There is no question that if the Yes side in this transit plebiscite expected any hope of winning, they had to shake up TransLink.
Even at the biggest Yes campaign rally packed with more than 300 supporters and glitterati — from David Suzuki to Iain Black — at the Segal School of Business last week, I’m told, most of the media questions were not about the plebiscite. They were about TransLink and its dysfunctional governance.
Efforts to change the topic to “let’s talk about what is on the ballot” proved futile.
So this week’s move, knocking off CEO Ian Jarvis and replacing him with Doug Allen as “interim CEO” was necessary. (Until this week Allen was president and CEO of the company that built and runs the Canada Line.) The mostly appointed TransLink board of directors only made the final decision in camera to knock Jarvis out of the CEO spot Tuesday. Board chair Marcella Szel was the messenger.
But the move was driven by their two newest members and the only elected politicians on the board, Mayor Gregor Roberts and Surrey mayor Linda Hepner.
(Robertson and Hepner got on that board by bumping off North Vancouver District mayor Richard Walton as chair of the thus-far toothless TransLink Mayors Council a month ago.)
Just so you understand who is really in control of TransLink, for Robertson and Hepner, convincing the TransLink board and its appointed members to push Jarvis out of the way was not a problem.
The board would have dumped him some time ago but the province blocked them.
So that is what Robertson and Hepner and various and sundry staffers spent their time working on for the past month. They needed agreement from the premier’s office and Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure Todd Stone to get it done.
The reason for the province’s initial refusal, I’m told, was because of Premier Christy Clark’s reluctance to pay a fat severance package to a fired executive.
But part of the stalling can be attributed to the general stumbling approach the province has taken during this whole affair.
Recall the premier said we would have a multi-part question.
Then we learned it would be a single Yes or No question.
We were then told the province was going to remain neutral. But then it said it would support the Yes side.
We were supposed to have a binding referendum. That was changed to a non-binding plebiscite.
And then the question presented to Victoria by the mayors was watered down. What started as a question that included very specific points about a subway for Vancouver and light rail for Surrey became more vague. A commitment within the question to protect funds raised “by independent audits and public reporting” was pushed up into the preamble.
At first it wasn’t clear if the new tax would apply to the same items as the PST or be a separate tax on your bill. That annoyed retailers. Then the province decided the tax would simply be added to the PST.
And finally, there are still no regulations coming from the province as to how the vote will be run and we are about four weeks out from receiving those mail-in ballots.
But back to the hit on TransLink’s CEO Ian Jarvis: As it stands now Jarvis has been given what is called “working notice,” meaning he will continue to collect his $39,000 monthly salary for the next 15 months and be an adviser to the board: heard but not seen.
Doug Allen, the new interim face of TransLink, will receive $35,000 a month for his six month engagement.
It is considered a small price to pay. Besides, people were screaming for change in governance, and as the old saying goes: “A fish rots from the head.”
So off with the head.
The search is now on for Jarvis’s permanent replacement. They will most certainly be from outside TransLink. The board has no confidence than anyone currently on staff can do the job.
Meanwhile pollsters at Insights West are in the field testing public sentiment to see if the Yes side continues to slip.
That leaves one unanswered question: While firing Ian Jarvis may have been necessary, will it be sufficient to guarantee the Yes side a win?
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