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Kennedy Stewart has said he wants to do things differently around city hall. And when Vancouver’s new mayor provided an update Tuesday on the busy early days of his administration, he presented it in a different way.

Tuesday was slated as the first of a series of regularly scheduled media briefings from the new mayor, as Stewart provided an update on last week’s packed agenda including council business, meetings with senior governments, and community events, before opening it up to reporters’ questions on any subject.

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This style of regular media availability is more common with provincial politicians and at the federal level, where Stewart previously served as an NDP Member of Parliament. But it hasn’t been seen at Vancouver City Hall, or at least not in a long time.

One reporter asked Tuesday about the changes to city hall’s media outreach under the new mayor. Stewart replied: “As an MP for seven years, I always made myself accessible to the media, and so I didn’t want to change that. I think it’s an important public duty to do this as an elected official … Part of this is trying to make sure that citizens feel like we’re being transparent here.”