September 7, 2006
Chair and Commissioners
Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation
2099 Beach Avenue
Vancouver, B.C.
V6G 3B7
Dear Commissioners,
Re: Agenda items #2 and #3 for September 11 Meeting
For the Commissioners of the Vancouver Park Board to adopt recommendation “C” in agenda item #3 at the September 11, 2006 meeting would create a political scandal.
Improper Proposal
This letter explains, for a third time, why it is the only ethical course, as well as personally prudent, for the elected Commissioners to distance themselves from an extremely improper proposal that would make the Park Board party to a politically corrupt process.
Before the Park Board is a proposal by the Vancouver Aquarium to conduct a public campaign promoting its plans to expand the Aquarium's buildings in Stanley Park. The Aquarium is requesting that the Park Board officially participate in the campaign, which it terms a "public consultation process", as a way to gather public input in lieu of holding a referendum on the issue of Aquarium expansion. The proposal for the "public consultation process" was prepared for the Vancouver Aquarium by the private public relations firm of Kirk & Co. Consulting Ltd. (“Kirk”). The Aquarium has contracted to pay Kirk approximately $300,000 to plan and conduct the process, which the Aquarium hopes will result in a decision by the Park Board approving the expansion.
On July 9, 2006, the Coalition For No Whales In Captivity wrote to you the Commissioners, pointing out that: “you the Park Board are being asked to endorse and participate in a public relations and promotional campaign that will be planned and managed by a private firm of lobbyists working for the private institution that you are regulating …. For you to do that would be corrupt.” At the Park Board meeting of July 10, 2006, the Commissioners unanimously deferred consideration of the matter until September 11, 2006.
Now on the agenda of the September 11 meeting, under items #2 and #3, are the staff reports of June 30 and September 5 prepared by the Planning and Operations department, and three recommended resolutions. The first two, recommendations “A” and “B”, are proper, which are to receive for information the Vancouver Aquarium’s expansion proposal attached as Appendix 1, and the Park Board staff’s technical review of that proposal attached as Appendix 2. The third, recommendation “C”, is astoundingly improper and proposes a breach of governmental ethics. It asks:
C. THAT the Board endorse the public consultation process, as outlined in this report, to gather public input on the proposal by the Vancouver Aquarium to revitalize and expand the Aquarium in Stanley Park.
The “public consultation process, as outlined in this report” includes (at page 3) this statement:
The public consultation process will be jointly managed by the Park Board and the Aquarium, with all costs to be borne by the Aquarium. A more detailed outline of the proposed public consultation process has been prepared by the Aquarium’s communications consultant (Kirk & Co.) and is attached as Appendix 3.
“Appendix 3” is a slightly revised version, dated September 5, of the proposal written by Kirk on June 29 and presented to the Park Board in July. It is presumptuously entitled “Vancouver Park Board and Vancouver Aquarium Community Consultation on the Proposed Aquarium Revitalization and Expansion in Stanley Park”. If the Park Board adopts recommendation “C”, it adopts the staff report and its unethical proposal of joint management, and it adopts “Appendix 3”, a document prepared by the Aquarium’s hired consultant, as government policy in a matter affecting the Aquarium.
The Vancouver Park Board is a government regulator. The Aquarium is the entity being regulated. Kirk is a lobbyist paid by the Aquarium to further its interests. For the Vancouver Park Board to join with the Aquarium and Kirk to manage a unified public relations campaign promoting the Aquarium’s plans would be politically corrupt. It would entail an unlawful delegation of a regulator’s management functions to the special interest entity that is subject to regulation. The situation would be the same as if the CRTC had its public hearings run by a broadcaster seeking license renewal, or the City replaced a public hearing on zoning with an open house sales meeting run by a developer.
Any consultation process conducted by government, which may result in influencing public policy, must be under the control of that government alone – in this case, under the control of the Vancouver Park Board. The process must be equally open to influence by any person, without favouritism and without special access or management control being given to any interest or group to the exclusion of others.
For additional background on this topic you may consult the news story about it, in the current September 7-14, 2006 issue of the Georgia Straight.
Improper Partiality
It is also the case that the staff report dated September 5 falsely omits significant information that should be placed formally before the Park Board. The report states:
Since July 10th, the following steps have been completed:
- the proposal by the Aquarium to revitalize and expand the Aquarium in Stanley Park has been finalized;
- the technical review by Park Board staff on the impacts of the proposal on Stanley Park has been completed; and
- the public consultation schedule has been adjusted.
The report should have added – and by its not doing so the staff were derelict in their duty to the Commissioners to present all information fairly – that a complete revision of the proposal has been received by the Park Board. The staff report should have attached that revision as “Appendix 4” for consideration by the September 11 Park Board meeting.
Kirk & Co. Consulting Ltd., as part of the proposed “public consultation process” that they devised for their client the Vancouver Aquarium, identified the Coalition For No Whales In Captivity as one of the “stakeholder groups” interested in the issue and to be interviewed. Accordingly they conferred with us on August 21, 2006 concerning the terms of reference of the proposed process. As a result of that conference, the Coalition For No Whales In Captivity produced, and presented to the Park Board commissioners and staff, also on August 21, 2006, a revised document, with the suggestion that it be attached to the Park Board staff report for the September 11 meeting.
The revised document, which is a complete re-write of Kirk's original draft proposal of June 29, includes all the material from the original document, but adds these points, which here are summarized in the order of their increasing importance.
§ The revision states that is legitimate for the Aquarium and Kirk to conduct their own private process of publicity and public relations, and to present information to the Park Board. All private persons have a right to present their views to government.
§ The revision suggests ways to improve the objectivity and comprehensiveness of the data to be gathered, by presenting to surveyed respondents the full range of realistic options, rather than only the options desired by the Aquarium.
§ The revision observes that even if the proposed leading questions are broadened to improve their objectivity, the process as planned by Kirk will not produce a statistically valid public response.
§ The revision declares that any civic facilities used by the campaign (such as the City web site, or park notice boards outside the existing Aquarium) should be made equally available to any other group or individual who wishes to post information about the issue.
§ The revision insists that the only valid way to determine public opinion, and the only way that is legitimate for an elected government such as is the Park Board, is by a public vote.
§ The revision calls on the Park Board to re-adopt the two resolutions that it rescinded on May 29, 2006. (It was that step which cleared the way for the presentation by the Aquarium and Kirk of their scandalous proposal). One is the long standing Park Board resolution of December 4, 1995 that any request for expansion by the Aquarium must go to referendum, the other is that of October 31, 2005 that a plebiscite will be held about phasing out the containment of whales and dolphins.
§ The revision explains that for the Park Board as an elected government to participate officially in the private promotional process paid for by the Aquarium and conducted by its hired consultant Kirk would be a breach of governmental ethics.
The Commissioners should require from their staff an explanation of why the document of September 5 received from Kirk on behalf of the Aquarium was placed on the meeting agenda and the document of August 21 received from No Whales In Captivity was suppressed. Both documents come from private entities, both concern the same matter of public importance. There is no difference in their status except that the first document comes from the entity being regulated, while the second document comes from a third party with no financial interest in the outcome. There is no principle of government procedure by which one of those documents from the private sector should be given superior access to the government decision makers.
If the staff is asked, “why are not both documents on the agenda for information?” it is not likely that they could give a defensible reply. Only one of two inferences can logically arise: one, which seems improbable, is that some staff members are grossly ignorant of governmental ethics to a degree that warrants instant dismissal or demotion, and the other, which seems distasteful though not impossible, is that special influence was obtained through some exercise of corrupt behaviour.
Proper Procedure
If the Commissioners of the Park Board choose to behave honestly and correctly, in accordance with their oaths of office and the expectations of Vancouver citizens, they must observe these principles.
The Park Board should display no favouritism to the Vancouver Aquarium, nor delegate to it nor share with it any of the powers of park governance that under the Vancouver Charter are to be exercised by the Park Board alone. The Park Board should be especially aware that the Vancouver Aquarium currently stands accused of breaking the law, and dealings with the Aquarium should be especially scrupulous and careful until a court decision has determined whether the Aquarium is indeed a lawbreaker.
Every Commissioner should declare publicly, in careful detail, any prior personal associations or business associations with Kirk & Co. Consulting Ltd. or its personnel, as well as with the Vancouver Aquarium, and should withdraw from consideration of any matter that could raise an appearance of conflicting interest or impropriety.
Under the procedures of Robert’s Rules of Order (which the Park Board is presently in process of adopting as an addition to its Procedure Bylaw), there are various ways for the meeting to dispose of a recommendation that never should have been put forward and that would be embarrassing even to consider. The members may decline to move the motion, or a resolution may be passed objecting to the consideration of the question, or the recommendation may be postponed indefinitely, which are all ways of avoiding the improper result without opening this scandalous matter to debate. If recommendation “C” does unfortunately become moved and debated, it should of course be defeated.
Sincerely,
Annelise Sorg
Coalition For No Whales In Captivity
cc: Media