Mayor is an NDP member

NSN Article  http://www.nsnews.com/news/Mulcair+gets+City+North+Vancouver+endorsement/5858000/story.html

During his first campaign for Mayor, Mussatto answered the NSN grid "List any political party membership(s)" as "Yes." and in 2011 he did not answer and the NSN put "No answer provided".


Those on the inside baseball field all know that Mayor Mussatto is an NDPer as is all the unofficial slate candidates in Vision North Van. The grid in the NSN and the Outlook is one of the primary methods our citizens use to learn about the candidates during the election and most of our disengaged voters are not following the details   So why this omission?


In our Mayor's defense, this question should be removed as it misleads the public.  As the grid shows I am a member of the Conservative Party and my friends fall on both sides of the divide of their opinions on municipal business.  Some want more development as they are business focused people and some want restraints on development.


There is no right wing and left wing in municipal politics, here it is the NDP Councillors who are funded by the developers and business community as they tend to favour higher development and Liberal and Conservative ones who tend to want less development.


The two local papers would be serving the community better by spending more time designing a better grid that focuses on development issues as that is mostly what Councillors end up doing.






PS to Ben Alldritt - When you join the NDP you join both the provincial and federal.  Calling the Mayor a federal member appears like he is not a provincial member.

Sostad sees Alternate Universes!

Does anyone understand what he is getting at?  Is it meant to be a joke or satire or what?

120

New Council - New Blog!

CNV Agenda 12 Dec 2011

Tonight Agenda  http://www.cnv.org/c//DATA/1/87/2011%2012%2012.PDF

I will be introducing my new blog and websites during the Public Input.

Development Items.

9.  A RS-1 to RT-2 (Single Family Home to a Duplex)

Eye on Conventions

First one up for this Council but how many have been approved but have not occurred yet?

11.  2012 Building SustainAble Communities Conference

Other Spending

13 Free lifetime Rec passes for Rec Commission members who serve for 6 years.

The Meeting starts at 6pm at City Hall.

So it starts...

Tonight was the inaugural of the new Council and the Mayor's speech.

Bookham vs Mussatto Round One

Actually a week before even they were sworn in for the new term Bookham interrupted the Mayor's speech on a coach house approval saying that Mussatto lied when quoting the details of the coach house policy. 

Is this a sign of what is to come?

Results of Election 2011

Next year's Council will be Mayor Mussatto, Councilors Bookham, Clark, Heywood and Keating.  New Councillors Don Bell and Linda Buchanan join them.

The bottom line is that Linda has replaced Mary and Don has replaced Bob Fearnley and the difference between the two is the big change on Council.  It is a 4-3 council but a look at Don's platform makes me think that the day of flip-flops is over.

In the next election, I predict that Rod Clark will make his last try for Mayor and his slippage to 4th was mostly votes he threw away with his flip-flop on duplexes with secondary suites. LEARN THE FEARNLEY LESSON.

A few at City Hall tonight were planning for a byelection in June 2013 to replace Craig but it is very doubtful Naomi will lose.  If so we'll be facing an NDP provincial govt and we'll all be too worried about a bad economy turning into a disaster.

A midterm byelection would be very tough with eight or so people all jumping into a race that is much like a Mayor's race and Cheryl Leia would be ready to run and being one out this time would be very likely to win.  For all those who didn't run for Mayor with three guys dividing the same vote, a byelection would be far worse.   Of course, I'd run but knowing the odds.

Council Wraps up

The last day of the 2008 - 2011 Council is on 28 November 2011, nine days after the election.  Six of seven members are trying to return with only Mary Trentadue stepping down after one term.

So it is report card time:

B-  Mayor Darrell Mussatto, a lot of dedication and hard work, unfortunately much of the effort is spent taking us the wrong way.

B Craig Keating same as Darrell but a little more for being the one who runs an NDP slate in an area that votes against NDPers.

C+ Mary Trentadue maybe I'm being kind since she often just parroted Craig but I saw a developing Barb Perrault in the heritage sense. Maybe she will come back older and wiser.

A Pam Bookham  The best member of Council we have. An anti-change tendency stops her from getting a A+.

B+ Rod Clark would have been higher but his flip flopping on secondary suites in duplexes dropped him.   Rod has to learn to be focused on principles not the next election. Catering to people who don't vote for you and pissing off those who support you never works in elections anyway.

A- Guy Heywood  Despite a tendency to forget he is a Councilor now rather the Chair of Rec Commission, Guy has done very good work for a first term member.   Perhaps a future Mayor?

D-   Bob Fearnley I wanted to put a F for his many years of convention attendance and making sure Council was aware of every convention so he could attend but every once in a while he does protect North Van from excessive development.