Video: Big Cities, Small Mayors @Richard_Florida @maytree_canada

Video: Big Cities, Small Mayors @Richard_Florida @maytree_canada @CBCTheNational http://t.co/ahTaIdZfYl

— TheSidewalkBallet (@1sidewalkballet) October 28, 2014

Should Mayors Run the World?

Video: I defend the idea that mayors aren't the best national leaders http://t.co/Noz76UlGO0 (re this debate http://t.co/7H2R2efMNC)

— Doug Saunders (@DougSaunders) March 14, 2014

How To: Collaborate with Government - @codeforamerica HT @PPS_Placemaking https://t.co/FWo8JI3NJL
— TheSidewalkBallet (@1sidewalkballet) September 30, 2013

Vote to support extending to 4 year election term for 2014 passes by 60.2 % margin at #UBCM.
— Jeff Nagel (@jeffnagel) September 19, 2013

A TED Talk Inspires Government Change in North Vancouver

In his TED Talk, Dave Meslin wondered: What would happen if Nike advertised sneakers in the same way local governments announced important information — with long, bland, black-and-white newspaper ads filled with jargon?

“Apathy as we think we know it doesn’t actually exist,” said Meslin, a local organizer in Toronto. “People do care, but we live in a world that actively discourages engagement by constantly putting obstacles and barriers in the way.”

Across Canada, Natasha Letchford — a Deputy Municipal Clerk in North Vancouver — stumbled on Meslin’s talk on Facebook. She found herself highly inspired, in part because she wanted to prove it wrong.

“One of reasons I went into local government was because I truly believe that I make a difference. So when Dave Meslin said that government is in some ways trying to deny people an opportunity to involved, I disagreed with him on that,” she says. “I took it as a bit of a challenge.”

“We in local government get so focused on making sure that the water’s turned on and making sure that the garbage gets taken away that when it comes to something like statutory notices … it becomes ‘that’s just the way we’ve always done it.’”

As she puts it, “We’re not going out of our way to deny people the opportunity to understand what’s going on. We just weren’t making the time to re-think our standard statutory notices.”

Just before Letchford watched this talk, the senior executive team in North Vancouver’s city hall had asked employees to think about year-long projects. So Letchford decided to update North Vancouver’s notices and signage. Read more at: A TED Talk inspires government change in North Vancouver | TED Blog

From Urban Design ReviewKen Greenberg — City Government For the New Urban World

The 21st century city stands poised to play a critical role as a great problem solver and generator of prosperity. We are discovering that only dense cities can reduce our heavy environmental footprint and address the devastating progress of climate change. We are figuring out how to get more out of less, drawing on their inherent capacity to solve multiple problems laterally, not one at a time. And we are embracing Jane Jacobs’ profound insight that cities are not mechanical constructs, but ‘organized complexity’ better understood by analogy with the science of living organisms. But here’s the rub: while this new way of seeing the city is widely shared, we often find that we have inherited systems on auto-pilot that were designed to produce a very different kind of urban world. Read more at: Urban Design Review - UPDATE // CITY GOVERNMENT FOR THE NEW URBAN WORLD

The Centre for Social Innovation And its Jane Jacobs DNA

From socialinnovation.ca: The Centre for Social Innovation is a social enterprise with a mission to catalyze social innovation in Toronto and around the world. We believe that society is facing unprecedented economic, environmental, social and cultural challenges. We also believe that new innovations are the key to turning these challenges into opportunities to improve our communities and our planet.

CSI is a coworking space, community centre and incubator for people who are changing the world. We provide our members with the spaces, relationships and knowledge they need to turn their ideas into impact.

An exciting concept, "building a culture of collaboration". I wasn't aware of CSI until Nanaimo City Councillor Bill McKay this week suggested it to a representative from the performing arts community who was addressing Council in regards to a City-owned performance hall which has received a bleak report on the state of its health. But my interest in the work of Jane Jacobs had led me to a couple of the principals, Margie Ziedler and Mary Rowe.
 
When the Jacobs' first moved from New York to Toronto Jane's husband Robert worked for Maggie Ziedler's father's architectural firm and the families were very close through the Toronto years and Maggie's neighbourhood based enterprises (restoring small heritage hotel properties) are strongly influenced by Jane Jacobs. 

Mary Rowe is an urban scholar and Jacobs expert listed on the CSI website as being associated with Ideas that Matter a "Canadian organization… particularly interested in issues related to cities, urban economies and the values of diversity, community and the public good. Founded in 1997, the work of Ideas that Matter is inspired by the wide-ranging ideas and principles of Jane Jacobs".

Which brings me to Alan Broadbent. He's the founder of Ideas that Matter. I heard him at a Sam Sullivan sponsored forum in Vancouver and Sam introduced him as "making money in the morning and spending it in the afternoon on his causes," and said that after each time he'd had a discussion with Broadbent, his life was changed in one way or another.  His main focus presently seems to be his Maytree Foundation and Cities of Migration which works to help immigrants integrate into Canadian society. He's also written a book on municipal governance reform Urban Nation. http://maytree.com/blog/tag/urban-nation/.

Home | Centre for Social Innovation

BC Ombudsperson's Report on Municipal Government Transparency

From BC Ombudsperson Kim Carter's introduction to Open Meetings: Best Practices Guide for Local Governments: 

Municipal law was changed to require that municipal governments hold meetings that are open to the public, in order to imbue municipal governments with a robust democratic legitimacy. The democratic legitimacy of municipal decisions does not spring solely from periodic elections, but also from a decision-making process that is transparent, accessible to the public, and mandated by law. — The Supreme Court of Canada in London (City) v. RSJ Holdings Inc.

One of the cornerstones of open and transparent government in British Columbia is the requirement for local governments to conduct meetings that are open and accessible to the public. Providing citizens with the opportunity to observe and engage their elected representatives fosters trust and confidence in decision-making processes and allows for meaningful participation and contribution from informed citizens. Open meetings act as venues for education and enable both elected officials and members of the public to make more fully informed decisions. In the course of investigating and evaluating complaints concerning the implementation of open meeting provisions in the Community Charter and receiving information from local governments, we became aware of some common challenges as well as effective ways of addressing them.

This guide grew out of an interest in sharing some of that information in order to help local governments comply with statutory requirements, to improve consistency in practice as well as to showcase the best practices for local governments to follow when fulfilling their open meeting requirements. At the heart of these best practices are the same values that the Office of the Ombudsperson strives to uphold: openness, transparency, and accountability. We promote and uphold these values because they are essential to ensuring that citizens are treated fairly and reasonably by public authorities.

PDF of the full report here.