Each month community, business and neighborhood leaders are meeting to plan Vancouver’s future.
The group, made up of five committees, operates under the name Vancouver Strong. Although the initiative name is new, the concept is well-established.
Starting in 2012, Vancouver community members gathered to evaluate an existing city service and recommend how to fund it. The first group tackled the fire department, followed by the street system in 2013 and the police department in 2016.
The police community resource team not only recommended a comprehensive departmental package, but offered further suggestions for best practices: establish a committee to take a comprehensive, systemic look at city services. This committee would be tasked with developing a comprehensive resource approach to provide sustainable and stable funding for all city services, rather than the historic piecemeal approach.
Vancouver Strong’s task is three-fold, said City Manager Eric Holmes. Develop sustainable funding sources, streamline the existing system and consider how the city can take the next step.
“We recognize we’re in the ‘forever business’ here at the city,” Holmes said. “We’ve been here for more than 150 years, we’ll be here for more than 150 more. Obviously you can’t come up with a solution for the next 150 years, but what’s a reasonable timeline?”
The year 2030 is Vancouver Strong’s target, setting the city up for the next 10 years. If all goes well, a comprehensive plan would come before the city council in late 2018 with implementation in 2019. A noticeable change would occur in 2020.
But the group of 59 members spread between four committees and an executive council is just getting started. Meetings began in May, and Holmes said presentations on streets, fire protection and remaining miscellaneous services are still to come before any real work is done.
“I’m sure things in their minds are just starting to click,” Holmes said. After all, these community members are tasked with not only understanding how the city functions, but finding ways to innovate and make Vancouver more sustainable.
Revenue challenge
Perhaps the biggest challenge is developing new revenue streams.
“There’s a structural flaw in the way public services are funded,” Holmes said.
Property tax collections can increase by no more than 1 percent annually, or about $450,000 to Vancouver’s $165 million general fund.
“Our basic revenue structure does not keep pace with inflation,” he said. “We’ve done some pretty amazing things I think to realize efficiencies … but over time you can only squeeze so much out.”
The need for innovation led to the new business license surcharge per square foot and a business license surcharge for multifamily units. Those fees were adopted but won’t go into effect until January 2019.
If Vancouver Strong can come up with another way to raise the same amount of revenue, those fees won’t be implemented.
“I think the hardest part is that there is no wrong answer,” Holmes said.
The hope is that a fresh perspective will lead to new ideas the city hasn’t yet considered.
“When you work in (public service) you are living and breathing the vernacular and the systems,” he said. “In some cases that can make you a little blind to the opportunities to make it different. The benefit of having people who are completely outside the system, with the exception of the mayor, is that they can say, ‘Well why do you do it that way or why can’t we do it this?'”
Holmes added Vancouver Strong has allowed for what he calls “aspirational thinking.”
“What do we want to become, what could we become, if we make some key investments now that build momentum?” he said.
Over the next several months, that’s exactly what Vancouver Strong will attempt to do.
