Dinosaur blood pressure, self-driving cars, and renewable energy

During Burnaby’s International Relations and Friendship Cities Committee meeting on July 23, several city councillors and Mayor Mike Hurley discussed their visit to one of Burnaby’s sister cities, Mesa, Arizona, from April 9 to 13, 2024. The purpose of the visit was to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the sister-city relationship between Burnaby and Mesa, which began in 1998. 

The visit was approved during a council meeting on January 29, and cost $2,800 per delegate, according to a council report. Funding came from the city’s Gaming Reserve. 

Committee chair Coun. Pietro Calendino spoke first about what he found most impressive in Mesa. 

“​​I would like to highlight what we learned about their renewable energy program. They seem to be much more advanced than we are,” Calendino said. “Because they’re in the desert, they have a lot of sunshine, so they’re investing quite a bit in solar panels for part of their energy needs to feed their direction in having electric vehicles rather than gasoline.” 

Calendino also said that he was “amazed” by the local film industry which organized a visit for the Burnaby delegation to film school classrooms at Arizona State University. During the visit, Burnaby delegates went on an unusual virtual tour. 

“We had a virtual trip to a world of dinosaurs. It is a trip that is actually intended for medical students to visualize how to test the blood pressure of older generation people and how dangerous it could be if that’s not kept under control,” Calendino said. “As a matter of fact, we saw a female dinosaur with terribly high blood pressure and actually then died from that. And this is to teach medical students how important it is to monitor blood pressure with humans as well.” 

Other committee members also spoke about what they found interesting during their visit to Mesa. 

“For example, their Learning Center…which I thought was incredible. They put it together for a really reasonable price, and it really seemed to be very well received by the public,” Hurley said. 

The City of Mesa’s Learning Center is an online training platform offering classes to residents on topics such as energy resources compliance and traffic safety. 

“I thought there were some great ideas in there, and I know our staff were taking notes. Also, what they’ve done in their parks, I think they’ve done amazing work in their parks and their playgrounds to make them much more interesting than certainly many of our parks are.” 

Coun. James Wang said he was most impressed by affordable housing, renewable energy, and education in Mesa. 

“We had almost one-day-long panels and meetings to learn all about the departments of Mesa and get some exchange sharing, especially in renewable energy and waste management. I think it’s a different angle to learn how other cities do a good job,” Wang said. 

He said he was impressed by the city’s educational facilities for children and Mesa’s efforts to become an autism-friendly city, adding that it might be beneficial for Burnaby to learn from this and perhaps adopt autism-friendly practices to become an autism-friendly city. 

Several of Burnaby’s delegates found Mesa’s affordable housing projects impressive, from the types of units to the building materials. Hurley said that the city has been in contact with some of the builders of these projects to implement something similar in Burnaby. 

“We don’t really have our set up yet to move anything into Canada, but they were looking into getting a space up here to start producing those homes. I thought they were very smartly put together, and how they use space was quite incredible,” Hurley said about model affordable homes in Mesa. 

Calendino also said he was impressed with Mesa’s affordable housing projects. 

“For, I think, $120,000 Canadian, you could have had a one-bedroom, and for another $25- $30,000, you can have a two-bedroom,” Calendino said. He added that although the two-bedroom units were under 600 square feet, they were very well-designed and maximized space use. 

Both Wang and Hurley spoke about their experiences trying self-driving cars during their visit to Mesa. Calendino asked the mayor if he found the experience scary to which Hurley replied, “No, they drive better than most other people that drive.”

This piece was made possible by the Local Journalism Initiative.

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