (general manager resigns, general manager appears to have leaked an email sent to her by city manager Penny Ballem saying she should hold off on the process to hire her replacement, as city manager wants a role in that; various accusations of city interference; much defensive action by Vision Vancouver park board commissioners and functionaries) so all I can tell is that is seems to have created quite a tizzy among a select group of people, i.e. the 100 or so who know and care about the park board from various political persuasions.

The vast majority of the public has no idea what park board does, much less what the general manager of the park board does or how he or she gets hired, so I’m not sure how this will play out as a major political issue. I continue to be baffled by the Non-Partisan Association’s ongoing efforts to campaign on the slogan of: We want to do all the same things that Vision Vancouver does, but we’re better managers.

However, the park-board thingie is clearly causing consternation.

To wit, the Vision group has gotten the legal department to weigh in on who has what authority at the park board. Here you go, people.

Park Board memo Sept 22 2009

My only comment on this is from a senior city employee who said to me earlier this week, “Does anyone imagine that Ken Dobell and Judy Rogers didn’t have a hand in deciding on Susan Mundick when she was hired?”

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