Mayor Brad West Interview

In this video Mayor West addresses the residents of Port Coquitlam and highlights how the city has overcome challenges.

(Slide title: PoCo Heritage Museum and Archives And Tri-Cities Community Television Present: An interview with Port Coquitlam Mayor, Brad West)

Interview format: The Mayor, Brad West, stands in Leigh Square Port Coquitlam. Behind him is a brick building with a sign that reads “Gathering Place”.

Mayor West: Hi, I’m Brad West, Mayor of the City of Port Coquitlam. From the very beginning of our city’s founding, we have faced challenges but we’ve always overcome them by working together, by making sure we all come out of them stronger. So too has it been for the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s challenged our city in a number of ways but I’m exceptionally proud how this community has rallied together to support one another and to make sure that we all come out of this stronger.

Early on in the pandemic the city took decisive action to make sure that we were keeping our residents safe. The health and safety of Port Coquitlam residents and city employees has been our top priority throughout the pandemic and we made moves very early at the beginning stages to make sure that we had facilities closed, that needed to be closed, while we were figuring out what the health protocols would be to make sure all of us remained safe. We also knew that the COVID-19 pandemic inflicted a huge amount of financial stress on many people in our community, in many local businesses in our community.

In so many ways local businesses in Port Coquitlam are the backbone of this city and we stepped up to provide them as much support as we could. We encouraged residents to shop local, we created a process to allow businesses to use city right of ways and parking stalls and uh side walks to be able to expand patios. In so many instances that was the lifeline that allowed businesses to continue to operate throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and its something that our community has really embraced and I’m proud that that’s one of the things that we’re gonna keep out of this pandemic, is those patios, now a permanent feature in Port Coquitlam.

We also want to extend support to our residents. We knew that so many people were out of work and it was going to be a really difficult time making ends meet. We reduced our property tax increase to zero, we gave people additional time to pay property taxes to make sure they had a little bit more breathing room, we also made sure that the core services of the city that people depend on would be there day in and day out, no matter what.

Port Coquitlam is known for its incredible community spirit, whether it be events like May Day, Canada Day; we wanted to continue our history of celebrating our community of coming together and we found new and innovative ways to do that. I’m so proud of the way our community came out during our community drive through, where we took the city fleet through neighborhoods all over Port Coquitlam. And it was so heartwarming to see thousands of our residents give us a wave and a thumbs up. That’s the way we’ve kept our community connected.

We also know that many of our seniors were facing concerns around being socially isolated during the pandemic, especially in the early stages, and we quickly shifted gears to have our city staff reach out to our seniors to make sure that they had everything that they needed. And we found new ways to make sure that they still felt connected to each other and to this community.

There’s no doubt that the COVID-19 pandemic has been incredibly challenging to our community; but, just like challenges in the past I know that we’re going to get through this. We’re gonna get through it together, and when we come back we’re gonna have a stronger, more connected, and even better community. Thank you everyone for everything that you’ve been doing, making sure you do your part to get us through this and I can’t wait until we’re able to gather once again and celebrate this amazing community, Port Coquitlam.

(Slide title: PoCo Heritage Museum and Archives Tri-Cities Community Television)