After working for the Burnaby fire department for nearly 30 years, former Burnaby fire captain Rudy Pospisil is hoping he can serve the public a new way, by running for city council as an independent candidate.
Pospisil has lived in Burnaby his whole life. He remembers swimming, playing, and catching fish in Burrard Inlet as a child, now the place of Trans Mountain’s Westridge marine terminal. He’s raised three kids here too, and they all went to BCIT.
On the whole, Burnaby is a well-run city, he says, although there are some changes he would like to make.
First, he says he’s not pleased with the rate of development. He would cap new highrises at 30 storeys because the new towers are “an eyesore” and make fighting fires difficult.
“I think the densification and square-footage in these towers and highrises are there for a reason. The height cap is there for a reason,” he said. “Burnaby is prostituting itself to the developers.
“You look from Metrotown to the mountains and you see the giant black nails going in between your view … I mean, it’s ugly. If you keep it below the sight-lines, and you keep it within a certain amount of the hill ranges for views, then it’s more acceptable.”
The city should be demanding more amenities from developers too, he says, such as in the new developments in Metrotown.
“They’re pushing people out of the three-storey walk-ups to build towers,” he said. “This non-market housing should have all been part of the negotiations in the beginning.”
He also doesn’t like the way the city has dealt with Kinder Morgan and said the mayor’s refusal to pay policing costs was “embarrassing.” Though he wouldn’t say whether or not he supports the pipeline, he said negotiations could have been better.
“They’ve drawn battle lines in the ground, and nobody’s talking to each other,” he said. “I think the federal government is going to legislate, that it’s going to go in, and we’re going to have lost our opportunity to really deal with Kinder Morgan and do it the way we wanted it to be done.”
Another thing he’d like to see is more bike trails. As a cyclist, he says he spends most of his time cycling in Vancouver because he doesn’t like the trails in the city.
Pospisil also noted that he is “truly independent” because, as a retired firefighter, he doesn’t have an income from a business or union.
“I have a vested interest in my city. I grew up here. I have family that’s going to grow up here and continue on, and I want my city to continue in the right direction.”
