Car Free Days – Meiszner Amendment (A–C)

Thank you, Councillor Meister. Yeah, thanks. I was also dismayed to hear about the difficulties that the Car Free Society is facing. This is an iconic Vancouver summer festival. It's something I've been to many times, and it's one of the things that makes summers in Vancouver great, in my opinion, and I know many others. I don't have any issues with the emergency motion, and I want to thank Councillor Maloney and Councillor Orr for bringing it forward. I absolutely am supportive of Car Free Society receiving a one-time grant of $30,000, which I understand is a shortfall, so they can... support the delivery of the car-free days this summer. But I did have some concerns about the amendment language or the motion language, and that may be because it was lifted from the fireworks language. I'm not sure. So I have submitted a strike and replace that gives me a bit more comfort around the language. So if we could go to the queue for that.

Thank you, Councillor Domenaro. Explain. Yeah, sure. So in the original language, it talks about a $30,000 one-time contribution. But it says including – sorry, I'm just trying to find the language here. Apologies. It says including real and value in-kind costs related to car-free days. And my concern around that is that we want this to be in addition to those costs that are already picked up by the city. So in terms of those costs, last year through our FestShare program, Car Free Day received $93,000 for two events. In 2024, they received $104,000 for two events. Those were costs that were covered by the city in support of the festival. So my intention with this language is just to ensure that the $30,000 additional that they receive is in addition to those in-kind costs being covered by the city and not including them. And then the other important part of this is just to ensure that the city receives an event delivery plan prior to distributing the funds. So I have every confidence that Car Free Days Society is going to be able to produce that. And that's the intention of this strike and replace.

Thank you very much, Councillor Claussen. Yeah, thanks very much. Thanks, Councillor Meiszner. Completely supportive of trying to make sure that the car-free event street festival remains. I'm not sure. I know that it hasn't operated for at least the last two years in the West End. To my knowledge, Main Street and Commercial Drive are still going, so... If $30,000 can keep this event going and it comes with some of the detailed planning that is specified in Councillor Meiszner's strike and replace, I'm happy to support that. I just wanted to, and Customizer did identify some of the funding that came through FestShare. Through you, Mayor, I just wonder if I may just ask staff that are present. We've had some explanation as to the existing funding that has gone to support. I think what I was worried about is that it might be mischaracterized that This was a cutback or some kind. I think we have been pretty consistent, the city, in terms of being able to grant and support these events through FedShare and other means. Is that correct? Including policing costs.

Okay. Okay, that's appreciated. Again, I know that the city has tried hard to support these great community gatherings, and I'm hopeful that with this allocation that it will get us over the line and make sure that we can bring this back in September. I'm very much looking forward to being back out in those communities and enjoying the street festivals. Thanks very much.

Thank you, Councillor Maloney.

Thank you. I think that the absolute most important thing here is that we get funding approved quickly and I appreciate Councillor Meiszner coming up with a form of words that is likely to be acceptable to... two-thirds of the majority on council. I'm just concerned that I'd just like to send a message to the evaluator of the detailed plan to please be as helpful and supportive as possible because I know that Car Free Days is not an organisation with a lot of resources and I'm sure they'll do their best to come up with a very best possible detailed plan in a very short timeframe. But I would hate for that to be an overwhelming burden. So I had something else to say. No, I can't remember what that is. So I will just support this amendment on the basis that it will hopefully happen in time for car-free days to go ahead on Main Street and Commercial Drive. Thank you.

Thank you. Councillor Meiszner. Yeah, thanks. And thanks, Councillor Maloney for those comments. So as we just heard from the deputy city manager, we did require some additional language. So I did send that in. We have to go to another queue or I'm not sure how this works. Nope. Okay. So that just adds D and E. That's around the delegated authority, the need for the delegated authority that was just identified by the deputy city manager.

All right. Yeah. Is this a strike in our place? Do we have to go to amendment to amendment Q? I think we're all happy with it, adding it.

I just want to do things correctly procedurally, so I'm not sure what the right approach is.

Eric, what's your recommendation here? All right, we're going to go to amendment Q2. Okay, thank you. Great. Thank you, Councillor. Any discussion? Great. So the amendment to the amendment is adding clauses D and E to Councillor Meiszner's amendment. Okay. Can we please go to the voting panel and register your vote? Amendment to amendment.

Mayor, I'll take a vote assist in favor, please.

Yep. This is Councillor Dominato. Thank you. Great. And that passes unanimously.

So I'm going to go back to the amendment queue. Councillor Meiszner, any other comments? Just to say thanks, everyone, for the support. And I just want to be clear that I very much want to see this festival happen this year. And that's the intention of the support. And again, thanks, Councillors Maloney and Orr, for bringing this as an urgent motion because it is urgent.

Looking forward to the summer. All right. Thank you very much. Okay. Seeing no one else in the queue, we will vote on Councillor Meiszner's amendment as amended.

Thank you. And that passes unanimously as well. So because it was a strike and replaced, there's nothing else to vote on. Is that correct?

Okay. Well, why don't we just do that? So we are going to now vote on the motion as amended.