Dan Fumano: ‘Send a message’: ABC-majority council putting stamp on city priorities

ABC Vancouver flexed its supermajority on city council this week, signalling shifts in municipal priorities.

ABC council members approved new investments advancing one of the party’s key campaign pledges, shut down another initiative championed by their rivals and rejected city staff’s recommendation to provide grant money to an activist group.

On Tuesday, council approved a plan to support Vancouver’s Chinatown.

The plan was prepared by city staff in response to one of the new term’s first council motions, introduced in November by ABC Coun. Sarah Kirby-Yung, and includes enhanced street cleaning and opening a satellite city office in Chinatown. It represents $2.2 million in new operating costs added to the 2023 budget, or roughly a 0.2 per cent property tax increase, city staff calculated.

Quickly acting to support to help the beloved but struggling Chinatown neighbourhood was a key ABC campaign pledge, but the plan this week was unanimously supported by the other parties’ councillors.