Where is city hall at with New West's capital plan discussion?

After multiple workshops, the city’s capital budget is poised to move ahead as is, despite some of the concerns around the spending.

There are $166 million worth of capital projects throughout the city that are in need of some TLC, and the range is pretty large: from təməsew̓tx, to replacing failing lighting infrastructure in the Massey Victory Heights neighbourhood, to road safety, public washrooms, and mobility studies—to name a few.

The meeting happened in multiple parts, with the first part happening on Feb. 13, and the second taking place on Feb. 27.

During the latter meeting, Coun. Daniel Fontaine put forth a request to see a number of changes made to the capital plan. The suggestions included earmarking money from the recently announced Growing Communities Fund (GCF), pledged earlier this month by the provincial government.

This would have meant allocating money from the GCF—which has yet to be disbursed—to initiatives like installing turf fields, road paving and sidewalk repair, the electrification of Hyack Square, and the installation of the bus shelter.

You can view the document with the full list of suggested changes here.

Fontaine’s motion, which was seconded by Minhas, went to discussion during the meeting, with Coun. Tasha Henderson kicking off the remarks.

“I guess I’m having trouble understanding where all this money is coming from. As far as I’m aware, we don’t know how much, and I could be wrong, I don’t think we know how much we’re receiving from the province or what the framework for that spending will be.”

Henderson added that, for her, it was important to look at the city’s needs holistically.

“I think the question for me here is around process, and I would prefer a collaborative process in which, once we understand what funding we will be receiving from the province from this really important fund, that we have a good conversation about what actually is our top needs as an entire council, and what staff recommends what could be sped up or not,” added Coun. Nadine Nakagawa.

“I would really like to advocate that we speed up on a lot of projects, and they have dependencies that are in staff work plans. I don’t think it is in good process or planning to … introduce a spending plan without having any idea about the money that’s coming, or what strings that might be tied to it, or what priorities we might want to advance.”

The motion was ultimately defeated 5-2, with only Minhas and Fontaine supporting it.

“I’m, and you might laugh at this, but I’m at a loss for words right now. We are here to talk about our capital budget. We are here as council to provide direction around what the priorities are for capital budgets. I was elected by the citizens of New Westminster to bring forward ideas on the capital budget. And yet, when that opportunity comes before council, for us to have a discussion … we don’t afford elected officials the opportunity to have a debate [or] a discussion on that, and we cut it short,” Fontaine commented post-vote.

“Here we are in a council where there hasn’t been a divergence of opinion, for the most part … to be able to bring [ideas] forward, I was looking forward today to hearing about the specific items on the capital plan that could have been enhanced.”

Fontaine pointed to the example of bus shelters discussed closer to the start of the meeting. The topic, which came up after a question from Nakagawa, touched on the annual $10,000 for work related to the shelters—she wanted to know what the city received for that amount of money.

In response, staff explained that the bus shelter contract was done with Pattison, with Pattison required to provide one bus shelter per year. As for why the contract is done through Pattison—that’s because the shelter requirement is based on an advertising-related contract.

“We’ve been trying to work with them, but that’s been quite challenging,” explained director of engineering Lisa Leblanc, who added that the annual $10,000 fund is more for repairing bus shelter sites.

Fontaine added he wanted to see the electrification of Hyack Square.

“We have a stage without an electrical plug in it. How much more collaboration and discussion do we need to do to install an electrical plug?”

Fontaine asked whether there was some kind of estimate readily available. In response, staff said it was too early to confirm, but based on conversations around population, it could be upwards of $15 million.

“But it’s too early to table a number and get excited,” said Harji Varn, director of finance, “it’s not generally nature to get us excited about a dollar figure until we see it.”

“Is any of that $15 million currently allocated in our existing capital plan?” Fontaine asked.

“No, it is not. Until we have secured funding, and an agreement that we will receive this funding, then we can apply it to the program,” said Varn.

“My experience also with provincial funding is it … may have other conditions that we’re not aware of yet. It isn’t prudent for the treasurer or myself to get ahead of that until we understand what the province’s expectations are,” added chief administrative officer Lisa Spitale. “Once we understand that, our practice then is to bring that to council, and seek direction.”

Mayor Patrick Johnstone also chimed in with a response similar to one he tweeted to The Anchor on Feb. 10, the date the provincial fund was announced.

“We do know it’s not going to be a simple population analysis. We know there’s going to be base funding, so the smallest communities receive more than their capita. We do know that they want to work in a growth formula; the province hasn’t let anyone know what the formula is yet,” noted Johnstone, who reiterated that there were $166 million in capital projects that needed money, so there likely wouldn’t be an issue finding places to spend the provincial cash.

“I think it’s more important that we find out what the money [amount] is and that we have a conversation as a council on [what] we think the most important priority for that money is. We shouldn’t start spending the money on ideas each of us have in our heads until we have a conversation at council about setting that priority.”

New West Anchor reached out to the provincial government to confirm if there were plans anytime soon to allocate the money—we were told by a spokesperson that municipalities will be formally contacted by the end of March.