Preliminary New Westminster election results are in, and the results are not entirely unexpected. As in the 2008 election, there is only one new face on City Council, but unlike last time, voters did opt for change on school board. And despite an energetic campaign by challenger James Crosty, incumbent mayor Wayne Wright won by a landslide.

Public endorsements of candidates are not uncontroversial. Pat Tracy, editor at the Record, has publicly come out against them, and those who do share their endorsements open themselves to criticism for their choices. Those of us on the ‘editorial board’ of Tenth to the Fraser, who do the daily work of writing for the site, soliciting & editing guest posts, approving comments and interacting with readers and Facebook and Twitter, debated whether or not to share our picks for this election, but in the end we decided we must.

Last round of municipal elections I had a four month old baby and while we made it to the polls, I remember vaguely choosing a mayoral candidate, and a few councillors I knew and liked, and that’s it. I didn’t select any school trustees because in my mind, there was no point. My child was a mere four months old and I didn’t think that a school trustee would have an impact on me. At least not until he made it to school, right? And even then we were considering …

In an homage to ‘silly season’ shenanigans, we’re co-sponsoring an upcoming New Westminster all-candidates’ event that will feature a comic along with the candidates. We’ve teamed up again with NEXT New West and New Westminster Environmental Partners to co-host Fun & Politics, an non-traditional, informal all-candidates’ mixer aimed at encouraging younger voters to become more engaged in city politics.

At the first all-candidates meeting for the 2011 civic election in New Westminster, Bob Osterman took me to task for making fun of his ugly election signs.

Given the recent shenanigans in Ottawa, I was disappointed to see the Globe & Mail, the Vancouver Sun and The Province newspapers all endorse Steven Harper’s Conservatives. In New Westminster, the Tenth to the Fraser editorial board endorses the NDP.

For a second month in a row NWEP and Tenth to the Fraser will be teaming up to host a special Election Edition of the popular New Westminster Green Drinks. The event will be held on a special night, Monday May 2nd (election night), from 5:30-late at The Heritage Grill Back Room, New Westminster.

The all-candidates event co-hosted by New Westminster Environmental Partners, NEXT New West and Tenth to the Fraser went swimmingly tonight, with seven out of the eight candidates representing the Conservatives, NDP, Liberals and Greens showing up to mix and mingle with local voters.

Rather than set up a typical all-candidates meeting full of speechifying and, well, politicking, Tenth to the Fraser, N.E.X.T. New West (a networking & social club for young professionals in the city) and New Westminster Environmental Partners have teamed up to organize a special non-partisan Green Drinks – Election Edition meet & greet with candidates. The event will be held on Wednesday, April 20 from 6-9pm at La Rustica, 228 6th Street. All residents are welcome to join us.

Making the decision to run for municipal office, be it council, school board or mayor, is not an easy decision to make. Our elected municipal officials give many hours of their time to do a job that is often not recognized or valued by the public. This is time that is taken away from family relationships. It is often also challenging for a person to juggle a career and their involvement in municipal politics. One has to balance a career and elected office as you can’t survive in this city on a councillor or school trustee’s financial remuneration. These were some of the things I, along with my family, had to consider before we made the decision that I would run for council in 2008.

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.

Image by hessiebell via Flickr

As of 10:15 pm:
With 10 of 148 ballot boxed reporting, BC-STV has earned only 44% of the vote so far. 60% of the provincial popular vote is required for the electoral reform referendum to be passed.
Currently, provincial popular support for BC-STV is about 39%, a blow for BC-STV supporters. Major news outlets have called the defeat of the initiative.

Video is up for last Wednesday’s all-candidates’ meeting, courtesy of David Maidman of Pumpkinhead Productions.
Part one:

Introductions
Regional transportation & the North Fraser Perimeter Road (5:00))
Food security, lower carbon footprint & healthier population (10:02)

New Westminster All-Candidates Meeting, May 6th, 2009 7-9pm from David Maidman on Vimeo.
Part two:

Provincial support for New West waterfront park
Improvements to Royal Columbian hospital (4:06)
Provincial funding for New West schools (8:49)

New Westminster All-Candidates Meeting, May 6th, 2009 7-9pm from David Maidman on Vimeo.

As previously mentioned, Tenth To The Fraser is collaborating with New Westminster Environmental Partners and the BIA to organize New West’s only all-candidates’ meeting this election.
NWEP has asked us to provide them with some questions for the candidates, but we thought we’d turn it over to you, our readers: What would you like to ask Dawn Black, Carole Millar and Matthew Laird before you vote?
Leave a comment with your question, or send us a Tweet @10thtothefraser.
As a reminder, the all-candidates meeting is Wednesday, May 6, 7-9pm at …

Eagerly awaiting the last official results of the 2008 New Westminster civic elections, we are pleased to relay that the judicial recount for the position of school trustee has been completed. In a message this afternoon from New Westminster Deputy Chief Electoral Officer Doris Fassbender, the results were announced:

Following a two day judicial recount at the BC Provincial Court, New Westminster Registry, Judge Her Honour Alexander declared the results for the office of School Trustee for the 2008 General Local Election for the City of New …

Who really won the recent New Westminster 2008 municipal election? Not us, because we are a bunch of chumps that can’t make it to out to stuff a slip of paper into a box. Do we harbour some long hidden fears of elementary school gymnasiums? Terror at the nasty chance of an electoral paper cut?
Our manifest idiocy has not gone unnoticed by the scribbling classes. Even here, at Tenth to the Fraser, we have noted our past 26.2% participation lameness. Now, with renewed evidence of our callous disregard for our …

Now that the dust has settled and the result is no different than last election (Is it just me or does anyone else have deja vu from October?), perhaps there’s no wonder that a proportion of New Westminster’s citizens voted (in a completely non-binding way) to increase the electoral cycle from 3 years to 4 – perhaps this proportion of the population believes that since nothing will change, why go to the expense to have elections so frequently?
I’m sure that in the coming weeks, editors, electors and candidates will toss …

Despite a well-organized campaign by the Voice party to convince voters New Westminster needs profound change, the resounding public response has been a polite, “No thank you.” Unofficial election results show only one new face on council: 12th Street booster, longtime Douglas College Student Union leader, Save St. Mary’s Hospital organizer and antipoverty activist Jaimie McEvoy, who appears to have stolen the seat of our longest-serving councillor, Calvin Donnelly . Donnelly has been a city councillor for 18 years, since first elected in 1981 (according to the city website’s official bio …

All polls reporting: so far, results show Wayne Wright still has the ‘Wright’ stuff (har de har har). Blair Armitage appears to be out of luck.
Council results so far:

Jonathan Cote
Lorrie Williams
Betty McIntosh
Bill Harper
Bob Osterman
Jaimie McEvoy

School Board:

Casey Cook
Lorrie Watt
Lisa Graham
Jim Goring
Michael Ewen
James Janzen
Brent Atkinson

If you’re looking for information on civic election results as they roll in, here are a few sites to check (I am watching and will post New West information as I see it as well):

City of New West official results on the website.
Lots of chatter on Twitter. Do some keyword searches (“civic” seems to work well, and you can also try “new westminster”), or follow me @10thtothefraser (I will retweet any New West-related info as I see it). 
The New Westminster Record is posting updates online . As of 8:20pm, Wayne Wright had …

As previously announced, we, as the authors of this blog, have decided to endorse a slate of candidates for Mayor, Council and School Trustee. We have tried to pay close attention to the political events and articles in the local paper but, we are ordinary citizens and we have no insider’s knowledge of the various alliances that our local candidates may have with each other. This is our endorsement as independent folks and this is our blog so… these are the endorsed candidates for Tenth to the Fraser:
Mayoral Candidate: Wayne …

Taking a (web)page straight from the David Plouffe hand book, this local school trustee candidate has been kicking it Obama style by launching a polite and engaging army of telephone campaign staff on the voters of New Westminster.
Oh yes, after getting a call a week ago, my wife asked some questions about the “School on Grimston Park” controversy (against btw) and as a follow up, she asked further questions that the volunteer simply could not answer on Ms. Kaur’s behalf. “May I take your information and Kirpaul can get back …

Several weeks ago, I contacted both candidates for mayor: Wayne Wright (independent incumbent) and Blair Armitage (Voice New Westminster) and invited them to reply to an email interview to discuss various topics and give voters a view into what they were both like as people. I say I contacted them but really I contacted Wayne Wright and a few gatekeepers for Mr. Armitage. After striving twice and half-heatedly feigning interest for a third time, I gave up on the possibility that Mr. Armitage would lend his ‘voice’ to this …

Many newspapers and websites have chosen through history to forgo complete objectivity and endorse a candidate or candidates in an election. Often, the choice made is an illustration of that publication but it is often the intent of the endorsing journal to present a choice that, in their view, would be preferred by their readers. Such is the value of knowing ones audience. The New York Times, for example, first endorsed a presidential candidate with Republican Abraham Lincoln, who would later lead America in a war to emancipate the slaves …

Earlier on Tenth to the Fraser, I reviewed an All Candidates Meeting at the Queensborough Community Center. I really appreciated the event, difficult as it was in organizing an evening where 17 different candidates for Mayor and Council all tried to introduce their next three year plan to the citizens of New Westminster.
I tried to give readers of this blog a brief window into the candidates positions, and present my impressions about them as candidates. We will be covering tomorrow evening’s All Candidates Meeting (Oct 28th, 2008 at the Queensborough …