Are you excited, well probably not as much as I and inside baseball players. This week I want to put a few articles out leading to one prediction one on the 15th, exactly a year to election day.
First, the issue of the Translink referendum is probably the biggest game changer in this generation. In the City last time, 6828 people voted of 33415 voters, 21.2%. I bet 10,000 will vote next time, maybe more depending on the how the question is written. The provincial turnout was over 60% but defending ourselves against the NDP drove the increase there.
Mayor Watts of Surrey and Councillor Meggs of Vancouver want it to be non-binding vote. The Los Angeles example that it will probably be modeled after was binding but the question was announced 3 years prior to the referendum. They implemented a .5% increase to the sales tax, here probably restricted to the Metro Vancouver. We just got rid of the increase in HST, would we approve this increase?
It is likely to be binding so the Provincial Government can't take blame for the increase. The Mayors Council and Metro oppose the whole idea of a referendum as they have floating a trial balloon of increasing the sales tax which would go to Metro and municipal governments.
When we see a question we figure all that out but if we on the North Shore will probably be asked to fund a Skytrain to UBC and Skytrains or an LRT on the other side of Vancouver. If hear about a third Seabus again, they lost my vote after they put one in place but took it away after the Olympics was finished. I don't trust the fatcats of Translink and I don't think I'm alone in this.
Right now I'm more interested in how a dramatic turnout increase will affect our election. Will the amount of tax hating No voters change the makeup of the CNV and DNV councils. Will the amount of transit users voting for more money to the system change the makeup in that way? Will the increased turnout help or hurt the chances of Unite North Van?
Who knows now or maybe the votes are counted.
No comments:
Post a Comment