Congratulations to all those who won nomination and thanks to every candidate who stood for nomination. Public service as an elected official is a much and unfairly maligned duty that few citizens are willing to take on - the fact that such an impressive field of candidates offered themselves to Vision voters is a good sign for politics in Vancouver - and the November city election.
I would also like to thank everyone who contacted me or commented positively on my recommendations for Vision candidates for council, school and park board. It appears this morning that 14 of the 16 candidates I supported have won nomination.
Lastly, I especially am pleased to see that Sharon Gregson has been nominated to run for Vision on the Vancouver School Board, where she was the party's only incumbent trustee. It shows that her hard work, dedication to kids and parents and expertise in both education and child care issues were more important to Vision members than unfortunate controversy about her personal hobby.
Here are the results:
City council - 8 to nominate
George Chow, Heather Deal, Raymond Louie, Tim Stevenson, Kerry Jang, Geoff Meggs, Andrea Reimer, and Kashmir Dhaliwal
[Note - Just 17 votes separated Kashmir Dhaliwal and David Eby for the eighth spot on council.]
School Board - 4 to nominate
Sharon Gregson, Patti Bacchus, Kenneth Clement, and Mike Lombardi.
[Note - Ken Clement took the fourth spot by eight votes over Stepan Vdovine in fifth place.]
Park Board - 4 to nominate
Constance Barnes, Aaron Jasper, Sarah Blyth, and Raj Hundal.
Raw results from Vision Vancouver in alphabetical order
City Council Results - Top eight are candidates are candidates in November
Adams Kolber Vaune 1031
Bencze Doug 724
Chow George 3248
Deal Heather 3704
Dewberry Andrew 762
Dhaliwal Kashmir 2240
Douzenis Demitri 1094
Eby David 2223
Evans Catherine 1717
Harrison Heather 2034
Jang Kerry 2387
Lam Ray 1127
Louie Raymond 3746
Meggs Geoff 2851
Reimer Andrea 2988
Stevenson Tim 3271
Umlas Rey 1217
School Board Results - Top four are candidates in November
Bacchus Patti 2053
Chhina Narinder 1881
Clement Kenneth 1962
Gregson Sharon E. 2969
Lombardi Mike 2177
Luke Helesia 1846
Mirras Anastasia 1574
Vdovine Stepan 1954
Park Board Results - Top four are candidates in November
Barnes Constance 2242
Blyth Sarah 2602
Ditmars Hadani 834
Gill James 1261
Hundal Raj 1963
Jasper Aaron 1999
Kosovic Tony 1453
Lockhart Thomas 389
Neilson Kevin 788
Tannock Steven 368
Waddell Ian 1738
Wynen Rob 983
UPDATE September 23, 2008
The Vision Vancouver recount of ballots has confirmed the original results from Saturday night.
Here is Vision Vancouver's news release of this morning:
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
VISION TEAM IN PLACE WITH NOMINATION RECOUNT COMPLETE
(VANCOUVER) Vision Vancouver announced the results of their nomination recount today, with Ross Street Temple President Kashmir Dhaliwal winning a council spot, and community activist Ken Clement securing a place on the Vision school board slate. The recount took place Monday night.
"I'm thrilled with the talent of the Vision team," said Vision Mayoral candidate Gregor Robertson. "Kashmir and Ken bring the skills that we need in civic government: community leadership, a commitment to inclusivity, and a desire to focus on issues, not partisan politics. It's great to have them on board, and with our team in place, I'm looking forward to the election in November."
"The Vision team is diverse, talented, and experienced, and stands in sharp contrast to the NPA's handpicked slate," said Vision Vancouver co-chair Mike Magee. "The excitement and energy from our nomination race demonstrated just how much momentum Vision has. The fact that the nomination races were close enough to warrant two recounts reflects that."
Both Kashmir Dhaliwal and Ken Clement reiterated the need for community engagement and a culture of inclusivity in civic government.
"I'm excited to be working with Gregor Robertson and Vision to help bring inclusive leadership back to City Hall," said Dhaliwal. "For too long, the NPA have ignored different communities around the city - and it's time for that to change. Gregor shares my commitment to building bridges with different communities, and that's why it's so important that he becomes Mayor."
"When it comes to respecting cultural diversity - a critical issue in our schools and at City Hall - Gregor gets it," said Clement. "It's reflected in the balanced team Vision has. I'm proud to be working with Gregor and excited about the positive, progressive choice we'll be offering to Vancouver voters in November."
David Eby, who finished 9th in the recount for council, congratulated Kashmir on the campaign.
"I'd like to extend warm congratulations to Kashmir on a hard-fought nomination," said Eby. "I've got a lot of respect for the work that he's done, and he's a big asset to the Vision team. They are well-placed to take back City Hall, and get down to work on the most urgent issues in our city: homelessness and affordable housing. Gregor and the Vision team have my full support."
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14 comments:
I hope David Eby wins on a recount. If not he should run as an independent.
I agree with Chris! Eby had/has my vote.
I note with interest the number of voters and then notice that the NPa could only come up with less than 400 total. Way to go Vision and we who don't live in the city anymore are a bit envious that we couldn;t add our names. We hope Gregor and his team has great success in the election
"...more important to Vision members than unfortunate controversy about her personal hobby."
Are you kidding? The controversy was from her advocacy to legalize concealed weapons. She is a sitting duck if the NPA decides.
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/voices/story.html?id=d9dba7a3-54fd-41bc-bed4-3d1564446597
If the NDP has any brains at all, they will try to get Heather Harrison to run in Quadra against Deborah "the lazy prioncess" Meredith and Joyce "the wicked queen" Murray. That way when wicked queen Joyce looks into he magic mirror and says"
"Mirror, Mirror on the wall
who is the fairest candidate of all?"
The magic mirror can reply,
"Oh wicked queen,
who shifts to green,
Heather Harrison is the fairest
candidate Quadra has ever seen!"
Here's hoping the mental dwarves in the NDP have enough sense to recognize Heather "Snow Weiss" Harrison as their best bet in Vancouver Quadra!
DRAFT HEATHER FOR QUADRA!
WTF?
But I also echo the comments about David Eby.
Time to get the wallet out, again!
my vision for Vision is the Civil War starts within twenty-fours of election day.
With so wide a collection of "isms" in one party and the almost assured malice that Senator Marissen and his LPC/BC Copperheads will bring to Vision, the next three years of council will require a UN Peacekeeping Force just to workout the seating arrangements in the nearest Starbucks.
The GREAT SATAN
I sympathize with the supporters of David Eby and Heather Harrison. Were it not for that stupid agreement Vision entered into with Cope, both Eby and Harrison would be city council candidates for Vision. Also if Kashmir Dhaliwal hadn't brought out about a 1000 Indo-Canadian supporters to back his Reimer/Meggs/Jang slate, Eby and Harrison would have finished in 5th and 6th place respectively.
Gregson isn't an incumbent Vision trustee. She is an incumbent COPE trustee who moved to Vision at the last minute.Why not run for COPE again now the 2 parties are behaving as one? COPE has 5 trustee slots and Gregson should be one of them.
I'm really sorry Eby didn't make it too, but am really bothered by the comment posted by Anon at 8:50
"Also if Kashmir Dhaliwal hadn't brought out about a 1000 Indo-Canadian supporters to back his Reimer/Meggs/Jang slate, Eby and Harrison would have finished in 5th and 6th place respectively."
Your comment implies that Indo-Canadian votes aren't real votes or are second-class votes - it's an ignorant and offensive suggestion. Vision can't serve Vancouver if it doesn't reflect the full diversity of Vancouver. We need them all (and yes, we can do that and leave room for COPE too). This "them-vs-us" attitude really sucks and will get us nowhere but self-destruction!
AnonAbove--
I, for one, am fully supportive of fact that Mr. Dhaliwal brought out so many supporters.
After all, is that not part of the big tent?
(although I would agree that the slating thing was problematic)
RossK
.
I don't blame Kashmir Dhaliwal for bringing his supporters out. Nor do I blame him for entering into a slate agreement with other candidates. The "vote for no less than 8 candidates or your ballot is spoiled" system Vision decided on gave him no choice but to run as part of a slate. This system works against any voter who comes out to vote for a single candidate in that the votes they cast for other candidates they don't care about may give those candidates higher totals than the candidate they have come to support. Why Vision came up with this silly system is beyond me. It makes no sense unless they were purposely out to exclude someone.
Earlier today COPE held its nomination meeting. After 3 ballots, David Cadman and Ellen Woodsworth were nominated as COPE's candidates for city council. The reason why it took 3 ballots was because COPE adopted
an election rule which said in order to be nominated, a candidate must receive 50% + 1 votes of all ballots cast. On the first ballot there were 322 ballots cast. Cadman received 161 votes, Tim Louis received 157 votes and Woodsworth received 126 votes. On the 2nd ballot, Cadman won his nomination, Louis support slipped to 141 votes and Woodsworth remained in 3rd place. In the 3rd ballot showdown between Louis and Woodsworth, Woodsworth edged out Louis 137 votes to 131. So thanks to Vision-COPE agreement, Vision has sacrificed two candidates who received over 2000 votes each without being part of a slate, i.e. David Eby and Heather Harrison, in order to make room for two candidates who couldn't even muster 200 suporters,i.e. David Cadman and Ellen Woodsworth. Somewhere in Shaughnessy a group of NPA strategists are laughing!
I sometimes wonder if David Cadman got elected to city council in 2005 because a lot of people confused him with Chuck Cadman, who was in the news a lot around that time.
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