In case other readers haven’t spotted it, there’s a fascinating and thoughtful (well, mostly) discussion going on in the comments section under my post from Sunday about Kashmir Dhaliwal’s defeat. To understand the complexities of race, party and civic politics in Vancouver, go read the back and forth

City staff hadn’t even finished counting the votes when I heard people wondering whether the Coalition of Progressive Electors, that longstanding traditional left party that Vision split away from, was now going to become the official opposition at city hall. That’s because Vision has enough councillors to carry any vote at city hall, so COPE is free to disagree as it wishes.

There were also questions about how long it would be before its representatives started making motions about weapons in space and other non-civic issues that gained them some public notoriety in their last administration.

Here’s what David Cadman had to say about where COPE is going:

“This is a very clear signal that if progressive forces work together, they can win. It worked for everybody. Both Ellen and I are going to be true to our base, but I really hope we’ll have the kind of respect from Gregor that we didn’t have from Sam, that he’ll talk to each one of us about what we want to accomplish and make that possible. That’s the way I always remembered council.”

He’s already contacted Gregor with ideas he has on shelter space that might be available in Vancouver quickly for homeless people.

Some of the ideas they’ll be driving forward:

- a free bus. “During the Olympics, there is going to be a push for a free bus to get people around so I think we could set that up before then.”

- sustainability measures. The Olympic athletes village has a district heating plan that extracts heat from the sewers. Cadman would like to see Vancouver do something innovative on the green front by creating district-heat systems for other neighbourhoods.

- taxes. Cadman remains opposed to a shifting of taxes from business to residential, something that the Vision group has said it will support.

“I don’t think we’re going to shy away from being who we are,” said Cadman. “But I don’t want a position that says Vision majority and COPE opposition. I hope we can come together and say this is a good idea and that’s a good idea. That’s my real hope for this council. People don’t want a stand-off.”

Here’s hoping to sweetness and light. Wouldn’t that be weird.

My latest column in Vancouver magazine looks at the way cities around the world are trying to reproduce Vancouver — some of them right down to the street names and hand railings, others in a more nuanced way.

Pete Quily did this fascinating analysis of how well Peter Ladner and Gregor Robertson campaigns did in using social media. You can read about it here. I’m supposed to be giving a talk on YouTube politics next week, which will be easy because it was so noticeable how much more people were using YouTube, Facebook, twitter and the rest.

These tools are so prevalent now that, in the journalism course I teach, I have an assignment that specifically requires my students to know how to search social media to get information about people in the news.

This just in from the emails at city hall, messages from both city manager Judy Rogers and Estelle Lo about the chief financial officer’s resignation.

Sent: Mon Nov 17 09:13:33 2008
Subject: Resignation

Dear Mayor and Council

I would like to thank you for the confidence and support you had given me over the years. I have enjoyed working with you over the past ten years, and appreciate the many long hours and strong leadership you have all contributed. I will miss your smiling faces, the challenges, the exciting projects and will continue to watch Vancouver’s continuing growth.

I wish you all well in your endeavors.

Sincerely,

Estelle Lo

:

From: Rogers, Judy
To: Sullivan, Sam; Anton, Suzanne; Ball, Elizabeth; Cadman, David; Capri, Kim; Chow, George; Deal, Heather; Ladner, Peter; Lee, B.C.; Louie, Raymond; Stevenson, Tim
Cc: Hurford, David; Andrews, Jody; Bayne, Ken; Chu, Jim; Connell, Francie; Holdgate, Ray; McLellan, David; Mundick, Susan; Ramsay, Kevin; Ridge, James; Rudberg, Dave; Timm, Tom; Whitney, Paul (VPL); Coulson, Marg; Best, Laurie; Young, Jennifer; Fast, Roger; Hui, Tony; Kay, Monica; CMT Admin Assts - DL; Thomas, Robin; Imai, Charlene; Fry, Pat
Sent: Mon Nov 17 09:06:07 2008
Subject: Resignation

After approximately ten years as the City’s General Manager of Finance, Estelle Lo has decided to tender her resignation.  She has guided the City through significant changes, and we thank her for her dedicated service to the City.

We wish her the very best in her future endeavours.

Until Ms. Lo’s position is permanently filled, James Ridge will be providing oversight of the department.

Judy Rogers
City Manager
City of Vancouver

Many many Vision people, in the midst of celebrating last night, were talking about how disappointing it was  for them that the only one of their council candidates not to be elected was Ross Temple president Kashmir Dhaliwal.

Andrea Reimer called it a “heartache” that is a sign of a submerged problem in city politics. Mike Magee said the inability of Vancouver voters to elect someone who is a leader in his community is a sign that something is amiss in the political culture. And others just expressed general regret, saying that Kashmir had worked incredibly hard for all of them.

Kashmir, by the way, came in 11th, about 1,020 votes behind Ellen Woodsworth. Although he did better than any other Indo-Canadian council candidate in recent history, it still wasn’t enough to get him onto council. (On a cheerier note, Raj Hundal, on the park-board slate, did get elected)

Kashmir’s campaign manager, Jonathan Ross, posted this message in the comments section, but I’m putting it up here to make sure people see it.

Just got home at 3 a.m. because I’m a quitter, leaving many Visionistas behind me either dancing up a storm or analyzing the intricacies of the Olympic athletes’ village project, down at the Shark Club.

(Yes, that’s where this bunch of alleged lefties repaired to after dancing til midnight at the Hotel Vancouver.)

I’m not going to presume to try to wrap up the night. I’m thinking anyone who reads this blog knows already that Vision had a huge sweep, with the result that only the NPA’s Suzanne Anton has survived on council.

In what was really the subtext of the night, I did hear one survivor of the last, fractious COPE regime say that she’s thinking of having T-shirts made that say “This time, let’s not f… it up.”

We’ll hear all about those efforts to not f… it up later.

In the meantime, it was quite the night at the Vision parties in their two locations. The celebrations managed to attract some notable visitors: the famous Faye Leung, complete with fabulous hat; Canucks owner/developer/multi-business owner Francesco Aquilini and one of this brothers; and NPA candidate Michael Geller and his daughter Claire. Michael made a tour of the room, making a point of shaking hands with the guys from the Vancouver firefighters union, who made him the only NPA candidate they endorsed.

And now the work starts.

While people were wringing their hands over potentially mediocre voter turnout, Vancouver’s downtown was packed tonight!

I had to drive downtown to get to CKNW for our two-hour show, where I’m now sitting with the full team of pundits and reporters. The streets were filled with people leaving the hockey game and it felt like a real city.

So there’s my suggestion for the next election — put up voting booths at the hockey game.

To get straight to the CTV election results site, click here.

I talked to a couple of people from both campaigns mid-morning and this is what they had to say.

Vision will win. Early this morning, the NPA was hoping to hang on to at least two council seats — Suzanne Anton the likeliest survivor, Kim Capri and Michael Geller shortly behind. “I’d be ecstatic if we got three,” said one person this morning.

With the news of turnout not being as high as people expected, they’re now hoping for three, maybe four. But that’s still uncertain. Both sides are currently blasting their supporters with emails telling them to get out and vote because turnout is low.

Both sides said their polling told me that there was a 20-point spread between the two mayoral candidates, Peter Ladner and Gregor Robertson.

The only other uncertainty, besides the number of councillors that Vision will have, is whether people who voted Vision also voted COPE, in a straight slate, or if those Vision voters will throw some votes to NPA councillors.

I have heard that MANY federal Liberals were planning to vote Vision, according to NPA information, so it may turn out that they’ll be inclined to send their spare votes to a few NPA councillors rather than Vision ones.

The same uncertainty extends to school board and park board — the Vision voters are committed to Vision, but it’s not clear whether they will vote for the COPE part of the slate.

So the prediction I made on CBC, a 7-4 Vision council, may turn out to be close after all — in spite of my famous ability to be wrong.