Dear readers,
I had intended to share this before the end of December, but I spent some valuable time offline with family and friends. I hope you did too.
For December, there is not much from a municipal governance perspective. Our last meeting on Dec 9 was largely ceremonial, celebrating staff retirements and long service, the highlights of 2025, and awarding the Youth Sports Award. We also received the civic committees’ annual reports and our appointments for the new year. I always enjoy reading what our committees have been up to over the past year.
One other thing I wanted to write about was the 2026 local elections. We’ve seen the formation of the first-ever political party in Port Moody. Rumours are already flying – no, I am not running for mayor – and online dialogue is heating up. We don’t need to do things this way. We can disagree respectfully, we can be truthful in our messages and above all else, we need to remember that there are real people behind the words you see on-screen.
We are all residents here, and I believe we all love Port Moody. We don’t need division; we need community leaders willing to have hard discussions, make decisions based on facts, not feelings, and model civil dialogue. If we can’t do that, then we should not be in the arena of public service.
I don’t take the decisions we make at the council table lightly. I strive to align my decisions with the information presented in the agenda packages, drawing on my professional experience and the values I hold. I won’t always get decisions perfect (in fact, I don’t think there are neat, perfect answers to the issues we face and the decisions that need to be made), but I am striving to make decisions that are in the best interests of the majority. And to do so with respectful dialogue.
As the year proceeds, I will continue to write updates here. I wish you all the best in the new year, and thank you again for reading.
It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.
In this newsletter:
[New] Council Highlights
Previously, I was sharing emails from the city manager that summarized Council activities and decisions. Now, we also have a webpage called Council Highlights that shares the “Coles’ notes” version of the most recent council meeting, along with links to the relevant video and agenda sections. I hope this helps make finding information easier for folks who are interested.
Council meetings links
Finance Committee (Dec 2)
Regular Council (Dec 9)
Other useful things
Do you need a doctor? Register at the Health Connect Registry. The ministry uses this to measure need in a region. Signing up helps to demonstrate that primary care physicians are needed in specific areas.
Have you signed up for the Port Moody Events Newsletter? If not, email [email protected]. (I am not affiliated with the newsletter, just sharing a community resource.)
