In a speech mostly devoid of specific policy proposals, Mayor Tim Leavitt sought to reassure city residents that Vancouver would remain on sound financial footing despite a steep drop in revenue in his first State of the City address on Thursday.
Citing the $6 million he said had already been cut from the budget so far this year, Leavitt told a packed house at the Hilton Vancouver Washington’s Heritage Ballroom in forceful terms that more painful cuts in city services were likely. “We will maintain the financial stability of your city,” he said.
As a result, Leavitt said crime prevention programs would be eliminated, city agency building hours would be cut back and Vancouver streets would be dirtier in the coming months.
Despite the gloomy economic outlook, Leavitt attempted to strike a mostly optimistic tone in his first major public event as mayor, choosing to focus on philanthropic acts by business owners, hard work by a dwindling number of city employees and calling out former Vancouver Mayors Royce Pollard and Bruce Hagenson for their decades of public service.
And though the proposed Columbia River Crossing dominated his mayoral campaign and much of the start of his first term, Leavitt waited until about 40 minutes into his roughly 50-minute-long speech to mention the estimated $2.6 billion project. “We’ve got a responsibility to our constituents … to bring a project to fruition,” he said, referring to fellow local representatives to the CRC board such as Portland Mayor Sam Adams – who was in attendance at Thursday’s speech.
Leavitt said he would continue to ask questions about the intent of the proposed design and denounced “sensational” news reports and “uninformed editorializing” as unproductive to the CRC planning process. He also said that decisions already made by a 39-member task force, including the extension of light rail into Vancouver, “would not be reconsidered” by the CRC Project Sponsors Council.
“It seemed to me like the information he shared was information that was already known,” said Mike Westby, president of Westby and Associates, reacting to Leavitt’s comments on the CRC after the speech. “There wasn’t a lot new there.”
In regards to the sputtering local economy, Leavitt called business growth, job creation and increased commerce “priority number one.” As for proposals to reach this goal, Leavitt called on the state to continue funding local skills centers, for the city to increase incentives to companies looking to relocate in Vancouver and to take steps towards streamlining the permitting process for small businesses.
As for the Vancouver Business Advisory Council, Leavitt said he recommended to City Manager Pat McDonnell that it be expanded.
Leavitt also touted Vancouver’s application to be a trial city for Google’s experimental broadband service – an idea proposed on VBJ’s Just Business blog on Feb. 12.
The most common reaction from attendees after the mayor’s remarks formed from what many called a striking difference in style between Leavitt and his long-serving predecessor, Royce Pollard, who for the first time in 14 years was a bystander at a Vancouver State of the City speech.
“Pollard was more of a ‘shoot straight from the hip’ kind-of-guy, who likes to tell it as it is,” said Diane McWithey, executive director at Vancouver nonprofit Share. “Though to be fair, [Leavitt] hasn’t been on the job that long – he still has a long time to show us who he is.”
