A chat with New West mayoral hopeful Ken Armstrong

We’ve had a chance to take a look at the local platforms, and now it’s time to chat with the three people vying for the job of mayor of New Westminster.

Each mayoral candidate was asked five questions that touched on themes related to diversity and inclusion, housing, construction and city development, and the arts. None of the questions were provided in advance.

This was followed by two questions I had specifically for them, plus a fun question inspired by local Twitter user @maybe2mrrow.

These are the full transcriptions of these interviews, with some light editing for clarity.

A variety of voices

RR: The city has a large millennial population (27%); ethnically, 36% of New Westies speak a language other than English or French. Examples include Punjabi, Tagalog, Cantonese and Mandarin.

There appears to be disengagement municipally: of the 52,222 people eligible to vote in 2018, just 28% showed up to the polls—that’s less than the municipal election prior.

If elected, what three things would you do to ensure that City Hall and local politics are a welcoming, diverse, and accessible space for the variety of people who make up the city of New Westminster?

KA: I’ll start with what we’re already doing in the sense that our group, in my opinion, is a very diverse community. We have a number of different ethnicities represented in our group, including Daniel Fontaine who is Metis. Karima Budhwani, Paul Minhas, Teo Dobre, all come from [places other than] western Europe. Paul’s ethnicity is South Asian, and then Karima is Muslim.

We have a good gender diversity on our team as well in terms of the different ages. You could say Teo is a millennial. We certainly have more than our share of Gen X-ers, and we have one baby boomer in Rick [Folka]. That’s a good start. When you have a slate that is more representative of the community as a whole, that does a couple of things. I think it creates increased engagement, and I think it creates increased comfort for people to know there’s someone from the community at the table. Perhaps people who have lived experiences not having the white privilege that I have.

Secondly, our very culture of engaging with the residents of New Westminster, will prompt us and encourage us to continue engaging after the election with different kinds of communities. In a municipal election, it’s easy to think of communities as neighbourhoods, but it’s not that simple. There are neighbourhoods, and several—the business communities, the arts community, the sports communities, and these are communities—but then there are also different ethnic communities and faith communities that need to be consulted with.

In my expectation as a group, we would continue to engage with all different matters of communities. We do have a specific plan in place to increase a formalized engagement strategy with the different Indigenous communities upon whose traditional unceded lands New Westminster is situated. And that’s not to say we won’t also seek to engage with other ethnic groups.

Generally speaking, we have some engagement ideas for all, everyone, that I think will increase engagements, and that does include… maximizing the use of Zoom for our council meetings as an easy example—and Karima has spoken a little bit more on engagement.

The third thing, we also want to get a joint school board and council liaison committee with a specific goal of thinking long-term.

Editor’s note: after the interview, Armstrong emailed New West Anchor to add that Jiayi Li-McCarthy is a part of the slate, and wanted to make note of that in acknowledging the diversity of the NWP candidates.

Housing

RR:  It’s common on some of the Facebook groups and the r/NewWest Reddit thread to see people asking for any leads on a place to rent.

In one instance, someone looking for a one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment with a rental budget of $1,600-$1,800 said they go to viewings but are often beaten out by people who make more than them or are coupled up. “I’m starting to feel pretty down,” they said. So, what’s the solution?

KA: In terms of rental market housing, we have some plans that we want to implement, to try and encourage a couple of things, secondary suites and laneway homes. On the secondary suite thing, one of the challenges property owners have… is there’s a flat fee electricity—a non-metered flat fee for electricity and whatnot. We need to find a creative solution around that, so that doesn’t become a barrier to having a secondary suite.

We also want to speed up the development of laneway houses, and one of the ideas we have is getting some pre-approved footprint-type plans for laneway homes. If your particular lot is appropriate and zoned for it, then it’s going to be sped up, the process to get that laneway house built, if you have the right footprint.

By doing these things, we have the ambitious goal of getting 1,500 more secondary suites and laneway homes in New Westminster by 2028. That’s not a four-year goal, that’s a six-year goal. One of the challenges I think we have in Metro Vancouver, and I saw this stat [CBC municipal affairs reporter] Justin McElroy tweeted it out, and… I want to say it’s about 30 or 40 years ago, there’s about 110,000 purpose-built rental units in Metro Vancouver, and now there’s about 100,800. We’ve gone down 300 suites at a time where our population is [increasing]. I know New West’s population has doubled. Metro Vancouver’s population has blown up as well. So there’s a lack of purpose-built rental housing. Doing things to encourage purpose-built rental housing is important.

By the same token, we need to do things to encourage that purpose-built rental housing includes either the lower end of market or below-market housing. One of our ideas in transit-oriented communities is to… [engage] with developers… [to] provide the few parking spots you need to provide because you’re right by SkyTrain, etc. That’s, I think, the three different solutions we have that I think can help increase the rental stock.

I’m not gonna lie, I have a 20-year-old daughter at home, and she tells me the price of rent. She can’t even afford to share a one-bedroom apartment with a friend, and you ask yourself, OK, you’re sharing with a friend—and I know it’s a friend, not your partner—what, are you going to have bunk beds? Or someone sleeps in the front room? That’s just not good enough. I want to make sure my children—because I have a 14-year-old as well—have access to the rental market.

Bureaucratic procedures

RR: All three mayoral candidates agree something has to be done about permit processes and the other bureaucratic red tape at City Hall. What specifically would you do with the assistance of the NWP to fix those problems?

KA: One of the things I just mentioned, just like the laneway housing, is getting some sort of templated plan so that you can pre-approve. We want to find ways to speed up fast-tracking of social housing within the official community plan. Speed that process up, we know legislation is coming on that front. There’s a lot of really granular stuff that we’re going to have to get our head around, and… I know that the process has slowed down over the years in New West. I think to a degree it’s going to be a matter of getting in, having meetings with senior staff and saying, ‘How did it slow down? What can we do to speed it back up?’ Mindful that there is a staffing shortage; it’s sort of responsive in the business stream of things, you have to go to multiple people. I think City Hall is trying to get to more of a one-stop shop, one face kind of place. That’s something we would definitely continue to build out.

Construction

RR:  It’s not much of a surprise to see construction cones/pylons up when you’re out and about. Admittedly, there’s a lot of infrastructure that’s aging in the city—easiest example to point to is the pipe system along Columbia Street that Metro Vancouver has been working on.

Other examples include the Agnes Greenway and the towers going up along the river.

Such change and required repair is inevitable, but how do you balance the needs of fixing our city’s infrastructure so it’s safe…while also ensuring the ability to travel through the city (walk, ride, bus, etc.) isn’t negatively impacted?

KA: We don’t have specific plans around tweaking work schedules, but I have thoughts. It’s an example of a big-picture problem. We’re allowing growth but we’re not managing that growth very well. I think the bigger problem of managing growth is [what] we’ve had over the last 44 years: the population has doubled. Most of that growth has happened since 1996, but I take on the last 44 years because that’s the last time we actually had a brand-new, not replacement, but additional rec centre built in New Westminster.

Yes, the arena got replaced with a sportsplex, so that’s new construction, but it’s replaced with construction, to the extent təməsew̓txʷ is going to replace the old Canada Games Pool and the Centennial Community Centre. That’s new construction, but it’s replacement construction.

The Anvil Centre has community centre elements to it. It’s not a rec centre, it’s an arts and cultural centre. We haven’t been managing that growth and we haven’t been managing the traffic infrastructure, which heaven knows is a very technical problem that will require a lot of assistance with senior engineering staff who are better equipped to answer the technicalities of that. We need to be better at making sure our developers are part of the solution of managing growing infrastructure when we’re growing our population.

So does that mean that—and a direct answer to your question—that I want to have a conversation with the engineering department about? Can we find a way to manage traffic better when there’s construction in such and such a place? Of course I’ll have that conversation, but we have to trust our staff. By the same token, it brings back flashbacks to pipes on Columbia Street for an inordinate amount of time. We just need to be better at leaning on, I won’t call Metro Vancouver a senior level of government, but other levels of government to make sure they’re pulling their weight.

New West Arts

RR: The plan is to fix Massey Theatre to “minimum viability,” so that the building can be safe and operational. Massey repairs have been talked about as far back as 2013. Meantime, 100 Braid St.—aka Braid St. Studios, is still searching for another space to operate in.

These are just two examples, but it speaks to the idea that the arts tend to fall lower on the list of priorities. What would you and your slate do to ensure that artistic spaces and initiatives are properly taken care of?

KA: Our arts platform in that regard is to really take a good, hard look at the way the Anvil Centre is being used that would include looking at moving the gallery to a street level, and trying to make sure we’re maximizing that space. We are committed to continuing multi-year funding modelling for the arts [and the] cultural community. We want to work with that community to try and identify opportunities for live/work spaces, to maybe have a New West arts hub, the “New West Arts Market” to highlight our local artists and what not.

Looking at that 100 Braid St. piece, finding some space for that live/work model, I think, would be very helpful for them.

Specific questions

RR: We’ll move onto specific questions. I have two for you. The NWP is looking to reorient more police resources on the street. You’ve said you and your slate are in favour of providing more money for policing in New West. Where exactly would that money come from?

KA: We are committed to ensuring an adequately funded police department, and the point there is I think the last two years council asked the police to freeze their budget, essentially; which practically speaking is reducing funding. Of course, there’s the cost of inflation in terms of where we find the money. First we need to find out how much money they need, and then we need to take a good, hard look at efficiencies, and we’ve identified a couple of ideas we have to try and see if our money is being managed in a most efficient way. [This includes] the granular stuff, reviewing contracts, reviewing procedures, purchasing procedures, operating a capital budget.

I don’t know. We don’t get fantastic disclosure of the financial information from the city, so I really don’t know where the chafe is—as it were—to separate the wheat from the chafe, from the budget. What opportunities might be there, and to find those efficiencies.

At the end of the day, we have to prioritize funding municipal responsibilities ahead of federal and provincial responsibilities. Our federal and provincial partners who get 93% of the taxes the average person pays aren’t pulling the weight on their files. [Our] responsibility is to advocate forcefully, privately, and publicly to them, rather than pick up the tab for their expenses.

RR: I was looking for some clarity in the NWP platform: in the housing part, there’s a discussion about reducing parking requirements and transit-oriented development in exchange for the development of long-term below-market housing, and there’s also the offering of one-hour free parking if you’re not an electric vehicle driver, but two hours if you are.

In the same token, there’s a section that talked about pedestrians being the number one priority when it comes to new transportation infrastructure and also to supporting a commitment to Metro Vancouver 2040.

KA: I can see how the first two don’t necessarily seem to match, but when we’re talking about the first point in reducing parking requirements in exchange to social or low-income and below-income housing in new developments, those are in transit-oriented communities. The idea is here you’d build a highrise, as an example, only at or near 22nd Street Station. You don’t need to have as many floors down in the ground for parking, because you’ve got a transit-oriented community, and you’re going to expect a certain percentage of the people to be moving, using transit, specifically SkyTrain.

The other point, the one-hour street parking is in the business district, so it’s not really related to the residential properties. Allowing free hour parking Uptown, an hour on Columbia Street in areas where the parking there is being used for this idea of, “Come on in. Check us out, and the first hour’s on us,” and hopefully it drives people to shop local.

Pedestrian safety, some of the ideas we have surrounding that: making sure when we’re building infrastructure, making sure the pedestrian crossings are bright and visible, a few more locations of pedestrian-controlled lights throughout the city. I’m thinking specifically in my neighbourhood: there’s a long stretch of Ewen—between Boyd and Howes on the other hand—with no lights on any stretch. And because of the bushes on the boulevard there, sometimes it’s hard to see the pedestrian crossing in front of you.

If they had a little button, press the button, activate the lights, and then matched with even overhead pedestrian signs, which are often lit. You can have the amber lights flashing out of this great big white sign. These are the kind of topics we have. And you know, this came up at I think Massey Victory Heights: as a group we’re supportive of a network of separated bike lanes, and getting into consultation with neighbourhoods to make sure we’re getting them in the right places. But separated bike lanes create safety for other vulnerable road users, and I don’t expect a lot of pedestrians to be walking down the bike lane, but by the same token that they’re farther away from the curb, I would suggest it increases their safety as well.

So I think it’s consistent. It’s just about being mindful about who is going to get most seriously hurt. And this is what I do in my day job, I deal with the aftermath of car collisions. And the reality is that if you’re in your car, you’re hit from behind, you may only suffer a mild injury. But if you’re a pedestrian, you’re hit by a motorist, you’re probably not going to suffer a mild injury, it’s probably going to be moderate to severe. If you’re lucky, you might suffer a broken limb that recovers normally, instead of—a six-week whiplash is an inconvenience to everyone—but just in my experience, the severity of injuries is higher when we’re dealing with cyclists and pedestrians, and of course, motorcyclists.

RR: This is the fun question: there’s a local Twitter user who has been comparing the mayoral candidates’ sock game. If you were elected as mayor, what would be the print on your socks you would wear to your first council meeting as the leader of our city?

KA: I have two pairs of white and black socks, where the white is the background, and the black lines create the pattern of soccer balls in tribute to my contributions and my volunteering with New West Soccer. 85% chance I’m wearing the soccer socks.