Vancouver School Board chair speaks out on ABC departure

Vancouver School Board chair Victoria Jung speaks with CTV News on Friday, Aug. 9.

This week, Vancouver School Board chair Victoria Jung decided enough was enough – and walked away from ABC.

“The way that I believe leadership should be done is through openness, transparency, and I think that is through having integrity,” Jung told CTV News in a Friday interview. “And I couldn’t continue with ABC and believe that my values were aligned with them.”

Jung’s decision came days after damning reports from Vancouver’s integrity commissioner.

Those reports painted an unflattering picture of the relationship between Mayor Ken Sim’s office and the park board.

The mayor then called a special meeting on Tuesday with the aim of reviewing the integrity commissioner’s work, but the meeting was ultimately recessed until next month.

“I believe that trying to stifle the work of an integrity commissioner whose job it is to keep elected officials accountable is a dangerous game to play,” Jung said, referencing that meeting and her decision to leave the party the following day.

Jung is the latest ABC departure, joining three park board commissioners sitting independently since last year after refusing to go along with Sim’s plan to dismantle the park board.

But what’s at the heart of the dysfunction?

Park board chair Brennan Bastyovanszky feels Sim needs to drop his chief of staff Trevor Ford.

“It’s hard to tell who is actually running the party, and who is actually acting as mayor, if so much of the mayor’s job has been delegated to an unelected official,” Bastyovanszky said. “That just seems really weird.”

CTV asked Jung directly if she has an opinion on Ford and whether Sim should remove him as chief of staff, given her experience.

“I think that there could be somebody else put in that position who could do a stronger job for the city,” Jung responded during Friday’s interview.

But how much damage has this week actually done to Sim and his party?

“You can’t lose the chair of the park board and the chair of the school board in the space of a year and say nothing is wrong,” said Stewart Prest, a lecturer in political science at the University of British Columbia. “That’s a clear indication that there is a deep discord."

The mayor’s office did not respond to CTV’s requests for comment on this story by broadcast deadline.