Vancouver’s integrity commissioner tracks mayor, park board feud

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Vancouver’s integrity commissioner has released two reports that paint a picture of the acrimonious relationship between Mayor Ken Sim’s office and some park board commissioners.

While the complaints that prompted the commissioner’s reports were dismissed, they highlight ongoing tension since Sim announced plans to abolish the elected park board and shift its duties to city council.

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The release comes days before council is set to freeze commissioner Lisa Southern’s ongoing investigations to allow for a third-party review of her office.

One of the reports stems from a complaint filed in March by Sim’s chief of staff, Trevor Ford, and senior adviser, David Grewal, against parks commissioners Scott Jensen and Brennan Bastyovanszky. The commissioners were previously part of the ABC slate but became independents after the mayor’s surprise decision in December to ask the provincial government to dissolve the park board.

Sim’s aides alleged the two parks commissioners breached the city’s code of conduct by recording two telephone calls between Jensen, Ford and Grewal without their knowledge, one call in September 2023 and another in November 2023.

“They believed they were speaking with commissioner Jensen in confidence and the recordings constituted a gross breach of trust and violation of privacy,” Southern wrote.

Southern concluded that Jensen recorded both calls without Ford and Grewal’s knowledge and that Bastyovanszky listened in on the November call.

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In dismissing the complaint, Southern said the recordings were not illegal because one party to the conversation, Jensen, knew about them.

She also found that the recordings were not made in bad faith and were not a breach of trust.

“The complainants have overstated the situation. They did not ask, nor were they told, that they were speaking in confidence or that this was a private space in which to have a conversation.”

During the November call, Ford and Grewal told Jensen he should support the mayor’s choice for the next park board chair because of an “active investigation” by the integrity commissioner into Bastyovanszky’s conduct during a PNE Stars of Drag event that would go public and “disallow” him from being chair.

Southern wrote there was a complaint received about Bastyovanszky, but no formal investigation was conducted as the allegations involved hearsay.

The second report was related to complaints by Bastyovanszky against the mayor — one in December and another in April.

Bastyovanszky, the current park board chair, complained that Sim, or those acting on his behalf, exerted political interference by trying to get him to step down when he was the park board’s vice-chair and dictating who the park board should hire as a general manager.

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Bastyovanszky also alleged the mayor’s office falsely claimed to city councillors and school trustees that he was under investigation by the integrity commissioner and that Sim sought to dissolve the park board because he was “unable to control decisions” of commissioners.

Southern dismissed the complaint.

“(Sim) had no power to influence the Complainant or other Park Board Commissioners by virtue of his position as Mayor and he was not acting in his capacity as Mayor in furthering his political agenda,” Southern wrote, adding there was no breach of the code of conduct bylaw.

Southern said there was no evidence Sim told councillors or school trustees Bastyovanszky was being investigated by the integrity commissioner. While Ford made statements about an investigation that were “not accurate,” it didn’t necessarily mean he was speaking on the mayor’s behalf.

She also dismissed the allegation Sim sought to dissolve the park board because he couldn’t control commissioners’ decisions.

Earlier this month, the ABC-majority council voted to halt the integrity commissioner’s work to conduct a third-party review of her office. The reason cited was Southern’s annual report in which she said the scope of providing oversight of the conduct of council and advisory board members was not always clear.

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A special council meeting is scheduled for Aug. 6 to consider amendments to allow the review and suspension of Southern’s investigations.

Premier David Eby has said that the province would not respond to a request to abolish the park board until after the provincial election.

With files from Douglas Quan

sgrochowski@postmedia.com

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