Something remarkable happened today:

The NPA voted AGAINST replacing the City of Vancouver's Fire Chief! Indefinitely, but at least through the 2021 budget.

In the middle of two public health emergencies!

Just wildly irresponsible. #vanpoli

Here's what happened. Council was considering a budget outlook report from staff. Councilor Dominato introduced the amendment below (highlighted yellow).

Note the "moratorium on filling vacancies...until such time as city revenues have returned to 2019 pre-COVID levels."

Who the heck knows when THAT will be!

Staff promptly warned council that this be a HUGE problem. The City provides essential services. People in critical roles sometimes retire, or move on, or whatever, and their roles need to be filled.

A blanket ban on filling vacancies would prevent the City from functioning properly, as many critical roles would not be filled. Staff specifically mentioned the following current critical vacancies:

-Fire Chief
-Chief Equity Officer
-Chief Engineer
-GM of the Park Board

Staff were perfectly clear that, if Dominato's amendment passed, the city wouldn't be able to fill these (and other) critically important positions.

AND THE NPA VOTED FOR IT ANYWAYS

Those green "yes" votes were knowing votes to NOT hire (among others) a new Fire Chief!

This, btw, isn't the first time the NPA has knowingly voted in a way that they surely hoped wouldn't actually pass, because if it did they would blow up the city's ability to function. https://twitter.com/pwaldkirch/status/1260430185356234752

The NPA likes to pass itself off as a Serious Party of Business, but they've repeatedly shown they're happy to risk blowing it all up for the sake of posturing. They know most people don't watch council and think there aren't any consequences to votes like this.

Are they right?

By the way, I'm focusing this thread on not hiring a new Fire Chief (here's an article about how he quit while I'm at it) because it's so obviously contrary to the party's professed values of being Very Serious, but I was personally more disturbed... https://www.vancourier.com/news/vancouver-fire-chief-leaving-post-for-job-in-alberta-1.24150190

...by their willingness (particularly Cr Hardwick) to throw equity funding under the bus. Imposing an indefinite ban on filling the (already budgeted for) Chief Equity Officer role is not. cool. https://twitter.com/pwaldkirch/status/1280985075992064000

I particularly appreciated Cr Boyle's intervention. If the NPA wants to cut funding for something, ok: but be direct about it! Trying to impose cuts in an unplanned, ad hoc manner by just imposing a blanket ban on filling vacancies is irresponsible. https://twitter.com/pwaldkirch/status/1280990313998282753

So there you have it. Today was the day the NPA tried to prevent the City of Vancouver from replacing its Fire Chief, indefinitely.

What a council this is!