[R]ight in our own back yard -- City of North Vancouver Mayor Darrell Mussatto and council members Bob Fearnley, Craig Keating and Mary Trentadue will be jetting to Chiba, North Vancouver's sister city in Japan, as well as a new port of call: Huizhou, China. I have my doubts about the benefits of sending four members of council along with city manager Ken Tollstam to celebrate 40 years of city sisterhood, particularly when the projected city budget for next year is short by more than one million dollars. Bad timing. Bad optics. But what really gets me going is that the city is spending $50,000 of provincial funds to go to Huizhou as part of a provincial initiative for new twinning. Ouch! When the province found out that it was going into a massive deficit (in April, May or June -- take your pick), it should have demanded that money back. And surely, when these so-called progressive members of council saw that it was now blood money that could be used in our hospitals, drug rehabilitation programs and schools, they should have sent back that $50,000 and postponed the new twinning as a matter of principle. But they didn't. Shame on them.For my own part I don't have a problem with city twinning / foreign visits per se. I would just want to see value for them. Since the relationship with Chiba seems to have been driven primarily by inertia (from review council minutes from 1969 it is clear that Chiba reached out to us, not vice versa), I am not sure I see the value there. As for China, it's a little different. There is much less separation between the political and economic realms there and it is quite possible that we could learn a lot and obtain more tangible benefits for the community by entering into a sister relationship.
Bill Bell wants his councillors to stay home
Bill Bell's column in the weekend's North Shore News betrays some frustration with recent North Vancouver City council activities. I was asked to post this on northvancouverpolitics.com for discussion but due to rules about posts I'll place it here.
