Mark Allison is enjoying his second stint as a staffer at New Westminster City Hall, but his education, career and interests have taken him far beyond the borders of the Royal City. City hall reporter Theresa McManus got him to share some of his professional and personal thoughts with Record readers.
Can you introduce yourself?
I’ve been the manager of strategic initiatives and sustainability for the last couple of years and was a planner and senior planner with the city before that. I’m lucky to live and work in New Westminster and can even go home for lunch sometimes!
What are the major projects you’re currently working on for the city?
In my role as manager of strategic initiatives, I work with council and colleagues from all departments to help move all city priority projects forward. Several major initiatives that I’m more directly involved with include coordinating the waterfront team that is implementing the city’s waterfront vision, working with Fraser Health Authority and city staff on the RCH redevelopment project and the development of an Economic Health Care Cluster, responding to environmental issues such as the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion and Fraser Surrey Docks coal export facility proposals and advancing the city’s goods movement strategy to promote community livability.
What does sustainability mean to you?
I’m a strong believer that the Brundtland Report (“Our Common Future,” the report of the UN’s 1987 World Commission on Environment and Development) had it mostly right, saying that sustainability is about meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Most of us in the sustainability field have since broadened the scope of sustainability beyond economic and environmental needs and feel that, to be truly sustainable, we have to address society’s social and cultural needs as well. We’re obviously on a collision path at the moment, with resources being severely depleted, our environment being severely degraded and a large number of people still not having their basic needs met, so it’s important that we all learn to make sustainability a part of everyday thinking and, of course, our municipal practices.
What do you see as the biggest challenges facing New Westminster? The biggest assets?
Our biggest challenges are also our biggest assets! We’re very central in Metro Vancouver and while being at the centre of regional transportation networks create issues with traffic and congestion, this also puts us in the ideal location to live or operate a business. Implementing the waterfront vision is another challenge due to the constraints resulting from our historical role as a centre of industry and transportation, but we’re learning how to celebrate our past and integrate industry with other uses and will one day have an extensive waterfront park and greenway network that will be a showcase for the Lower Mainland. Social issues are also a challenge, as the city has historically provided services to those in need as opposed to turning them away and this has contributed to our strong sense of community by being a community that cares.
You previously worked as a physicist and systems engineer – is it true you are a rocket scientist who worked for NASA? What did you do?
My physics studies were focused on alternative energy, but unfortunately the federal government had cut all funding to my specialty of solar energy the year that I graduated and put all of their eggs into the fossil fuel and nuclear baskets. After getting a master’s degree in experimental physics, I did work as a research scientist for Hydro Quebec and as a guest scientist at a research centre in Germany in the mid-1980s for a couple years, working on fusion energy during a very long stopover on a world cycling tour. My subsequent systems engineering work was mostly in power plant and air traffic control systems and I’m happy to report that there have been no catastrophes ever linked to this work! I’m not sure where the NASA rocket scientist legend originated, but it is true that I worked on a space shuttle experiment once and made the first cut for the first Canadian astronaut program in the early ‘80s, but was unceremoniously dumped from the program in round two when I flunked the vision test miserably.
I’ve been told you were a pacifist in Germany. Can you elaborate?
My conversion to pacifism came a bit earlier than that. I’d considered a military career back in the 1970s, when Canada was an established peacekeeping nation and I’d joined the militia to get a feel for life in the armed forces while going to university, later being commissioned as a reserve infantry officer. One day years later, after a number of serious training incidents, it occurred to me that I wasn’t saving the world, I was just teaching our teenagers how to be soldiers and fight just like the other side was doing, so I resigned my commission and committed myself to promoting non-violence. I’m hoping that the new federal government will help us find our way back to our peacekeeper traditions.
This is your second stint with the City of New Westminster. What brought you back to the New West?
After working over seven fulfilling years in New Westminster as the transportation planner, I was offered a great opportunity to work as a senior policy planner for the City of Surrey, which is a dynamic organization in a fast growing community. In only three-and-a-half years there I had the chance to lead their Sustainability Charter project, City Centre plan update, official community plan update and a district energy project. After that, I was asked to lead advisory services for the new Whistler Centre for Sustainability and decided to move up there as, while I’ve worked on a number of volunteer boards, I’d always wanted to try working for a not-for-profit. The experience was also great, we did a lot of award-winning projects, but life in Whistler turned out to be dangerous – in only two years I had a major bike crash and ski crash! I’d always kept my home in New Westminster and so, when a senior planner position became available with the city, I decided to come back and be part of the excitement that was happening in New Westminster with the Downtown revitalization, Anvil Centre, waterfront initiatives, transit-oriented development and environmental and sustainability initiatives.
I’m told you’ve been known to take matters into your own hands – can you tell us about the time you painted lines on roads?
I’m guessing that legend was from my time in Ottawa in the 1990s when I was involved with local cycling issues in my pre-planner days. A number of cyclists had been killed or seriously injured in Ontario in just a few months, including one on the notorious Bank Street Bridge. That bridge was subsequently completely rehabilitated, and RMOC (Ottawa’s regional district) staff had indicated that there would be some bike facilities provided, but when the new paving and line painting was complete, there were no bike lanes in sight. So… a group called Auto-Free Ottawa decided to take matters in their own hands and paint their own bike lanes. Being a goodie two-shoes, I didn’t do any painting myself, but volunteered to be one of the photographers documenting the event. I remember that AFO had issued a tongue-in-cheek press release about “painting bike lanes as a public service, since the RMOC unfortunately doesn’t have sufficient funds to do the promised work itself,” but the authorities were not amused and a number of bike advocates were arrested. Interesting to note, of course, that since that time, providing bike lanes has become common practice in road and bridge reconstruction projects in Ottawa and other major Canadian cities… just sayin’.
Working in municipal government must be stressful at times – I’m sure you hear lots of complaints about this and that. You’re part of A Complaint Free World. Can you tell us about it? Does it work?
They’re not complaints - it’s valuable community feedback! One day I noticed that a close friend was wearing a purple rubber arm band and she told me about the Complaint Free World movement, which strives to replace negativity with positive energy and thinking. The idea is that every time you say anything negative, about something or someone, you are supposed to snap the band on your wrist as a gentle reminder to stay positive. When you’ve gone 21 days without saying anything negative (you are allowed to think the odd negative thought), you have succeeded. Although I have not succeeded (yet!), it’s really helped to develop my problem-solving skills and to reduce stress levels by viewing people and life in a more positive light. As we always say when doing facilitation – always remember to attack the problem, not the person!
Describe a perfect day for you in New West?
The perfect New West day begins with having dark-roast, fair-trade organic decaf coffee from Galloways while reading the Vancouver Sun (or the Record!) and admiring the north shore mountains from my Uptown condo, meeting a friend for breakfast at the Amelia Café on 12th Street before heading off on a bike ride down the Crosstown Greenway on Seventh Avenue and over the Queensborough Bridge to River Road along the Fraser and then coming back for one of the fabulous dinners for two at Hon’s before topping the day off with a Royal City Music Theatre production at the Massey – who would want to live anywhere else?!
