Municipal Election

For those of you who know me, I am not a big follower of Municipal Politics, but I thought I would give my opinion on the upcoming Municipal Election. I am personally supporting Sam Sullivan for mayor, while undecided on council, school board, and park board. The majority will be from the NPA and I will not vote for anyone running on the COPE slate. I feel that Sam Sullivan has been a strong city councillor as well as his plans are more balanced than that of Jim Green. His positions taken on the past city council have not been the best for making Vancouver a business friendly environment. His strategy on the Downtown Eastside has been too one sided since while harms reduction should be part of the strategy, so should increased policing. In addition, I believe the safe injection site should supply the drugs rather than ask people to bring their own drugs since the drug addicts aren't going to get the money to purchase the drugs without stealing. I am against his idea of reducing the Burrard Bridge to two lanes each way with one for bikes. This would be a nightmare during rush hour, which would clog up not just the Burrard Street Bridge, but also the Granville Street Bridge and Cambie Street Bridge as commuters would move over to them.

For council, school board, and park board, my reason for refusing to elect anyone running under the COPE slate is COPE members have shown themselves to be rigid in ideology and very inflexible, which is not what we need. They also spend a huge amount of time and money dealing with issues that are not within the control of the municipal government such as opposing missile defence shield, stopping the privatization of BC Hydro etc. If they feel so strongly on those issues, then run provincially or federally which is the proper place to deal with those issues. I may consider electing one or two Vision Vancouver members simply to provide some balance since they are more moderate than COPE, but I won't elect all of them as I think an NPA school board, council, and park board is what we need. We also need people who can cooperate with the provincial government to get things done, not always pick fights with them. Since Gordon Campbell has decided to take a cooperative approach with the federal government, this has really benefited BC as opposed to the past when previous governments would pick fights with the feds. I feel the municipal government ought to follow the same strategy.