u/AEMNW

Had a fun Sunday afternoon planned after riding to watch the stage and of course to get to the full race replay in app, they show the spoilers before in thumbnails. Unbelievable.

People have been asking the NWP for their platform and today they released their campaign platform.

The well written and crafted press release lists their platform as such:

Safer, Cleaner, and More Welcome Neighbourhoods platform:

Place at least 12 new Community Enforcement and Safety Officers (CESO) on foot and bicycle patrols in the Downtown, Uptown, Sapperton and Queensborough. They will be a presence in these neighbourhoods at times including evenings and weekends to enhance public safety, increase by-law infraction enforcement and support local businesses. A revitalized Community Policing Office in Queensborough will be assigned a permanent full-time CESO.

Triple the City’s investment in the successful I’s On the Street program, an initiative by the New Westminster Homeless Coalition Society that provides paid street-cleaning employment for people who are unhoused or at risk of homelessness. Focused on the Downtown and Uptown neighbourhoods, this investment will further help vulnerable individuals gain job skills and community connections – while helping to ensure our streets are clean.

Work with the New Westminster Police Department and Fraser Health Authority to explore the opportunity to introduce a Car 87-type program to better meet the needs of individuals who are living with a mental illness. Vancouver’s Car 87 program is a collaboration between the Vancouver Police Department and Vancouver Coastal Health that pairs police officers and nurses to respond to individuals experiencing mental health crisis.

Launch the VIP (Vibrancy Invites People) initiative to bring more buskers, public art, performances and other cultural activities to key commercial streets and public spaces, creating more activity on the street and helping make our neighbourhoods safer and more vibrant.

As part of the VIP initiative, pilot new lower cost micro-retail opportunities using decoratively wrapped shipping containers along key locations on Columbia Street. This will add more ‘eyes on the street’ and offer local retailers a cost-effective portal on to ‘The Golden Mile’.

Enhance regular street cleaning and add 100 new waste and recycling bins in busy pedestrian areas.

Insist that TransLink and key stakeholders keep the New Westminster & Columbia SkyTrain stations clean and secure, making them a welcoming gateway to those entering our city via rapid transit.

Establish a new TAG Team to dramatically reduce graffiti by requiring the removal of hate-based and offensive graffiti on public property within 4 hours and all other graffiti within 72 hours.

Increase lighting to improve safety and visibility in key public spaces within high density neighbourhoods.

Establish a new Crime Reduction and Public Safety Task Force to coordinate action and deliver results.

The Mayor will seek appointment as Chair of the New Westminster Police Board.

MEDIA CONTACT

Shawn Hall,

shawn@apogeepr.ca

604-619-7913

——

Hiring Apogee PR has clearly been a good move since the materials that Apogee has produced with the NWP is of a significantly higher quality and more professional than the typical NWP output.

At first glance, the points in the platform seem fine enough and rational. Plenty of the actions and things that the NWP have said over the years have been disappointing to say the least, so this appears to be a step in a more professional direction, so good on em.

Does their platform hold up to scrutiny? Unlikely and I’m sure others can chime in with their input, I don’t have the time right now to dig into it. But I know for instance that 100 new garbage bins won’t reduce the amount of litter around - research has shown that the more garbage bins attract more adjacent littering, as well as pests and rodents. I can see why one would think that more garbage cans would lead to less litter but apparently that’s not the case. People litter because some people just suck.

As for the Car 87 idea, since 2013, New West police have a mental health unit and is involved in the Crisis Response Community Led (CRCL) program - put this all together and isn’t that similar to Car 87? Perhaps even better? Is having a psych nurse ride along that much better?

Where on Columbia would these shipping container micro businesses go? Interesting concept, curious what sort of shipping container business they envision. We have some good coffee shops downtown as is. We had a bike rental spot out of a container at the river market for a bit. But that went away. Interesting idea but doesn’t seem fully thought out, but it’s an idea.

For the graffiti removal point, isn’t that already an enforced bylaw?

As for increasing public art, cool. Love art, the city has dramatically increased the amount of public art the past lil while, love the murals along Stewardson.

What are everyone’s thoughts on the platform?

I’m with Telus and typically get great 5G+ speeds on my phone, but I was downtown last night outside around Stadium station and around Tinseltown trying book an Uber at 1am and could not get 5G to cooperate enough to book an uber. Had to jump on a bus to Main St and eventually managed to get service to book an Uber.

Haven’t experienced this, it felt like a massive dead zone around Beatty/W Pender. Was weird too because my phone had a bunch of bars of service but nothing was working on my phone - wasn’t just the Uber app. I rebooted my phone and the issues persisted.

Any chance this could be FIFA related? There was a lot more FIFA infrastructure (stuff fenced off, closures ect) in that area - they got some sort of data sucking gizmos going on?

I liked getting those in the past, is there a way to get them again with the Air?

On May 19th, the New West Progressives released what they're calling both their "New West Works" plan and their 2026 election platform. Two of the eight bullets are about eliminating patio license fees and increasing the number of patio seats by 25% (I'm assuming this is for bars/restaurants, though the post on facebook isn't clear and last I checked home patios have no such rules...). Councillor Minhas owns a bar with a patio (Begbie's) and the NWP 2026 campaign co-chair Jennifer Mackie owns Kelly O'Bryans downtown which has a prominent patio. For issues concerning restaurant patios to comprise of 25% of your election campaign platform, would it be a conflict of interest or in bad taste to have prominent members of your party benefit financially from such campaign promises? Seems fishy to me. The argument could be made that more residents could then enjoy patios, but I suspect that few local residents care much about patio fees, let alone capacity. The only notable and worthwhile patio I can recall was at the Paddlewheeler pub and that's now gone.