TransLink board meetings closed to public
Wednesday, January 16, 2008 at 07:43PM
The public will be shut out of TransLink board meetings, the newly named chair for the transit authority confirmed today.
Dale Parker was introduced to media this morning as the new chair of the board that will oversee the Lower Mainland's $1-billion transit portfolio. The former president of both White Spot restaurants and the Workers' Compensation Board said the public will continue to be consulted on major issues, but the decision making process will go on behind closed doors.
Parker said it was normal practice at Crown corporations for boards to do their work in private - so why not TransLink?
“The debate that has to go on among the board, the to-and-fro, the open discussion with management, my experience has been we can do that better without the cameras and the lights of the media,” Parker said.
Board decisions will be released immediately after they are made, Parker said, while the public will be allowed to speak to the board at four separate gatherings.
TransLink meetings have traditionally been open, with the public free to listen in on arguments and the reasons behind decisions. But that, like the old board of local politicians that was scrapped late last year in favour of an appointed board, is a thing of the past.
Vancouver city councillor and former TransLink director Suzanne Anton can't understand why.
“Transportation is such a public thing. The minute you step out your door you are relying on somebody making good transportation decisions,” Anton said. “To have no meetings in public and to talk about consultations as filling that gap? I just simply can't agree with that.”
Parker, who also sits on Vancouver's Police Board, admitted the new TransLink board knew nothing in advance of this week's much ballyhooed provincial transit announcement.
But that's ok. They're new.
"We're new and so there wouldn't have been an opportunity for much discussion with us in any event," Parker said. "But I think it was something that was pretty much in line with TransLink's thinking."
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