An NPA city councillor says the mayor of Vancouver is using his civic party as a lobby group in the case of securing rapid transit for the Broadway corridor.
On Sunday people had a chance to hear the mayor’s ideas for transit on the Broadway corridor and to air there own opinions.
But it wasn’t a city public hearing, it was a Vision Vancouver event, George Affleck says that isn’t right.
“I think it was confusing to the people of the city thinking that this was a public hearing when in fact it was a Vision Vancouver hearing hosted by the mayor. I am curious to know how much staff resources went into this event. I wasn’t invited to this event. No other councillors, as far as I know, were invited to this event and I think for the public it appeared to be something the City of Vancouver was holding.”
Affleck says he has some concerns “It is important when you look at transportation opportunities in this city but when the mayor of Vancouver is using Vision Vancouver to lobby other levels of government for political purposes it concerns me.”
Affleck says his concern is taxpayer dollars and city staff may have been used in a non-city event.
“I am going to find out. I am going to ask some questions at council but you have to look at Twitter adn see the number of people out there tweeting and certainly staff people were tweeting this event.”
Affleck says the mayor is using the issue to play politics.
“The Broadway corridor is becoming a political hot potato with Vancouver versus Surrey and I don’t think we should be competing with each other we should be looking at the region as a whole as far as transportation goes. I am concerned that the Mayor of Vancouver and Vision Vancouver are putting all their eggs in the fact that they think Adrian Dix is going to win the next election and the NDP are going to write big checks to Vancouver.”
Affleck says open, city run, public consultations are needed to determine transit options along Broadway.
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