The Victoria city council could look very different after next year’s municipal election. The left may well take control, perhaps even winning the mayoralty.
New Democrat councillor Dean Fortin says he’s been asked by numerous people to run for the top job, and one consultant believes Fortin could win even if mayor Alan Lowe leaves his hat in the ring.
“I don’t see why someone like Dean Fortin couldn’t beat Alan Lowe this time,” says Bernard Schulmann. One reason is that the New Democrats, running under the Victoria Civic Electors banner, have a natural advantage by being listed on the ballot as a slate.
The VCE should have been able to elect at least four last time, instead of simply re-electing its two incumbents, Fortin and Pam Madoff.
Schulmann noted that in 2005, left-wing candidate Ben Isitt pulled a remarkable 44 percent of the vote, despite what Schulmann regards as Isitt’s weak qualifications. (“I’d be hard-pressed to think of someone less-qualified to be mayor,” he says.)
This week, Isitt says he is still considering his options for next year, but he will “definitely be on the ballot.” Isitt won’t rule out another mayoralty bid, though adds that it remains an “open question” whether he would run alone again, or join up with the VCE.
I’m told that an election debriefing session with Isitt and the VCE brass last fall did not go well. So we could yet see Isitt running separately from the VCE once more.
Another factor in next year’s election may be the capital region’s vast sewage treatment project. It is all but certain that parts of it—if not all—will be built as a public-private partnership (P3), since the province’s one-third share of the total cost will likely be dependent on the project being a P3.
Since P3s have, at best, a mixed reputation in Victoria, it could prove a boon for New Democrats, who generally oppose them.
Regardless, get ready for an NDP-Green controlled city.
Predictions for 2008 municipal election
#1
Posted 23 July 2007 - 03:54 PM
#2
Posted 23 July 2007 - 04:03 PM
#3
Posted 23 July 2007 - 06:34 PM
#4
Posted 23 July 2007 - 08:05 PM
#5
Posted 01 August 2007 - 11:34 PM
Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900), The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
#6
Posted 23 August 2007 - 09:56 AM
Coun. Sonya Chandler and her husband, Roy, are the proud parents of baby Penelope-Rose Gracey Chandler,born Aug. 9. The first-born for the couple weighed in at 3.7 kilograms.
Nuts--I had ten bucks on "Ché Suzuki" in the "name the baby" pool.
Ah, well. Congratulations anyway.
-City of Victoria website, 2009
#7
Posted 26 August 2007 - 03:41 PM
Times Colonist
Published: Sunday, August 26, 2007
[Thumbs up] To pub entrepreneur Matt MacNeill [sic], whose Irish Times and Penny Farthing have already made a mark, for plans to convert the Boom Boom Room on Wharf Street to a venue for live East Coast music. It's a welcome step toward a saner late-night scene downtown.
© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2007
God forbid [url=http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/story.html?id=a42bcbc2-6365-42c6-baaf-bd3583667eab&k=31349:c1f2c]24 hours[/url:c1f2c] [url=http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/business/story.html?id=13a22aa6-91c1-4456-b47e-b93a5ef4fe8f&k=98498:c1f2c]goes[/url:c1f2c] [url=http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/comment/story.html?id=5fbe055c-08d5-4d00-bbe9-6a161f9c1627:c1f2c]by[/url:c1f2c] without the Times-Colonist mentioning Matt MacNeil. I mean, he seems like a decent guy and good businessman but I haven't seen coverage like this since Mother Teresa died.
I bet he's going to run for mayor and the T/C thinks this is a good idea.
Build a condo in this town and you're Satan's spawn. Open a pub downtown and you're the Second Coming of Christ.
-City of Victoria website, 2009
#8
Posted 26 August 2007 - 04:40 PM
#9
Posted 02 September 2007 - 01:35 PM
So is this a good idea?On September 23, fellow and fellowess travellers will get together for a “consultation about tomorrow’s VCE,” according to the notice sent out last week by party president Patti Stockton. At the meeting, party brass will present two different “visions of the future.”
The first would be to “revitalize” the VCE, by recruiting a new executive to track down enough good candidates so that the New Democrats will control the council. (Of course, in keeping with the VCE’s constitution, when and if the VCE chooses a new executive, “at least 50 percent” shall be women.)
In other words, business as usual. Snore. That’s just what the right-of-centre would love to see.
Welcome, mayor Don Roughley and council!
But the second VCE “vision” is a little more interesting.
“Dissolve the current organization and establish a committed and experienced investigative team.”
And what would the investigative team investigate? “Best practices in municipal organizing and election campaigning.” That’s not a bad idea.
There’s more. The team would also consult with “New Democrats and the broader community,” to possibly create a new organization to elect a majority of “progressive individuals” to the city council.
In other words, no longer would one need to be a card-carrying NDPer to join the new outfit. ...
I don't live in Victoria anymore (and didn't live in the city proper when I was there), but I always got the sense (confirmed by what I've read on this board since then) that the candidates from the civic left in Victoria, both the flakier and less flaky factions thereof, are wonderfully well-meaning but rather misguided folks who I couldn't actually have voted for if I'd had the opportunity. That goes for Madoff, Isitt, Chandler (I know she's Green, not VCE), and even Fortin. And I consider myself on the left. Which raises the question of how representative they are of the actual left in Victoria.
Perhaps dissolving the VCE and starting over, as long as it isn't just a rebranding, could be an opportunity for some new people to step forward. People with a more positive urban vision than Madoff's "I-like-density-but-it-has-to-be-affordable, I-like-affordable-housing-but-not-if-it's-too-dense" conservatism, or Isitt's conservatism disguised as radical socialism, or Chandler's conservatism disguised as environmentalism, or Fortin's compromise between these three extremes (to paraphrase what Mort Sahl said about Eisenhower and Stevenson's clashing views that desegregation should occur either "moderately" or "gradually").
But hopefully that's happening anyway, regardless of what the VCE chooses to do. The question is whether the VCE has the sense to figure that out, or whether they want to keep withering away into irrelevance.
#10
Posted 02 September 2007 - 01:51 PM
Leftist voters might like the candidate that supports their efforts to construct a community garden or [url=http://www.fairfieldcommunity.ca/?q=node/232:4301e]urban gathering space[/url:4301e] using volunteer labour--something the Unions and the NDP might be very critical of.
I'm sorry I missed that Isitt interview this morning on C-FAX. I wonder what he said about his nemesis the VCE.
-City of Victoria website, 2009
#11
Posted 02 September 2007 - 01:59 PM
#12
Posted 04 September 2007 - 02:09 PM
Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900), The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
#13
Posted 04 September 2007 - 03:36 PM
#14
Posted 05 September 2007 - 01:15 PM
Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900), The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
#15
Posted 05 September 2007 - 01:46 PM
-City of Victoria website, 2009
#16
Posted 20 September 2007 - 05:14 AM
#17
Posted 20 September 2007 - 06:48 AM
#18
Posted 20 September 2007 - 05:23 PM
I would not mind, maybe a green candidate or two on council.
Sonya Chandler was the sole Green Party candidate to win a seat in the last election. She opposed high-density developments in the core and butted heads with private investment opportunities when they appeared in front of council. She'd champion green thinking and sustainable development one day and then vote against it the next, repeatedly citing irrelevant issues and concerns (say, with respect to a 14-storey building she voted against, that it represented everything Victorians did not want their downtown to become, etc -- because Victorians want a sprawly region built atop hillsides, right?).
Know it all.
Citified.ca is Victoria's most comprehensive research resource for new-build homes and commercial spaces.
#19
Posted 18 October 2007 - 09:33 PM
As usual the NDP and Greens will blow themselves up midstream and the pro-business slate will be installed for another term.
#20
Posted 18 October 2007 - 09:57 PM
The business community hates Lowe but would rather see him in the job then a nutbar like Isitt.
I agree. They didn't hate him when he first got in, they liked him. But I'm not sure what the business commmunity has in mind when Lowe leaves. I didn't particularly like Bob Cross, but I'd have him back.
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