Happy New Year

Over the coming year, I will continue to provide leadership and work in partnership with the Provincial and Federal governments to bring about positive changes in our City. I also intend to focus on initiatives such as Project Civil City, which aims to reduce homelessness by more than 50% by 2010; as well as EcoDensity, which will give our citizens the tools to make sustainable choices in their neighbourhoods and reduce our City's impact on the global environment.

You can read or listen to my State of the City address at www.samsullivan.ca. In addition, the news release below provides a few of the highlights and some of the key activities I announced for the coming year.

Your feedback is important to me. If you have comments on the Five Goals for a Better Vancouver, please send your comments by email to mayor@vancouver.ca or you can leave me a voicemail by calling my office at 604-873-7621.

Sincerely,

Click here to read the full text of the Mayor's State of the City address and to listen to an audio recording of the Mayor's speech.

NEWS RELEASE: Mayor Sullivan outlines Five Goals for a Better Vancouver

Mayor Sam Sullivan today delivered his first State of the City address, reviving a New Year's tradition in which Vancouver Mayors make a formal speech on the priorities of the year ahead.

Focusing on Five Goals for a Better Vancouver, Mayor Sullivan began his address by thanking citizens, the business community and senior governments for the outpouring of support for restoration efforts underway in Stanley Park.

He then urged Council to work together to provide leadership in addressing some of the most difficult challenges Vancouver faces, saying: “My focus is on achieving Five Goals for a Better Vancouver.”

They are:

1. Ensuring civility on our streets and developing compassionate and long-term solutions to our City’s most challenging social issues;
2. Becoming a world leader in environmental practices and sustainable transportation;
3. Developing the strongest local and regional economy in Canada;
4. Making Vancouver a premiere destination for the support and celebration of arts and culture;
5. Ensuring that Vancouver is the most accessible and accountable City in the country.

Noting that Vancouver is “emerging on the world stage as a City of the Future,” Mayor Sullivan outlined several initiatives he intends to undertake this year, including:

• Working with senior government representatives as Chair of the Project Civil City Leadership Council, to meet aggressive targets to reduce homelessness and to support new treatment options for people addicted to drugs;
• Improving transportation networks, by championing the completion of the Millennium Line along Broadway; expanding and improving the accessibility of the ferry system linking False Creek and Coal Harbour; adding new energy-efficient taxis; and, recommending that Council approve development of the first phase of the Downtown Street Car network connecting Granville Island, Science World, Chinatown and the convention centre;
• Advocating for federal funding for the arts, including revitalization of Vancouver’s aging theatres;
• Exploring density as a means of reclaiming much of the industrial land that has been lost over the past 25 years, and supporting local businesses by championing a proposal to introduce a region-wide business license; and,
• Supporting the development of the EcoDensity Initiative, and inviting former Vice-President Al Gore to bring his message about global climate change to Vancouver.

“I am excited about the sense of optimism and the resolve of our citizens to work together to meet the challenges before us as an Olympic and Paralympic host city,” Mayor Sullivan said. “Vancouver has an important role to play in the world. Our innovative approaches to public safety, the environment and drug addiction could have an impact on how other cities deal with these issues, especially as we prepare to showcase Vancouver on the world stage in 2010.”