These are tough times for the media and others who closely follow the proceedings at Vancouver city council. Unless you are OK with continuously nodding off, that is.
You see, something strange happened when Vision Vancouver was swept out of office.
Watching city council got kind of boring. Delightfully so.
It is not as though you need to shotgun a can of Red Bull to stay awake when tuning in to council meetings. Important business is still being dealt with in the chamber.
It’s just that with the previous councils, like with a car crash, you could not look away. Today, not so much.
And, trust me, I am really OK with this.
It is not the preponderance of rookie motions, or the meeting agendas themselves that are inducing a form of narcolepsy among city hall watchers.
Rather, it is because it seems that the 11 members of this council are actually working collaboratively, and the business of the city is happening slowly but surely. Gone are the constant fireworks we saw during Vision’s near decade in power.
For example, in the four months since council began meeting I am unaware of a single cheap shot thrown by one councillor at another. By contrast, this was a regular occurrence in the Vision years.
Sure, there are disagreements on policy and approaches to solving complex problems, but these differences are being dealt with in an adult-like manner.
Something else that strikes me about the new council is the fact that all councillors get to meet with the mayor regardless of their political stripe. To his credit, Mayor Kennedy Stewart signaled early in his administration that he would have an open door for his council colleagues.
In his nearly 10 years as mayor, a meeting between Gregor Robertson and a member of the opposition was rarer than finding a four-leaf clover. One former NPA councillor told me they never met one-on-one with the mayor even once.
Stewart’s much-ballyhooed meetings with 20 randomly selected Vancouverites were also an important, if symbolic, sign that the famous bubble his predecessor governed from has been burst.
The last mayor who might have been accused of being a bit on the dull side was Philip Owen, who governed for three consecutive terms. Owen, for all of his tony West Side pedigree, did a good job of presenting himself as a man-of-the-people. I remember how he kept his composure on live TV during monthly cable-access channel open-line town halls.
During Robertson’s time as mayor, the public’s best engagement opportunity was when he would be DJing in a night club, while wearing headphones.
Our current mayor also has a little bit of that Perry Como quality so brilliantly parodied by Second City TV, when they portrayed the crooner singing while tucked in bed under a blanket. Stewart also gives off that “Mr. Relaxation” vibe.
Again, after what we experienced under Vision, I am good with this.
And so too, probably, are the city staff who risked getting caught in the crossfire during the battles held in the council chamber. Whereas today, staff might need a triple-shot of espresso before a regular council meeting to perk them up.
If we needed a cringeworthy reminder of life under the Robertson regime, we got it earlier this month when he posted a photo of his newest love interest on Instagram.
One would have thought announcing his next career move might have been more apropos.
It was an attention-getting stunt by the person who still refers to himself as @MayorGregor on Twitter. Not surprisingly, the story triggered a bout of Vision derangement syndrome all over again on social media.
I have one more takeaway from how the new city council conducts itself. It is noteworthy how strong collaboration across party lines did not require reforming the way we elect the council.
For those who tout a ward system for Vancouver as a way to improve governance, it is worth asking if dividing up the city would make council function better than it does right now, as dull as it might be to watch.
mike@mikeklassen.net
