With the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant about $3 billion over budget, and Metro Vancouver facing a cost-cutting edict, demands for transparency and change are growing louder.
Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim told Global News on Wednesday, “The way Metro is currently structured, I think it’s a complete waste of time. It’s terrible… there could be a way better allocation of resources and accountability in that structure.”
Surrey’s former mayor is also speaking out, saying his city should abandon the organization.
Doug McCallum said “I think it’s time for Surrey to get out of the Metro Board completely. Let us run our city the way our residents want us to run it, not the way Metro (does), which is (an) unelected board.”
Others argue that more information is needed before major decisions are made at Metro Vancouver.
Former Vancouver councillor and team candidate in the next by-election Colleen Hardwick said, “If we want to fix problems, we don’t put our heads in the sand, we do our research, we figure out what’s gone wrong and then we course correct and fix the problems.”
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Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West recently made a motion calling for sweeping changes.
They include cutting stipends in half, reducing meetings by 50 per cent and a full-scale external review of Metro’s core services.
West said, “I think this is an opportunity to provide a hard reset of Metro Vancouver and to start fresh.”
Metro Vancouver will debate the motion on February 28. A special meeting to do a services review is scheduled for Feb. 21.
