All Candidates Meeting

Yesterday evening there was an all candidates meeting hosted by the Fernwood Community Association. We were there collecting pamphlets (and rolls of toilet paper from Rimas) and, you know, taking notes on all the candidates.
Everyone had 5 minutes to speak about whatever they wanted - themselves, the issues, anything at all and then the floor would be opened to questions. Most candidates gave a brief introduction about themselves including their backgrounds (personal and otherwise) and what they felt they could bring to the table.
A few topics were discussed and pretty much everyone had something to say!

Regarding the blue bridge, Steve Filipovic has started that the bridge can be refurbished for (please correct me if this is wrong) $8M. as opposed to the amount stated by the city. Apparently there was a report published in 2008 (again, this may be wrong. Sorry!) with the $8 million dollar price tag for fixing the bridge. This report has now gone missing, but Steve says that an e-mail that is relevant will be published in Focus magazine. Rose Henry, Saul Anderson, and Barry Hobbis pointed out the fact that we can hardly afford to pay for a shiny new bridge when we can't afford to help the homeless in the city. Rose made the point that we will all be paying for the bridge to be replaced or refurbished, it's really just a question of where the money will come from. Either from an increase in taxes, or cuts to jobs, social programs, and affordable housing. Barry feels that we should maybe look at spending more money on things like roads, our out of date pipes, and infrastructure. Saul sees the city as a metropolitan city with a small town budget which would force the taxpayers to bear the brunt of the bridge costs.

The possibility of closing off part of the downtown (specifically the touristy part of Government Street) car to vehicles came up as an audience question. Hugh Kruzel would be totally for it as he is concerned by the growing amount of boarded up, valdalized windows, and businesses fleeing the downtown core. This would be a way of making the area more interesting for tourists as well as being one way that the city could go green. Marianne Alto didn't have a definite answer. She feels there should be discussion with the local business owners first to discuss the pros and cons before making any rash decisions.

Amalgamation; What's up with that?
For anyone unfamiliar with the term, Wikipedia defines it as "the joining of two or more administrative units". In terms of Victoria, it would mean combining the municipalities. Chances are this won't happen by the time the next election rolls around, but a few of the candidates had some words to say on the matter.
Paul Brown is against the idea because he hasn't seen much in the way of financial cooperation from other municipalities. Other municipalities should be willing to come to the table with financial help with our projects if we're willing to help fund theirs. The whole idea may be just a dream.
George Sirk is also against amagamation but for a different reason. He feels that our neighbourhoods (James Bay, Fernwood, Fairfield) may lose their identities. It's important that all the areas of town are different, and have been allowed to grow in independence. We may receive no representation in a larger group.
Susan Woods, however, feels that it may be possible is approached sensibly in a cohesive manner. We should look into combining areas that already have much in common, such as combining the downtown core, Esquimalt, Vic West, and Saanich into one municipality. The same goes for the Western Communities (Langford, Colwood, Metchosin, Sooke) and the Peninsula (Sidney, Broadmead). Our individuality wouldn't be lost, it would just cut down on the bureaucracy.

Neighbourhood associations?
Pedro Mora thinks that everyone should be involved. EVERYONE. Everyone should have a voice in the city whether or not they belong to a neighbourhood association. People should be involed in all the decision making that pertains to the city. Citizens should be able to fire representatives if they stop truly representing the people.
And finally, Rimas Tumasonis believes that the best way to be involved in the community is to just... Be involved. Pick up litter when you see it, help a neighbour when he's in trouble. Rimas wanted to become a citizen so he could vote and get involved.

So... This is actually more of a summary of what went on. As I mentioned, everyone had a lot to say about pretty much everything. For more information on the candidates, we urge people to go to all candidates meetings to hear them discuss important issues. And ask questions!
As a final note, I ended up writing 'amalgamation', 'homelessness', and 'infrastructure' many times. If I've written anything wrong please let us know. We're not trying to be biased for or against anyone. Any mistakes are simply mistakes and we'll be happy to correct them.

Posted in: Candidates,Election