What impresses me about Shellie Gudgeon, Lisa Help and Ben Isitt

I am very impressed with the three new city councillors in Victoria.   What impresses me the most is the effort they are putting in to be visible and to communicate with the public.  

It is rare for incumbents to be defeated in the City of Victoria, but in 2011 three incumbents were defeated by Ben Isitt, Lisa Helps and Shellie Gudgeon.   The three of them won because they out campaigned everyone else, they also engaged with the public during the campaign and have not stopped since.  

What I also like about them is that all three also took the campaign seriously enough to spend the money needed to be serious candidates and win.  I do not like it when people do a half ass attempt at council and then say that you need to run a couple of times before you can win.

I like that the three of them are out spoken on council but not in a patronizing way or a grandioseness way.   I like that they seem to pay attention to the details and speak.  It can be difficult for a new councillor to be able to stand up and stand out right away.

There are many issues where I expect I disagree with all three of the new councillors.  It is more important to me that we have good people on council than agree with someone on everything.   The process of governance the quality of people involved is much more important to me than anything else.   On the surface of it few councils have more vision than Langford, but the way Langford council governs itself is not a model that I think will lead to long term sustainable.  

Should the three of them run for re-election in 2014, I will be voting for all them, even Ben Isitt who I am in also complete disagreement on every economic issue.