Burnaby mayor shakes up committees, sets course for 2019

A new year, a new mayor and a new direction for Burnaby City Hall.

Mayor Mike Hurley revealed a shakeup of the city’s committees this week. 

One of the more significant changes is his plan to split the public safety committee. The committee has, until now, addressed fire, policing and traffic issues. It will, from now on, only concern itself with issues relating to security and the Burnaby RCMP. The fire department will now report directly to council and a new traffic safety committee will be dedicated to making the city’s roads safer.

“The public safety committee was getting overrun with traffic, so by the time they ended the meeting, public safety kept getting further and further back down the line,” Hurley explained. 

Coun. Pietro Calendino, who chaired the committee for more than a decade, will not sit on the public safety or traffic committees. The mayor said he made the move because Calendino will be taking on a number of other committee roles, including chairing the new Mayor’s Task Force on Community Housing, and it is not related to recent controversial remarks dismissing criticisms about the city’s handling of road safety. 

“It’s got nothing to do with any of that,” Hurley said.

Hurley also appointed two council candidates who fell short of a seat in the 2018 municipal election. Independent Claire Preston will sit on the parks, recreation and culture commission and Green Joel Gibbs will be a member of the environment and social planning committee. 

Both Gibbs and Preston have attended several council and committee meetings since the election.

Gibbs said he has remained in contact with the mayor and was glad to be invited to be more engaged. 

He wants to “hopefully push things forward that reduce the coming impact of climate change.”

This means planning for a city less reliant on cars and better served by transit, Gibbs said. 

A city with less free parking, that protects existing affordable rentals and that prioritizes multi-family residential developments over single family homes is a part of Gibbs’s dream.

Gibbs, in his early 20s, hopes to bring a younger perspective lacking on council.

“It’s going to be our generation that’s going to have to deal with this mess in 20 years,” he said, referring to climate change.