The Election 2014 has officially started.

The election period has just started and my Mayoral campaign will officially register at 0930, the first one out of the starting gates.

The NV Council Watch blog will not write articles on the Mayoral race but only on the Councillor's race except to say now, "I think I have it wrapped up!"

Union Donation History

Many times, candidates run heavily subsidized by the unions while running to be the boss of those employees.  In some cases, candidates hide that fact from the voters until after the election when by provincial law they have to disclose.

The disclosures are on the CNV website for the last two elections and the following is a list of the donations.

Mussatto, Darrel (2011)     $13,850
Schechter, Sam (2008)      $6,450
Trentadue, Mary (2008)    $6,200
Mussato, Darrel (2008)     $5,450
Keating, Craig    (2008)     $5,200
Amanda Nichol  (2011)  $4,600
Linda Buchanan (2011)      $4,450
Cheryl Leia (2008)              $3,900
Craig Keating (2011)           $3,200
Cheryl Leia (2011)               $2,650
Rod Clark (2008)              $1,950
Juliana Buitenhuis (2011)  $1,650

More candidates start appearing

Maybe my gut feeling that we would have 30 candidates run for Councillor may turn out to be true.  Let's look at a list of ones that I'm pretty sure about with 19 days to go until the opening of nominations.  Unofficially declared in bold.

Morris, Kerry (kerry.morris.shaw.ca)
Mussatto, Darrel (darrellmussatto.ca)
Pringle, George (pringleformayor.ca)

Back, Holly (hollyback.ca)
Bell, Bill  (electbell.com)
Bell, Don
Bell, Dorothy (electbell.com)
Bookham, Pam
Buchanan, Linda
Clark, Matt (votemattclark.com)
Clark, Rod (rodclark.ca)
Fodor, Elizabeth
Heilman, Joe
Keating, Craig
Leia, Cheryl
Markis, Iani    (voteforiani.com)
McGrenera, Kathryn
Nichol, Amanda (no website submitted)
Nichols, Chris
Polly, Ron
Sostad, Ron (no website submitted)
Valente, Tony (tonyvalente.ca)

If any with website is not listed let me know.  I will be putting up a list on the front page of this blog since the City won't be putting up the candidates platforms and contacts until the 14th of October. If you know of anyone else, let me know.  If a person is not running for certain, contact me personally.  

UPDATE 
Phil Marsh is out due to injury and David Janis is in.  


UPDATE 2 Candidates who have registered are bolded.

It's almost time to act legally

20 days from now Kerry Morris will have to revamp all his campaign material to include an "authorized by Joe Blow Financial Agent for the Morris Nation" or some other legal statement missing from his material which floods the City with now.  At least within a few blocks of his fancy expensive campaign office.

But there is no law that can make him only make statements that conform with the facts or truth.

I guess some people do read this blog

Last night at Council while waiting for them to come back from their in-camera session, a gentleman in front in the gallery informed a few of us that there would be 17 people running for Councillor.

I explained that there could not be a list of official candidates as nominations did not open until the 30th of September but he said that his partner had seen a list online.

I was about to use my usual retort, "You saw it on the internet, so it must be true" when I realized that he was talking about one of my posts on this blog.  Blogger tells me I get 200 to 300 views when I do articles but other than Councillors, Council Watchers and other "inside Hockey" people.  I had never seen evidence that normal voters did read these articles.  Of course, his partner could be preparing to run against me for Mayor so maybe an inside Hockey person.

6 months ago I had thought there would be 30 people running with 5 more running for Mayor.

"Team Mussatto" should be running 4 as I've heard they think one of the reasons they think they have not taken a majority on Council is that they have run to many candidates in prior elections.  I think if they ran under an elector org name on the ballot like Vision North Van, the direct tie on the ballot to all the voters would give the victory they've wanted for a decade.  I think Cheryl Leia will be their 4th as she was short by 154 votes last time and just missed being on Council.

VOICES should be running 4 as well with three for certain, 2 VOICES Councillors and union candidate Amanda Nichol.  Not they will admit this publicly.

Two independents will run who VOICES will try to co-opt Don Bell and Tony Valente and 4 other independents will run Scott Clark, Iani Makris, Dorothy Bell and Bill Bell.

 And of course, there will be COPE's Ron Sostad so that is 14 candidates.  Lots of other possibles and we could reach that 30+5 level.  The reality is all it takes to register and run is two signatures but it takes 3000 votes to get on Council.  So pissed about the Low Level Road, power lines, the condition of the roads, run for Mayor!  Kerry, Darrel and I would love the company.

The history of VOICES (the evolution of the growth of a political party)

Last month, I had a quick exchange on FB.

2011 Candidate Amanda Nichol and soon to be 2014 Candidate 85% financed by the CUPE 389 and their parent union. The other 15% was anonymous with no indication that it was self financed.
9 hrs · Edited · Like

From the Voices website "On influencing the decision – we have had some success here and there, getting the city to slow down some of the development growth. We support Councillors not funded by developers and unions." EXCEPT they ran Amanda Nichol as a VOICES candidate and are planning to do so again.
9 hrs · Like
Toni Bolton Your imagination knows no bounds George Pringle . Maybe you should try dealing in facts as a change of pace.

That's really weak Toni.  Why don't you reveal who is on any Voices' Board of Directors?  Perhaps because if VOICES legally registered as an elector organisation, you won't be to hide the activities of VOICES. It's time to rip that mask off since Elections BC is now in charge of any matter to do with any political financing in the upcoming election.
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The information below is being sent to Elections BC in for their consideration when dealing with any application for VOICES to be granted "Third Party Sponsor" status as it is known know with recent changes to the Act.
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FACT:  on the 14th of November, the day before the 2008 election someone (pending Freedom of Information request made to the City) placed an ad in the NS News:

This was illegal, not just by my standards and my "imagination" but by the law of BC and that person should have been charged.  If they had even filed to be a legal "Third Party Advertiser" as the Labour Councils do to donate thousands of dollars to their union candidates in our but there is a legal requirement that they be completely at arm's length to the candidates they promote.  Or the candidate is legally bound to declare that expense. To pretend that they were unaware of that ad and endorsement is illegal. To have a supporter form an organization aimed at bypassing election laws is more than just illegal, it is down right immoral and unethical.

In that 2008 election, two candidates mass mailed the following leaflets (showing the cover only) 

So incumbent Bookham and Leonard were running a mini-slate.  Someone? You guess for yourself, arranged an ad with the key words from their leaflets. Bookham was reelected but Leonard was beaten badly.

In the 2011 campaign, the above mentioned Toni Bolton and close friend of Councillor Bookham legally registered an organization called "Independent Voices".  (There is that term again.)  They collected $616 from 13 anonymous donors to put this ad in the NS News on the 18th of November the day before the election:

City Website Disclosures

Does anyone doubt this two ads were done by same group?  I believe there is a core group of candidates who had illegal pre-knowledge of this ad and others like Don Bell who was placed on this ad as they they were trying to imply that Don was a member of the Independent Voices team and if you support him, you should vote with their candidates.

Again, their takeover attempt failed, electing only the incumbents and of course Don Bell topped the polls.

In the spring of 2012, the North Van City Voices (but they want no one to assume that they had any ties to Independent Voices or that it was just an evolution the old party) organisation announced they had just been founded and were a brand spanking new org with no ties to any existing org.  Most of what we hear from them comes from their website run by no other than Toni Bolton. There are only a few people that have revealed themselves in public. 

Marc Petersen. Fred Dawkins and Gerry Scott have all identified themselves at Council meetings as members of VOICES, with the the frequency the Fred Dawkins  appeared in Chambers speaking for VOICES that he taken on the role of President although Ron Polly has told a reporter that he was the President.

The Outlook did an article in April 2012 which  former union candidate in the 2011 Council race,  Amanda Nichol self-identifies as a Voices spokesperson.  I bet the VOICES' plan is to publish a third ad which includes Amanda Nichol breaking the legal "arm's length" requirement.

The North Shore News did an initial article on Voices in May 2012 which idenifies Ron Polly who was a supporter in one ad but a Mayoral recommendation in the next ad and union candidate 

In December of 2012, during Voices' tussle with Onni, someone got in the secret Voices email list and a few of were leaked some of them through a food blogger.  Voices' membership was revealed as about 20-25 people and one was signed John Watson, another name from the first two election ads.  A Joan (Peters) and Valarie (Cottingham) is mentioned, of course both and on the elections ad.

See it here.

So  8 people of the 20-25 members of Voices are identified in public, add a ninth, Ivan Leonard in as well and as they prepare for the 2014 elections, I am quite sure that they want attempt to repeat their questionable election activities for the upcoming elections.

But it seems that Diogenes' quest is ended its long journey and he has found that one honest man, candidate for council Tony Valente. For a while, while I had given him snippets of some the information above.  He had responded with statements like VOICES is just a small group of active community members.

I presume, that he had been offered an endorsement in advance and I presume his instincts told him there was something wrong with it and he told them that was truly an independent candidate and intended to remain one.  Good for you, Tony!

I've heard that Ivan Leonard when hearing of this, responded by exclaiming that: Why was the point of this whole VOICES thing if we don't have an united group (party) against Mussatto's team.

That is what is really wrong with our Council, it's a small pond with little fish trying to keep their pond as small as possible so they can puff up to pretend they're big and important.

That is on small reason why I say amalgamation and why VOICES Councillors oppose it.

How Kerry Morris can get some credibility

In his run against everyone, Kerry has to present an open team.  Not the secretive VOICES team that has a history of violating the election laws and won't register legally with a name on the ballot but actually take the reins of that herd of cats that is VOICES but gather the 50 signatures required for Kerry to found a legal VOICES electoral team with the VOICES name right on the ballot.

Of course, Kerry Morris can join in with whatever illegal activities that VOICES does this time to avoid appearing like an organized group like Vision Vancouver but if he has the ethics and will power to help make our elections a cleaner affair, he can be open and up front and give him some much needed credibility.

Of course, I could just do it and when the public goes to the polls they would see 

Pringle, George   North City Voices

on the ballot since no else has registered that name as an electoral organisation.

Hmm..

Kerry Morris gets first threatened lawsuit

by the City of North Vancouver as he made statements concerning city hall staff.  The lawsuit was dropped when they forced Kerry to apologize.  Who does he think he will work with if lightning struck and he became Mayor?