Special Council Meeting - MetroVancouver Board & Committees (July 24, 2024)

I attended the Special Council Meeting on July 23, 2024 at City Hall regarding problems at MetroVancouver and specifically the Board of Directors. For me, this was a valuable"listening session" as clearly it was for many Richmond Councilors, as per their comments. One councilor commented how educational this session was and suggested it would be beneficial to hold a similar session right after a municipal election to serve as a refresher for re-elected councilors and lernning for new councilors.

Essentially Mayor Brodie gave a good overview of the history of Metro Vancouver and it's Board functioning and operations. Richmond has 3 members, all councilors, who sit on the MetroVancouver Board, holding a combined 11 votes based on population. This Board consists of 41 Directors representing 21 Municipalities, one Electoral Area, one treaty First Nation.

I think all councilors at this meeting appreciated the insights provided by the Mayor. MetroVancouver is involved with:

(1) housing by way of a couple of subsidized housing complexes in Richmond (ex. Manoah Village);

(2) utilities - waste transfer station; water systems; liquid waste

Recently in the news has been the North Shore Waste Treatment Plant debacle with costs soaring from roughly $600M to $4B. Lawsuits are flying and taxpayers are joining to be facing potentially substantial increases in certain fees for several years into the future. How could this happen? Hopefully a governance review will uncover what happened.

Next up is the Iona Waste Treatment Plant which undertaking a much needed upgrade to the tune of $10B by 2030. There was concern about a temporary terminal on the water to allow barging in of materials instead of using vehciles. Not clear what the resolution to this issue is.

Interesting to hear how for the last 30 years, Richmond taxpayers have been paying a premium for Iona due to the tiered system of cost allocation that was forced upon Richmond by Vancouver and Burnaby. Now metro vancouver cities would like to eliminate this tiered cost allocation, likely to reduce impact of the North Shore Waste Treatment Plant debacle on their residents. How could Richmond agree to this without a refund for the last 20 years of inequitable payments forced upon Richmond taxpayers?

One councilors highlighted that the fidiciary duty of Richmond councilors sitting on the MetroVancouver Board is to local taxpayers, not MetroVancouver. This also raised questions about how the three Richmond Councilors along with the Mayor who are sitting on the the MetroVancouver Board are selected. I think many were surprised at the Mayor's response that Richmond Councilors had to reach out directly to the MetroVancouver Board Chair who decides. Several Councilors had asked about this previously and felt mislead and/or intentionally denied this opportunity.

Other concerns involved the fifteen committes operating on the MetroVancouver Board and why this was necessary and where they can find the reports of the work these do committees do. Some apparently are online and others are not provided. There was concern the Richmond Councilors serving on MetroVancouver do not provide updates or visibility into their work and other Councilors have little input of say, denying them the ability to properly represent Richmond residents. currently, decisions by MetroVancouver do not go through Richmond City Council. This means only four appointed council representatives to the MetroVancouver Board make decisions for all city councilors. Is this fair representation? Maybe time for a governance review for Richmond City Council?

A very serious concern was raised regarding MetroVancouver Board Chair, Mike Hurley sending out the resume of a friend and activley advocating for his friend to be appointed to take on "performance audit" of the North Shore Waste Treatment Plant debacle. All Councilors expressed a desire to see a formal, Request for Proposals type of process be implemented and were extremely concerned with the lack of good judgement by Mike Hurley. After clearly having governance challenges, with the previous chair stepping down, lack of professionalism and a serious conflict of interest by Mike Hurley was a large concern.

Maybe it is time for all councilors elected in Richmond to be provided director and governance training to protect taxpayers money, ensuring risk are better identified and effective discussions can be had.