Question Period needs to be renamed

The Council Question Period has to be renamed and explained better in the Council Rules. Council regulars are getting the wrong idea of what it is.  It is not about the issue.  I've spent years in this Chamber wanting to toss my two cents in during debates on the issues of motions, I've sat there while Councillors have missed an important point, IMHO.  But a Council QP is not the place to ask rhetorical points or discuss issues even if phrased in form of a question.  If you want to discuss policy, get elected, which of course is usually the intent of asking the question in the first place in most cases.

A legitimate question  is a simple how or when not a why.  If the Mayor used the phase attributed to him by Voices that questions were not to be asked on any motion that passed, it was incorrect.  I've asked and had questions accepted when they were not on motions that had passed.

I have not been able to watch the video of last week yet but as an example you can't ask "how can Council spit on our Maritime heritage by destroying .." but could ask "when is the stern to be destroyed? as that question is based on the implementation of the motion.  It is a when? not a why? Or just a point which opposes the decision made by Council.

The Mayor, as Chair, ruled Kerry Morris' question out of order tonight.  Not because the motion had passed but because Kerry started off  inputing his opinion as "background".  It doesn't matter if you've phrased your point in the form of a question, it is the Mayor, not Alex Trebek. 

The actual motion, Item 15 read
"PURSUANT to the report of the Manager, Community and Long-Range Planning, Community Development, dated December 4, 2013, entitled “Draft Official Community Plan”: 

THAT the draft Official Community Plan be released for discussion and input including referral to City Advisory Bodies; 

AND THAT staff be directed to proceed with the final community engagement 
phase of the CityShaping program and work towards a final version of a 
revised Official Community Plan and Regional Context Statement in 2014."

A proper question would be "Would this be brought back in time for Council to finally pass before August 2014"  You might get away with a quick "Considering that Metro Vancouver had a deadline of last July for the submission of the Regional Context Statement, due last July, would submitting it "in 2014" as the motion states cause us problems?"  Even if the Mayor rules the question out of order, you've already asked the question and likely the Mayor would just say "No, I've made Metro aware of our timeline" or something like that.  It is not an opportunity for a speech.  If you start off saying "According to the Magna Carta, the citizens have a right .. blah blah, you are making a speech and should be cut off.  If you think you're clever and ask "Do you consider that passing Motion #15 is a affront to those who believe in the rights of the citizens as established in the Magna Carta, blah, blah ...." you will get cut off legitimately although you asked in the form of a question.

As we get closer to the election, people will try to take advantage of the rules.  Until I see the actual video I can't say whether the questions asked by Gary and Tony were legitimate or the Mayor after a long meeting, making a judgement call on a question ruled too harshly but one thing stands as I deleted this morning's article and my accusations in my article based on the Voices blog, as a former Roberts Rules geek I consider that if a question is ruled out of order, that action of the Chair should be reflected in the minutes.

I would hate to see the opportunity to ask legitimate questions lost as regular Council attendees abuse that function even if caused by a lack of clarity in the wording of the Council procedure that is printed in the agenda every week.

There is definitely a problem in the length of the Council meeting that had contributed to the problem since it has to be at the end of the meeting.  Taxpayers are paying for every moment that Council sits.  The Mayor commented that former Mayor Loucks only allowed three question per Councillor in their allocated 5 minutes since this stops their time clock and rapidly extends the time each motion takes.  Surely a little more prep time by members of Council and am occasional phone call to answer questions would help keep meetings shorter and our tax bills lighter.

The end of question period

UPDATE: I've had a tweet that gave a recollection  from someone who was actually there that the Mayor just told all 3 speakers to just ask a question and not use the question period that as a method of making debate points on an issue that was already over.  If so, the Mayor acted appropriately and Voices reps need to learn and the Council procedures before complaining about them.

I've taken this article down as my source was highly inaccurate.  

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The 2014 Election as it starts forming up (Part one)

Nominations don't close until about late September of next year but it looks like we in the City of North Van will be presented with the opportunity to change the status quo or continue with politics here being stuck in a time lock.

This article builds on material in Parties-slates and independents? and  in A recap and analysis of the council election of 2011.  One of the fundamental aspects I've focused on is really there are two NDP dominated groups that dominate CNV politics

The Mayoral race

Let's start off with the obvious, Mayor Mussatto will run again and likely win. VOICES candidate Rod Clark will run for Councillor after an inappropriate outburst during Council. Two years ago he had said he was running for Mayor.  VOICES will (wants to)  run someone, possibility Ron Polly again although I think that a Council run where he has a chance of winning is more likely. I think they will be desperate to find candidates. Unite North Van will do its nominations in May but is not actively seeking a Mayoral candidate but if someone applies who has the credentials and experience to run for Mayor, one may be approved.

It is likely that Mussatto will be acclaimed once again. In 2008, when he was acclaimed, Mayor elect Mussatto ran a full campaign with tens of thousands in donations and spending. Donations started the day after he had been acclaimed.  Why the pretense?  Is it even legal to have a person who is not a candidate portrayed as a candidate running in the election to be voted on?  In the past elections have been with the no outside independent supervision.  The province is now putting in laws to put Elections BC in charge of elections so challenges to our City Clerk who wears the Chief Electoral Officer hat for elections can now be made. I will challenge anyone who is acclaimed being treated as candidate running in the election.

Retirements?

I tend not to believe when told by a third party that a Councillor is not running and nothing is ever firm until the close of nominations.  But it is safe to state that Pam Bookham is retiring, I know she almost didn't run last time and was talked into another term by the VOICES people who didn't want to lose one of their Councillors.

Another probable resignation is Guy Heywood who is likely running for the Federal Liberal nomination to run against Andrew Saxton. The nomination should be just after the municipal election and perhaps he feels it would be  unseemly to commit for another 3 year municipal term and then immediately run federally with aim of resigning and causing an expensive byelection. But on the other side of the coin, Don Bell did it in 2004 and Craig Keating tried to do last May.   But I've also heard that Heywood may run in the District as well so there are competing rumours. Ten months prior to the close of nominations gives a lot of time to change one's mind, or to focus it.

The NDP slate

So lets look at the two political parties that dominate the CNV Council, first the Mayor's slate and other strongly left wing candidates.  They will run five candidates as usual in their seemingly endless quest to gain a majority on Council so they can completely implement their socialist NDP agenda since the brass ring of Provincial Government is likely forever out of their reach.  It is not too much of a stretch to say that Councillors Keating and Buchanan will run and only 150 votes back from a Council seat will motivate Cheryl Leia to make third try.  It looks like they will be joined by Franci Stratton a District School Board trustee, Scott McMyn and Evonne Strohwald. Perhaps Mary Trentadue will re-enter

Other NDPers and other assorted left wingers that may step up but not likely on the Mayor's slate, is Pam Bookham which I think will retire instead, Ivan Leonard, Tyler Russell of the Urban Forum and Michael Charrois - even with the failure of the pot decriminalization referendum that won't even go to a vote.  Ron Sostad may advance his C.O.P.E. cause by running in a legally registered Party along with some fellow hard core socialists and even communists.

The Green Party may run led by Ryan Conway, the Green candidate for the last provincial election and should register as well, putting the Green Party name on the actual ballot. There should be at least one other candidate with the Greens.  Why should Adrienne Carr have all the fun?

So even if the Mayor does not register as Vision North Van or some other name like Victoria's NDP Victoria Civic Electors, there should be at least 3 elector organizations with a name on the ballot.  There is more chance that Mussatto and Keating will see the opportunity and register than the Voices people would want to come out of the shadows.

It's under a year to the next election

The title says it all but will the voters vote for a change?

Parties, Slates, "Independants"

Let's start off with the top organized political slate, well they're nameless so I use the term "Vision North Van" he and Gregor Robertson are old buddies from Carson Graham when Gregor lived in North Vancouver.  They could be called "Mussatto's team" or "Racing with the Mayor" or "The NDP's muncipal team" or something like that.   Perhaps they can't think of a good name that can fit on the ballot if they were legally registered as an Electoral Organization.

Before we hear the usual cries of "we are just a group of like minded candidates", this is a municipal NDP political party.  See bit.ly/svfAg4  for a North Shore News article.  Now it is easy to see the NDP orientation when you read of most Council decisions and Councillor Keating is obviously a card carrying NDPer but Mayor Mussatto?  It's not that he hides it but just doesn't portray himself that way except for his votes on Council.  Most know but I still run into people who think he is fully independent and not an arm of the NDP like former NDP MLA Gregor.  Here's the Mayor's Vision in a leaflet from the 2008 election.  Thousands of union dollars were spent on like ads in both North Shore newspapers.

Former Councillor Schechter moved to Burnaby to run for the NDP nomination after leaving Council. 2011 candidate Juliana Buitenhuis ran for the NDP in West Van prior to her Council run here.  It is clear that the "Mussatto slate" is a formal group of NDPers.  A former candidate naively asked me how do you get on the Mayor's slate?  I told him to join the NDP and work on Craig Keating's provincial NDP campaign.  As a member of the team that helped reelect Naomi, of course that was not an option for him.

Why the facade?  Well, the political class in North Vancouver believe that the voters will electorally punish those who ran in an electoral organization. Not even when the parties or slates are not arms of a federal or provincial party. Bill Bell, a former Councillor and NDPer wrote on my Facebook wall that the voters won't vote for a party or formal slate but never in the history of North Van has there been a legally registered party like Richmond First or Surrey First or the NPA or COPE or even Vision Vancouver. I think the voters want a honest straightforward, name on the ballot, type party rather than the smoke and mirrors tactics the other use to mask their intent from the voters.

In the Opposition role to Mussatto's minority government is Voices. There is a group of candidates (some Councillors) that Voices runs as their core slate who organize prior to the election and those they endorse out their list.  Voices claims to have formed in March of 2012 when some appeared in a delegation to Council by this name. Of course, mostly the same people registered as "third party advertising group" published an ad on November 2011, the day prior to the elections. http://bit.ly/IfFaHS  Does anyone think that Voices is not Independent Voices with a word dropped from the name? Of course, this disclosure was made more than two months after voting.

Here is the illegal ad they published in the North Shore News on 14 Nov 2008.

And here is the Voices AD from published in the North Shore News on 18 Nov 2011. This is the one they filed the spending declaration that the Election Law requires.

Does anyone believe Voices representatives who say they never existed before the spring of 2012?  Or that this group an organized group of people who try to secretly influence the elections?

In 2012, they got in a public tussle with supporters of the Onni 1308 Lonsdale project.  https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=565851072 and some "foodies" in Surrey,  http://wflbc.com/2012/12/11/north-vancouver-nimbys-playing-politics-and-taking-control/. Their "modus operandi" was the same in 2008. They deny that Voices didn't exist before March 2012 but it is clear the same group of people, taking the same actions.

For the election of 2008, Voices did an ad, the day before the 2008 election with mostly the same names of endorsers/donors as 3 years later. It is quite clear that this ad originated from the same group of people of the "Independant Voices" ad of 2011. The ad was mostly the same but in 2008 they never filed a legal required declaration as the one above and they should have been charged for violating the election law.  Neither did any of the money donated for an election ad was included on the declarations of any of the candidates endorsed by in this ad.

 The roots of Voices are clearly in the Community Associations of the pre-2005 period when the "Coalition of Community Associations" was born.  It was publicly shown as an umbrella group of the various Community Associations, a good method of organizing and strengthening these associations which which often dominated by a small group of people with no  formal elections.

The Community Associations were meant to be non-partisan organizations since it has to represent all residents in an area. Strictly, non-partisan means separate from established and federal or provincial parties.  But although the Mayor's slate is really an arm of the NDP, the community associations have developed as anti Mussatto organizations but also with a strong NDP presence.  I like to think of them as NDPers who are anti-development as opposed to Mussatto's NDPers who are pro-development.

The non-partisan aspect became a tool for people within the community associations to "gatekeep".   They were intent on running and wanted the titles  provided by the community associations but needed to suppress the attraction or development of any competition to their personal electoral runs.  The Community Associations suffered from the actions of these gatekeepers.  New associations formed around the electoral needs of new candidates to use community concern such as the Low Level Road issue to get themselves media attention.

In the above Coalition leaflet from you can see many of the names of those who have run and some elected in 2005, 2008 and 2011 and those from the endorsement ads paid for by Voices and prior incarnations of Voices which was the electoral arm of the community associations.  With many of the serious actives focused on Voices as their electoral organization and the take over of Council, the actual community associations withered.

In 2011, the Council passed recommendation #17 from the Task Force on Civic Engagement which was designed to help residents become active in the community associations and make them more responsive to the community as a whole rather than just a few.

Reach Out To Community Associations

 #17: That the City adopt a policy to formally recognize community associations that 

meet established criteria that include open membership within a defined geographical area with non-overlapping boundaries with other similar 

associations, the holding of advertised general meetings and the election of officers. The policy should have provisions for these formally recognized associations to receive support from the City that could include: 

a) Provide a listing of Recognized Community Associations on the City web site, links to their web pages and information about their general 

meetings; 

b) Provide meeting space in City facilities; and 

c) Continue to provide community associations with notices of developments 

in their geographic area, as well as notices of meetings on City-wide issues.

Unfortunately, the community associations had entropied too much and the gatekeepers prevented renewal. If you do a google search as would a new resident would, do you even find them? Do any have a web page? The Grand Blvd being the strongest and having a core of residential areas which is the most active is the strongest.  The Lonsdale Citizens Association covers the largest part of the city's population is still going on.  The rest don't really have an association aside from a couple of people who use titles.

Next up, the long awaited 2014 election preview!