City Council Workshops

0:00 (upbeat music) - Good afternoon. Welcome to Vancouver City Council. Today is Monday, June 15th, 2026. I'm Anne McEnerny-Ogle, mayor for the city, and we are in our workshop. It's five o'clock. This is the community forum pre-planning with Joy and William. City manager, did you have anything to add? - No, mayor. - Okay. - Well, good afternoon, mayor and council members. Joy Fowler and William Cooley here from the Engagement and Access Department here

0:57 to just provide you an update in preparation for the community forum. And we'll just go ahead and dive right in. We'll go over the community forum expected outcomes, the Q2 forum specifics and just planning for next week's forum and then have some open discussion with all of you to see if there's anything additional that we need to think of or that we need to be mindful of. Just a high level overview of the community forum outcomes that we all discussed a few months ago. Really making sure the topic focus forums are based on what your priorities are. Also ensuring that a small group discussion allows for some deeper engagement as well as invitation to community groups and organizations for expanded outreach, just like we had last time with more youth, more community groups joining. And then post forum summary to support next steps

1:56 and just strengthen the continued relationships. So what I'm gonna do now is turn it over to William who will just share a few additional items for you to review and for us to discuss. - Well, thank you, Joy. As Joy said, fantastic to be with you today. It's always exciting when we get to join you a week before our council forum. So I'm very happy to be doing that. As Joy mentioned, our forum next week will be on Monday. This will be our second forum of the year. It'll be held from 6.30 to 8 p.m. at the Vancouver Arts Hub. This is our first time holding a forum at the Arts Hub. So it's a really fun opportunity to bring community members into that space. A space that's of course already really active but has not hosted the council before. Our conversation topic for the day is gonna be focused on how we as a community and a city are building an environmentally sustainable city. Feedback from the forum will help to inform updates to our climate action framework which are currently ongoing. And I know I think Rebecca and Lexi joined you a few weeks ago to talk about kind of how this will fit into broader outreach.

2:55 In terms of the agenda, for folks who might be listening in, this slide includes a table. So on the left hand column is our time. Center is activity. On the right hand side is the person responsible. So earlier in the day, around three o'clock or so, we're likely gonna be having a significant number of folks setting up at the forum. This is a little different than in the past when we've been at a community center because we're bringing all of our tables and chairs in. So we'll be making sure that of course those all get set up in a way that's accessible to everyone. We've got a lot of support from staff at the Arts Hub. So I wanna thank Christine Richardson for all of her assistance already. Had a great check-in call with her earlier today to make sure it's a seamless process for the community when they arrive. Around five o'clock, we'll start setting up for the council dinner. Gonna have some space dedicated in the side where we have kind of some of the meeting space. It's currently, Christine warned me the tables for the council dinner might be a little bit covered in paint. So we'll probably bring either a drop cloth or some table cloths with us. But we will be at frequent reminders on Monday that we are in an art space, which will be pretty fun. At six o'clock, doors will open to the community.

3:54 So we'll kind of give them that warm welcome, invite them as they come in. As always, when folks are checking in, we're listening for what are the topics folks wanna talk about, and what's brought them to the conversation that evening. And then at 6.30, we'll open the forum. So we'll invite the mayor to share some welcoming remarks, do kind of some short facilitator introduction to the table, and then invite community members to take part in small group conversations. Depending on the number of attendees we have, we may have between six to 10 people per table. And so we're gonna be starting with the kind of core six tables of the city council. Have the mayor, of course, circulating around the room, as she often does, joining folks for a little bit of time, which is great. But we have the ability to accommodate up to 10 tables total. So if we have a really large number of RSVPs come in over the next few days, it's not gonna be hard for us to accommodate that. And then forum will end at eight o'clock. As always, we're really trying to make sure we are good stewards of any public space we're in. So we're gonna try to make sure we're completely closed out of there by 8.30, which is what we agreed to.

4:51 And then across our conversations, we have four kind of core agreements that we ask folks to be mindful of. The first is when you're communicating with each other to allow others to speak, to listen without interruption. We phrase that as communicate respectfully, but we wanna explain to community members what we mean when we say that, 'cause we know folks have a different attitude or a different orientation toward respect. We also ask that folks are aware of the time. If there's someone who speaks a lot, create some space for others to be able to share, and be mindful of the limit, kind of they're speaking to one to two minutes so that everyone has a chance to contribute. We ask that folks also stay on topic. We know community forums are a chance to talk about a really wide range of things. And as we've been prepping our facilitators, we wanna welcome folks to take the conversation in a direction that makes sense for their table. At the same time, our facilitators are gonna try to bring people back to the topic at hand as much as we can. That's just to ensure that everyone has a chance to contribute. And then lastly, we welcome folks who wanna just be in a space of listening, but we also want them to always feel that they can be an active participant. So the way we describe that at the table

5:51 is let folks know they can listen, they can ask questions, they can share their feedback in a format that works for them. That could be through writing, it could be verbally. It could be with one of us after the meeting ends. But making sure that everyone has the opportunity to contribute. And then lastly, we have our draft discussion questions here. I think you all in your packets received a copy of the meeting design itself. But for those who might be listening in, we'll be starting the conversation by kind of rooting it in a sense of time. So when we think about climate issues, we think about environment, we want folks to be thinking about the past, the present and the future. So our first question to them is, what do you love about Vancouver that you want to pass on to future generations? From there, we'll go into kind of three core questions, each which has a range of potential followups or kind of separate conversations. The first relates to concerns that community members have. We're really curious, of course, about their ideas, about the things they're passionate about, but we wanna create some space for also folks expressing anxieties or worries. We also want to invite them to think toward the future. So the way our questions phrase right now is thinking 15 years into the future,

6:50 what would it look like if we're successful in addressing Vancouver's climate needs? And then lastly, we wanna talk a little bit about the work that's going on right now, community-wide, and that the city's leading. So we've asked folks to think about the actions that they would wanna prioritize or to see our community focus on in the future. And with that, happy to take any questions, any discussion? - Okay, thank you. Councilor Fox? - Yes, thank you for putting all these materials together. One of the things that I was considering is kind of, some folks don't understand perhaps the differences between environment and climate. So I'm wondering how we kind of level set that conversation because even in your opening remarks, you kind of switched the two up. And so I'm just, you know, to get the feedback that we want perhaps on, is it on climate change or is it on the environment?

7:45 - Well, I think, I know when we were talking about creating the forum around your three priorities, we know climate action is one of the priorities. And so that was where we got, where we started. And then I know working with the climate action team, I think the environment kind of work, I think they work in tandem with one another, but I think it's a good idea for us to kind of make sure we're denoting exactly what we mean so that people can come in with some good discussion. - And it might be nice if staff could put together some posters or something to really focus on some of the actions from our plan. So if folks maybe don't know or are not familiar, they could still engage by kind of roaming around and taking a look at the information and seeing if something resonates with them. And then my final kind of comment or suggestion is, I was thinking it would be nice if we could ask folks a question about how comfortable they are

8:44 with making their own changes to improve climate change or climate change outcomes along the lines of, have they been considering any like purchasing an EV or solar panels or changing the energy systems in their house, something along those lines. And if that one's too big of a question, could even break it up and ask them kind of what are the things that they are doing now to help the environment and climate and what things would they consider doing in the future for them. - Okay, wonderful, thank you. - Councilor Perez. - Thank you, I wanted to add a question to the list that Councilor Sarah Fox was sharing, but I also wanted to kind of step out a little bit and talk about the larger effort. So I'll start with the question that I wanted to add.

9:44 Another question is more about how people are feeling right now with the climate change. So more, instead of what are you doing now, how are you feeling? So just to ensure that we're able to get those who are feelers. And okay, so I'm gonna go back to the bigger question I was gonna ask about the larger effort. So last time we met, I had asked for whatever happened to the last community forum, the report out, and what I would like to see is like a couple of things. One is this is what we learned from the last forum that we're adopting and using in this forum. That way we're, as a learning organization, taking the opportunities. And then secondly, how are we letting the public know who did attend or who wanna know what was said or shared, let them know what we heard. And it could be a simple, something on the website that says this is what we heard from you.

10:44 And then just not a long list, but just quick little info graph of some of the key things that way people can resonate with the issues that the rest of the public are bringing on board. And most importantly, that folks know that we are listening and that we heard. And I think that's the most important thing is to let the public know that we're out there to listen and this is what we heard. Now, what we do with what we heard is a different thing and for us to work on separately, but it's important to let the public know that we did hear them. - I think that's a really wonderful idea. I know we did the recap and we have it. I know William and I will be reviewing it after the second forum just to make sure that if there's any action items that we need to take as a team or things we need to do differently. And I do believe that based on the feedback that was shared from the last forum, we are taking that into the next forum

11:43 just around whether it's specifics around setup or engagement around food or things like that. So we're hearing what people are saying and taking that into consideration. - Yes, I appreciate that. But there's this other part of the substance of what's shared, the actual tangibles that people are bringing. And is there anything that needs to reach us or something for us to also hear what was shared at the other table separate from reading a document? - Okay, I think William can answer that. - Yeah, well, I think there are a few things and some of them are probably not gonna be a surprise to those of you 'cause you're constantly engaging with community, but at the last forum, there were a lot of comments about communication and kind of feeling that constant challenge of the larger media landscape, it can be hard to follow along with what's happening at the city. So we had some conversations afterwards about sort of how we do our co-promotion,

12:41 how we share information across city channels. I think we also know that our communications team does a really stellar job. And so we heard that as well. So as always, we're hearing kind of a mix of feedback where some folks are saying, hey, this is meeting my needs. And others are saying, no, you know, I'm having a hard time following along or I wish I would have known earlier. And so that's something for us to not only reflect on, but then to build into some of our planning. So for example, on the topic of climate and the work that the climate action team is doing in preparation for the climate action framework update, we've put a lot of effort into thinking about how we make sure that coming out of this conversation on Monday, folks are invited to follow along to participate in the process. 'Cause that idea of being part of a conversation that seemingly ends and just doesn't go anywhere is another piece of feedback that folks shared. And it's, I will say it's often because of the systems that we work within. So we might, for example, point to saying, oh, well, we talked about that at a city council workshop two weeks ago, but the number of folks who follow along closely with council workshops, it's not reflective of the number of people

13:40 who care about the topic. So as we move forward, that's one of the biggest things we're gonna be doing is trying to keep people engaged. And then another thing around that was trying to make sure folks are invited to follow along and participate in more active ways. So I really appreciated, Councillor Fox, your comments about kind of actions people might take or things people are already doing, 'cause that's gonna be part of our conversation. And one other thing I forgot to mention is that we're gonna have members, of course, with the climate team with us. So Rebecca and Lexi, as well as Zeke, are gonna be joining us. So they'll be available to help answer questions. They're also gonna be leading some activities that happen kind of before, as folks arrive, to engage them a little bit further in sharing some ideas they have. So really want them to be concluded as part of the process. - All right, thank you. Councillor... Councillor Staubert? - No, I'm good. - Oh, no, all right. I'm going to assume that all the Councillors are available for this next week. Okay, nodding hot heads.

14:39 So we'll need all of those tables because it'll be in the beautiful arts hub. You're setting up 3.30 to four, five o'clock staff arrives to set up dinner. So Councillors might want to show up at five-ish and then six o'clock, the community comes in and we get to start the actual program at 6.30, finishing at eight o'clock and then clean up and get out by 8.30. Okay, we can do that. Thank you so very much. - All righty, thank you all. See you next week. - You betcha. - Thank you. - All right, Councillors. It's 5.15, we're going to go and grab dinner and have an executive session concerning the performance of a public employee, our CW42.30.1101G from let's say 5.20 to 6.30.

15:35 Then we'll be back for our regular council meeting at 6.30. Thank you.