I’ve had a few people post comments about a current court case in New Westminster on unrelated posts on this blog. The City of New West is involved in a case currently before the Supreme Court of B.C. relating to the former owner of the Windsor Hotel’s unsuccessful attempts to relocate a liquor store to 12th St. a few years ago, and the commenters I mention would like us to write about it. (Note: I haven’t approved the comments, as they are off-topic, and also because I am concerned about …

The Vancouver Sun released a Metro Vancouver-wide database that reveals campaign donors for mayors and councillors in the 2008 election. While the information has been available online for some time, obtaining it has been a bit of an ad-hoc affair, with each municipality handling the data differently and often publishing it in PDF form instead of a searchable database. Today, we present New Westminster’s campaign donor information to you in an infographic, courtesy of Matthew Laird, who was a candidate in the 2008 election.

Monday night council meetings are a thing to behold! They are open to the public and while many citizens do attend, the process of a council meeting, which can be long and tedious, is often just a bit to late, or early (or dull) to attend in person. Hey, the city gets that, and for several years the civic goings on of our wise and venerable Mayor & Council have been available on TV on the Shaw community channel. But what happens to those of us in our increasingly fragmented media landscape who do not have access to Shaw’s service?

The HST has been getting a lot of press lately, mostly by those who are making political hay out of scaring misinformed people. Regardless of who said what when, the reality is the federal government will provide B.C. with transitional funding of $1.6 billion that is slated to protect vital health and education services.

Residents of New Westminster who want to learn more about the Initiative to End the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST), get involved, or just sign the petition will get their chance on Saturday April 17, between 10:00 AM and 12:00 noon at Canadian Autoworkers Union Hall at 326 12th Street.

During the 2009 Federal By-Election Campaign in the Coquitlam-New Westminster riding, an opportunity has been provided to all election candidates in the riding to post a brief message to their constituents. This message is from Liberal candidate Ken Beck Lee.

Raise taxes or cut services? Fund policing or parks? Transportation or recreation? There are some pretty tough decisions to be made in the next city budget, and no matter what council decides I’m sure it will be controversial.

By now we’ve all heard gripes about the so-called Hyack Square revitalization project, just recently completed with a replaced overpass grand re-opening this month. ince the grand reopening of Hyack Square, criticism has come on multiple levels. Now that it’s all open, however, it is an evident lack of criticism that concerns me most – lack of criticism of the replacement of a totally inaccessible pedestrian walkway to a now public facility that has no other safe wheelchair or stroller access, as part of the renovation of Hyack Square.

There has been a wave of coverage about New Westminster by Vancouver media, in each case forming judgements about the city’s actions based on little more than a hunch. And frankly, in each case, the issues in New Westminster pale to similar issues in Vancouver itself.

If a New Westminster story is of enough interest to gain regional coverage, then it is also of enough merit for the media outlet to provide the same background checking and balance in coverage that they do for a Vancouver story.

Well this may not be NEW news as I have seen it reported elsewhere but a conversation today with former Conservative Party New Westminster-Coquitlam MP Paul Forseth confirms that he is seeking the nomination of his party for the next-door riding of Burnaby-New Westminster, where he is a resident.
Procedural difficulty barred him from competing for the nomination of his old riding, a contest concluded this past July by the nomination of Diana Dilworth. While some suspected that shrewd moves led to the nomination process there occurring whilst Forseth was overseas …

Dawn Black and Peter Julian stop by the Chai by Night and TenthtotheFraser booth at the 12th Street Festival – check out the hard copy print of our second T2F newsletter Dawn’s holding!

Two contestant meetings have been organized by the Electoral District Association for the Conservative party; all candidate events for the upcoming Conservative Party nomination on July 25th.
The first event will be held between 6:30PM-8:30PM at the Justice Institute Theater, 715 McBride Boulevard, New Westminster. The second event will be Wednesday, July 15th between 6:30PM and 8:30PM in the MacDonald-Cartier Room of the Dogwood Pavilion, 624 Poirier Street, Coquitlam. As previously reported, four candidates are up for the nomination: Diana Dilworth of Port Moody, Mark Lea-McKeown of Coquitlam, Andy …

Canadian Conservative officials from the New West-Coquitlam electoral district association report that four candidates will vie for the Conservative nomination in that riding including:
Lorraine Brett, New Westminster
Diana Dilworth, Port Moody
Mark Lea-McKeown, Coquitlam
Andy Wickey, Coquitlam
The Royal City’s own Lorraine Brett has been a former candidate for city councilor, Queens Park RA chair, long-time Hyack Committiee member and has been involved with a host of community initiatives:

Our region will benefit from a strong voice at the government table, and I want to be that voice. As a communications consultant, I know …

Coquitlam city councillor Fin Donnelly has been named the NDP candidate for the riding of New Westminster-Coquitlam, beating out New West councillor Lorrie Williams and fellow Coquitlam councillor Barry Lynch at a riding association meeting at Glenbrooke Middle School.  Donnelly, a Hyacks swim club record holder, and longtime environmentalist was supported by NDP party leader Jack Layton, who visited the riding to show support for the new candidate in the upcoming by-election (to be called before November, 2009).
Donnelly, a Coquitlam native, has ties to New Westminster through his time as …

I am having a real problem writing this post. I am a white guy and as my ancestors came to New Westminster in 1909. I am one of the very, veeery few New Westminsterites whose oldsters may have actually participated in active or passive discrimination of Chinese Pioneers in this city’s past.
I fully understand my position in this story but as a bleeding heart liberal and as a BC elementary and secondary student whose history education consisted of French Canadians, Aboriginal Canadians, Chinese Canadians and South Asian Canadians to the …

Though her early lead of over 60%  has waned as the night developed, NDP candidate for New Westminster and former Federal NDP MP Dawn Black held a safe lead as the evening wore on.
An experienced politician and opposition defense critic in Ottawa, Dawn Black will now join the Provincial opposition caucus as New Westminster’s voice in Victoria.
With 142 of 148 ballot boxes reporting, BC Election Results in the riding of New Westminster are below.

New Westminster
Dawn Black
BC NDP
10,908
55.96%

Matthew Laird
Green Party of BC
1,780
9.13%

Carole Dorothy Millar
BC Liberal Party
6,804
34.91%

142 of 148 ballot boxes reported
19,492
100%