Who has unofficially declared for Council to date?

Unofficially as one is not an official candidate until nomination papers are accepted by the City's Chief Electoral Officer and they won't be ready for pickup until the 2nd of September.  Unless a potential candidate has made a personal statement stating he or she is intending to run or put up a website stating this, I do not consider them even an unofficial candidate.

Mayor
Morris, Kerry
Pringle, George (Amalgamate North Van) 

Councillor (6 to be elected)
Bell, Bill
Bell, Dorothy
Bookham, Pam
Clark, Matt
Heilman, Joe
Valente, Tony
Sostad, Ron
Although not even officially declared, seriously likely candidates are

Mayor
Mussatto, Darrel

Councillor
Back, Holly
Bell, Don
Buchanan, Linda
Clark, Rod
Foder, Elizabeth
Keating, Craig
Nichol, Amanda

100 Days until the Election!

Although it's 33 days until the nomination packages are due at 4:30 on October 10, it's already over.  Our new Council for 2015 - 2018 will be.

Mayor George Pringle - oops I think I spelled Darrell Mussatto wrong so I'll start again

Mayor Darrell Mussatto

He will be joined by:

Councillor Don Bell (free of the VOICES in his ear for what could be his last term)

Councillor Dorothy Bell (first term proving she is the brains behind the op)

Councillor Bill Bell (for his fifth term interrupted by his exile to Mexico)

Councilor Linda Buchanan (for her third term on School Board)

Councillor Craig Keating (head of the Coalition of BC NDP municipal Councillors)

Councillor Rod Clark (who is again announcing he will be the VOICES candidate for Mayor in 2018)

A lot of sound and fury will be expended to change very little, mostly from the campaign of former energy consultant and now former Mayoral candidate Kerry Morris who managed not to arrested again when he consistently lost his ever absent cool at every town hall and candidates meeting.

The new four year term will mean an extra year prior to the election year where Council can attempt try to take their eyes off the countdown clock of their term of office and the next election. 

The Harper & Tory hating Councillors will expend massive energy in  trying to return Canada to being a socialist paradise whether it be orange or red to no actual effect, a few more Liberal seats but still a Harper government and NDP official opposition.  Trudeau will take a walk in the snow and get lost and the Liberals won't bother to organize a search party.

The Provincial Government's municipal campaign reform will come in and it won't affect anything but Vancouver where all the problems are anyway despite the efforts of the VOICES political party to turn this into an election issue in North Vancouver.  There will be an spending cap with a set amount and an amount per voter.  In our City, let's say it is $20,000 plus a dollar voter for Mayoral candidates and $7,500 and a dollar per voter for Councillor candidates.  No candidate has ever exceeded that level of a spending cap as no one tries to spend their way to a Council seat such as Rob MacDonald's $780,000 donation to the NPA last time just prior to their nomination in 2011 which didn't even result in him being a failed candidate.

Union activist and Rod Clark protege Amanda Nichol will be back for her third strike in 2018 after her platform of increasing CUPE 389 jobs in the Rec Commission fails.  Rod Clark's plan of giving her his Council seat as he ascended to the Mayor's Chair before intemperate anti-Semite comments he made during a public Council meeting surfaced.  (Good thing the media didn't catch the comments Rod Clark made about Mexicans that some may consider racist).  If Amanda changes her name to Bell and actually is elected, she can thank Rod Clark for helping her evict him to the Sharp/Schechter/Fearnley club.

There will an election for a seven person Council, not nine

Let's go back to the beginning, about 4 years ago while I was a member of Task Force for Civic Engagement, we asked for a staff report on the issue of whether the City had to increase the size of it's Council to nine when it passes the 50,000 population mark.  When a new Provincial Law ordering this came into force in 2004, they included a provision that if a municipality wanted to keep their old size to hold a referendum to authorize this. So the District was over that level and would of had to elect a 9 member Council in the election of 2008.  With its Mayor, Don Bell being elected a MP, they had to hold a byelection so during the byelection they did so.  Overwhelming, the voters voted against the extra Councillors and expenses associated with them.

Frankly, the Task Force was just looking for a way to increase voter turnout and if eventually the City would have had to hold a referendum anyway, why not now?  The City voters would overwhelmingly vote against the extra Councillors as well.  The Task Force decided not to recommend this.

A year later, when I ran for Mayor, I noticed BC Stats report that the City population had increased to over 52,000 and tried to drop this as a bomb at the Mayor's Candidates' Meeting.   I presented this as an unintended consequence of rapid development and was given the excuse that the population was only officially calculated according the Census which didn't jive with the Law.

The new Council pursued the issue prompted by Councillor Clark, the result was that further research revealed another reason why the size of was to stay at 7 despite the population of the City.  The Letter Patent says so.  The what? Think of it as the founding document of the City which the Lieutenant Governor of BC has to issue to create any municipality in BC.  It is full of outdated material, I looked for provision that said the City had to deliver 10 cows to the Mayor every New Years day.  It doesn't but it does say:

  "The Council shall consist of a Mayor and six Aldermen, and the whole number present at each meeting thereof shall not he less than four."

Recently, Council Watcher John Harvey restarted this argument since by the Census numbers the City is over 50,000 and by their own numbers, the city has no choice now the Provincial Law orders it.  So they are repeating the mistake made in that staff report in which I used to make a mistaken interpretation. As of Monday the 23rd of June, John was still promoting his mistake. Let's see the actual Law: 

"Size of council
118  (1) Unless otherwise provided by letters patent or by a bylaw under this section, the council size for municipalities must be as follows:
  
(a) for a city or district having a population of more than 50 000, the council is to consist of  a mayor and 8 councillors;
  
(b) for a city or district having a population of 50 000 or less, the council is to consist of a mayor and 6 councillors;

(c) for a town or village, the council is to consist of a mayor and 4 councillors.
        
(2) For the purposes of this section, any change to a council size under subsection (1) is to be based on the population of the municipality as at January 1 in a general local election year and the change takes effect for the purposes of that election.

(3) A council may, by bylaw, establish the number of council members as a mayor and 4, 6, 8 or 10 councillors.

(4) If a bylaw under subsection (3) would

(a) reduce the number of council members, or

(b) maintain the current number of council members, despite an 

increase that would otherwise result under subsection (2),
it may only be adopted if it receives the assent of the electors.

(5) A bylaw under subsection (3)
(a) must be made at least 6 months before the next general local election, and
(b) does not become effective until that general local election.
(6) The size of council as established under subsection (3) applies despite any provision of a municipality's letters patent."

Sorry to all those who have not worked as a Legislative Assistant like me but subsection (1) says it very clearly "Unless otherwise provided by letters patent" which I quoted above. If you have any question as to whether the statement which follows "or by a bylaw under this section" applies, it refers to subsection (3) which has never been passed by (or even discussed) by Council.  

Council could and could have at any time passed a bylaw to have a Council of 5, 9 or even 11 members.  Of course, one of the anti-amalgamation crowd have argued that one NVan would have a Council of 9 rather than 2 Councils of 7 would be a hideous reduction of citizen access to Councillors. Well, they could have increased their number at any time, adding up to 4 Councillors if the anti-amalgamation Council really thought that paying for more Councillors was a "social good".  

Apparently, as in the case of most anti-amalgamation arguments they don't really believe in the point of the argument, they'll say anything if it is true or not.

VOICES divides into at least two warring camps

http://www.nsnews.com/news/moodyville-residents-push-for-density-1.1114761

It seems that all the early work done to recruit candidates has gone to waste for it looks like Michelle Binkley  be running with the Mayor's not legally registered Electoral Group instead of the VOICES not legally registered Electoral Group.

Michelle had nominated CUPE 389 candidate Amanda Nichol in her 2011 run to put a CUPE 389 employee directly on the Council but in 2013 had also endorsed Craig Keating for NDP in the Provincial election. It seems that that tie won out as rumoured by Mayoral candidate Kerry Morris, Michelle is going to run with Craig Keating's NDP candidates in the upcoming municipal election. All Amanda's work for VOICES going to waste.  It seems that a hard core anti-development VOICES' attack on the residents request that the OCP's allowed density be increased in their area has caused this divide among these two left wing groups.

I think we've seen the last of VOICES Councillors and Mayor Mussatto's NDP not legally registered electoral group group may have the majority he has been dreaming of.  Their pretense of a claim to Don Bell as one of their candidates fell apart with Don's vote for the Onni Towers.

Since VOICES does not intend to legally register with Elections BC perhaps I will do so and run for Mayor.  All it takes is 50 names on the list.  

Pringle, George  NVan City VOICES is how the ballot could read.  Hmmm...

I won't be running for Council

As a campaign manager I've said to Council wannabes in a few cities that you have to door to door knock if  you want a chance of winning. When I ran for Mayor last time I was out knocking for a day and was unable to walk for a few days. Two and a half years later, it was obvious to me that any door to door campaigning was impossible for me. I've been fighting Vet's Canada declaring me "incapacitated." I tried to think I could think around my disabilities but the increasing amount of pain I was dealing with was proving to be too much.

As a disabled military vet forced into early retirement by my disability, I live on a small fixed income which at least has grown with the Tory Govt's Veteran's Charter. Enough that depriving myself a few things I could have had about a $6000 campaign budget. But as I was advance ordering some North Shore News ads to to the first to buy some really good placements in November, the act of having to take the first $1500 out of my wallet caused me my Scottish blood to rebel and rethink my actions.  It took a few days tossing it around in my mind to come to the logical conclusion. There's no point in running.  I wrote to one old political friend that "I'm think I'll see 60 years of age but I doubt I'll see 70".  I have no time for a multi-election strategy and without a big lottery win, I won't have the spending required to win in 2014. 

Also I what I wanted to say in this blog and say to voters on the street was going to be inhibited by becoming a candidate and with my strength as a researcher of boring bureaucracy and government acts and regulations, I have a few things to reveal.  I have some things to say about the illegal activities of VOICES.

So I will continue as an Unite North Van board member and they will decide UNV's future but not become a candidate next fall.