City of North Vancouver council members, evidently, would rather keep their heads in the sand than erase the lines in the sand.
The District of North Vancouver launched a survey last month of residents on both sides of the border hoping to get a statistically relevant idea of whether North Vancouverites still feel that two governments is better than one.
But on Monday, city council flatly rejected any co-operation in a reunification study with the district, even without knowing the results of the survey, which are due later this month.
The city was carved out of the district in 1907 using a group of land speculators’ holdings as the boundaries. The rationale of the city fathers was that it would be cheaper to service and develop than the larger district.
In rejecting a potential reunification study, city Mayor Darrell Mussatto stood by their 1907 logic of dividing the community so one municipality could
gerrymander themselves lower taxes. Putting aside the important questions of whether this is good governance or whether this is morally right, without a proper study, we don’t even know if that is true anymore. Today, the city charges a higher tax rate to its homeowners than the district does.
Unlike the members of city council who are dedicated to preserving the myth of the city, we are keeping an open mind and looking forward to seeing the results of the survey. Perhaps, if it finds that North Vancouverites together have moved on from 1907 and arrived in 2018, city council members can too.
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