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Vancouver election time: $50,000 dinners, $25,000 lunches, candidates coming and going + more

April 8th, 2014 · 397 Comments

Tried to wrap up all various things going on election-wise with the two big parties these days, which is a fair amount. This is all I could cram in to my Globe story.

But to sum up what’s in there, plus more:

– NPA fundraiser/gala May 7, where they will announce some candidates. Apparently no nomination meeting? The party’s green-light committee is going through applicants now (who apparently have to pay a $2,000 fee for the privilege). Although the NPA spokesperson said there might still be a nominating meeting, hard to see how that could get organized and put on in the next 30 days. And wouldn’t there need to be a membership cut-off, etc?

– NPA charging $3,500 a table for regular folks, and 20, 30 or $50,000 for those who want to be bigger sponsors/partners or whatever

– No word yet on Vision major fundraiser, but as Sam Cooper reported in the Province a while ago, Bob Rennie organized a $25,000-a-plate lunch with the mayor for developers in February.

– Vision is losing four of its five park-board commissioners. It’s a rough job that pays $8,000 for a whole lot of grief these days. Trevor Loke is staying, I think. Niki Sharma is going to make a run for council. Sarah Blyth, Aaron Jasper, and Constance Barnes are all moving on. I hear from various sources that they weren’t too happy about Niki Sharma being the one anointed to move on up to council, but none of them will confirm that. Blyth says she’s going to focus on family and volunteering; Jasper says he’s going to focus on his two kids under three and community work; and Barnes has something to announce soon, but I’ll let her do that on her own schedule.

– Besides Sharma, lawyer/community activist Catherine Evans is also planning to run for a council opening.

– Vision will hold a meeting May 4 to get members to do a “review vote” of incumbents, give them the green light to go ahead (or, in an unlikely scenario, not). Sometime between then and June 14, Vision will decide how many candidates it will run. (It only ran seven last time for the 10-member council under its agreement with COPE.) June 14 will be the run-off for any opened-up spots.

– I’m hearing lots of buzz about various possible NPA candidates. I don’t have time to call everyone up and get the runaround, so here are the names I’m hearing.

Please feel free to deny or add more: Melissa DeGenova and John Coupar moving up from park board to council; Colleen (Nystedt) Hardwick Ithough she was also at the recent TEAM gathering so …) ; Rob McDowell, who has been an NPA pundit on CBC; Jonathan Baker’s son Greg; Bob Kastings, the lawyer who fought the Haddon Park issue (though he was also at the TEAM event); Kits Chamber of Commerce president Cheryl Ziola (this might be really off, based only on her recent anti-Point Grey bike lane public statements).  You’d think the NPA would be tapping into some of the disgruntled neighbourhood groups, but haven’t heard anything about candidates coming from there. Mike Andruff, who’s been active in Dunbar, is sticking to his campaign for fair voting and won’t run.

Current names still circulating for NPA mayor: NPA president/business guy Peter Armstrong; NPA vice-president/developer Rob Macdonald; former NPA park-board commissioner Ian Robertson; and current NPA councillor George Affleck.

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