Priorities
The Priorities That will Guide My Work
Protecting quality of life, planning with the community, governing transparently, and spending responsibly.
Protect and Enhance Quality of Life
Every important decision should protect or improve residents' quality of life.
Quality of life is not an abstract idea. It is reflected in everyday experiences: being able to walk safely to a nearby park, enjoy a scenic view and rely on accessible community facilities. It can also be diminished by experiences such as living beside a construction project that creates years of noise, traffic, and disruption, or being repeatedly disturbed by excessively loud vehicles and street racing late at night.
I want Council to pay greater attention to these real-world effects and their impact on our daily lives. That means identifying what matters most to residents, establishing clear priorities, and measuring whether District decisions are actually improving daily life.
That could include tracking what residents experience directly, such as traffic and travel times, access to parks and community facilities, tree canopy, construction impacts, noise, pedestrian safety and satisfaction with municipal services.
Protecting quality of life does not mean resisting change. It means managing growth and change in ways that strengthen our community while preserving the qualities that make it a great place to live.
Those qualities also include facilities, services and organizations that bring people together – from recreation and seniors’ facilities to the local clubs and community organizations that have served West Vancouver for generations. We should maintain what works, improve what needs improving, and approach major facility decisions with a clear understanding of their trade-offs and long-term impact on the community.
Community-First Planning
Growth should improve neighbourhoods, respect community character, and be matched by the infrastructure and services required to support it.
Development must be guided by comprehensive community planning, not decided one proposal at a time. Appropriate locations and forms of housing, essential services and community amenities should be identified through transparent planning with meaningful public input.
Once adopted, a community-supported plan should provide a clear and predictable framework for residents, developers, Council and staff. Developers should know what type and size of growth is appropriate before investing in proposals that do not fit the plan. Exceptions should be rare, clearly justified, and evaluated against the overall plan rather than negotiated on a project-by-project basis.
Planning must also consider the cumulative impacts of growth. This means understanding how the combined impacts of multiple developments will affect:
- traffic,
- infrastructure capacity,
- access to services and community amenities,
- environmental sustainability,
- neighbourhood livability.
Transparent Government
Residents deserve transparent government and a real voice in community decisions.
That requires:
- timely access to the information Council is considering,
- meaningful opportunities to participate before decisions are made; and
- a clear explanation of how and why those decisions were reached.
Too often, important reports are released with little notice, issues are added to Council agendas or substantially changed at the last minute, and residents are left wondering whether their input influenced the outcome. Public engagement should help shape decisions—not simply seek support for a preferred result.
I will work to:
- Provide reasonable notice. Major reports and proposals should be released early enough for Council and the public to review them properly. Late additions should be reserved for genuinely urgent matters.
- Make public input visible. Reports should show who gave feedback, how it informed decisions, and what changed as a result.
- Make engagement early, fair and impartial. Residents should understand the decision, the available options, and their respective benefits and drawbacks. Proponent-led meetings should supplement, not replace, impartial District-led engagement.
- Create shared forums for major decisions. Town halls and similar forums should allow residents and Council to hear the same information, questions and answers.
- Make District information easier to find and understand. Reports should include plain-language summaries, and related agendas, reports, minutes and correspondence should be easy to locate.
Financial Responsibility
West Vancouver residents face high municipal tax and utility bills. In return, they should expect reliable services and measurable value for every tax dollar.
Financial responsibility starts with the fundamentals:
- delivering core services reliably,
- maintaining the infrastructure and facilities we already own before adding new capacity,
- finding more efficient ways to provide services, and
- exercising discipline before taking on new spending and long-term obligations.
The true cost of a municipal project is not simply what it costs to build. Before approving a major investment, Council must understand what it will cost to operate, maintain and eventually replace over its full life cycle.
New investments should:
- address a clearly identified need,
- provide demonstrable and lasting value, and
- be affordable for decades to come.
I will push for:
- earlier financial review of major proposals by the Finance and Revenue Advisory Committee,
- appropriate independent review of significant cost estimates, and
- Council reports that clearly disclose the full cost, assumptions, risks, funding sources and long-term obligations.
Get involved
Elect Melinda Slater for West Vancouver Council.
Every conversation, sign and contribution helps bring better questions to the Council table.