1000-page packages!? City council needs to take charge

Vancouver Courier recently ran an interesting article by Mike Klassen in which he was rightfully calling out the huge agenda packages Vancouver city staff members are producing for city council. According to Mike, agenda packages frequently exceed 1000 pages these days!

From my six years of experience on council (1999-2005), I’m totally surprised at this amount of material. Our council packages were never more than a few hundred pages. City staff knew how to get to the point succinctly and make recommendations in a focused manner.

Personally, I’d be reluctant to believe any current council member who tells you he or she is reading all of today’s typical agenda package.

But my bigger concern is that today’s staff at city hall are trying to overwhelm council with massive amounts of information. An overwhelmed city council is much more receptive to staff recommendations.

Let’s not forget that all senior staff at 12th and Cambie were fired and replaced under the Vision Vancouver reign. Contrast the current city council, which has made no effort to shake up the current administration, with what Vision did when they were elected.

“In a move that stunned many with its swiftness,” reported the Globe and Mail at the time, Vision mayor Gregor Robertson immediately fired then-city manager, Judy Rogers, and replaced her with Penny Ballem. Vision then set about gradually replacing the heads of all departments over a number of years.

It’s time this new city council took charge. They need to start by replacing any staff not in line with the current council’s new perspective — less high-density development and more truly affordable housing — and their new approach to governing — actually listening to the public and each other.

You can’t “listen” if you’re buried under 1000 pages of “noise.” So councillors also need to instruct city staff to reduce the agenda package. If you only include the most salient points needed to make decisions, the package will never be more than a few hundred pages — still a lot by most standards but at least more manageable.