Fight brewing over catering at Park Board meetings

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VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Vancouver Park Board meetings will no longer be catered affairs if one NPA commissioner gets her way.

Melissa De Genova says there are better uses of taxpayer dollars than to cater individual Park Board meetings. If her motion goes ahead, she claims it could save as much as $2,000 a year — money that is badly needed elsewhere.

“I mean if you look around Vancouver right now, our park maintenance is lacking because we don’t have the money to maintain that, with our staff hours being cut at our community centers, some community centers are going to have to close for entire weeks during the summer,” believes De Genova.

But Park Board Vice Chair Aaron Jasper says without the catering, staff would have to be given time off to get something to eat.

“If we’re going to spend upward of $300 per briefing so staff can have a bite to eat, we’re going to be spending twice as much on catering than we do now. So where’s the savings?” he asks.

Jasper says at best, the rookie commissioner should have taken more time to think her motion through and says at worst, it’s an example of political grandstanding.

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