26 years since the Eaton/Bay Centre opened and it has never been a good fit

Eaton's building facing Broad Street

In 1990 Caddilac Fairview opened a mall in downtown located where a dozen heritage buildings were located.    26 years later and the Bay Centre remains a blight on the city landscape.    Malls started to become a big thing by the mid 1960s and hit their heyday in the early 1980s.   By the time the Eaton (Bay) Centre was proposed the classic suburban mall was in decline.

Overall the Bay Centre mall harms the streetscape for blocks around

Issues with the Bay Centre

• A very bland suburban mall - the stores are national chain stores and the interior has nothing that lets you know you are in Victoria.    The mall was supposed to have four floors for stores but never managed to rent out retail space on the fourth floor
• The Bay Centre has no destination stores, it is not a draw for the general public.  It replaced a whole series of small downtown boutique type stores that did draw people 
• The mall bisects Old Town.   Before the mall opened there was a natural flow of pedestrian traffic from the Inner Harbour to City Hall along Gordon and Broad Streets.   The loss of this path for the public means that on either side of the mall traffic is down from what it used to be.   You can see this impact clearly in how often store fronts on Broad street south or north of the mall are empty.
• Government street between Fort and View Street is cold because of the huge empty facade of the mall on the east side of the street.    It is also the only block side on Government between the Inner Harbour and Pandora that has very little street level retail
• View Street between Government and Broad has never regained the vibrancy it had - it is a very cold and dead.   
• Victoria Old Town is small enough already, the loss of the heritage buildings reduced the tourism draw of the city.
• The mall is very closed in and does not have clear sight lines to the outside.  Once inside the mall it is as of you are no longer in Victoria.   The mall not only is not drawing people downtown but it is keeping people away.

What we really need to have happen is for the City to develop a plan on how to deal with the failure that is the mall.    There has to be some way to improve the streets around the mall and to bring more people out onto the streets

Just some thoughts on the results of the Mayor's race in Victoria

I have been meaning to write something like this for several weeks but took most of Christmas off

The end result of the race was a very close result and a mayor elected with the lowest percentage of the vote for the mayor since the 1990 election that elected David Turner with only 33.90% of the vote.  David Turner lasted for a single term as mayor.

Lisa Helps     9,200  37.63% (centre left green)
Dean Fortin    9,111  37.27% (NDP)
Ida Chong      3,275  13.40% (centre right business)
Stephen Andrew 2,380   9.74% (centre)
4 others         480   1.96%

The problem Lisa has is that she won in a race where 62.4% of the people did not want her to be mayor.   She has a very weak popular mandate and has to very quickly understand what the majority wants if she wants to be re-elected in 2018.

On the positive side she has a nicely divided council - 4 New Democrats and 4 centre right.   Both sides can achieve their interests if they have the mayor on board.   It puts the mayor in a very powerful place and should make it very easy for her to bring forward most of her issues, but.....

Lisa made several missteps in the first weeks:
The oath to the Queen, which surprisingly is an issue to more people than I ever expected
The attempt to award a direct contract to Domenic Lepore for $55,000
The way the right to a healthy environment declaration was handled - if it had come forward with the support of some of the councilors on the centre right it would be portrayed as a loony left idea.

Many people wanted to dismiss Lisa as a mayor long before she was elected and the events of the first few weeks gave them ample material to reinforce their existing views.   The next election is close to four years away and already some people are thinking about running for mayor.   She has the danger of being viewed as a lame duck by many people and that will reduce her effectiveness.

The powers of a mayor in BC are limited.  The biggest source of power most mayors have is looking and acting like a leader in their position and getting people to follow them.   This is not something that is a law or rule but a combination of  attitude, confidence and respect.   Lisa has lost ground on this.  

When a new mayor is elected most people will give benefit of the doubt as to their ability to be mayor but this has been lost by Lisa.  She now needs a serious plan on how to get the the respect of the public back and allow her to achieve some significant tangible changes to City Hall.

One of the dangers she has now is that there are people who do not want her to succeed and they will allow things to happen that harm Lisa as mayor.   This will not be anything public and so can not be addressed directly.   It leaves her deeper in the hole when trying to regain her status as mayor.

It will be interesting to see how Victoria council plays out over the next couple of years

2014 City of Victoria Election Results

24,665 people voted out of 63,084 which is a  39.1% turnout

Mayor

1. Lisa Helps     9,200 sitting councilor
2. Dean Fortin    9,111 (-969) incumbent
3. Ida Chong      3,275
4. Stephen Andrew 2,380
5. Robert Duncan    253  
6. Jason Ross       132
7. David Shebib      62
8. Riga Godron       33

Council - 8 to the elected

1. Benjamin Isitt         14,729 (+6,310) incumbent
2. Charlayne Thornton-Joe 12,046 (+3,243) incumbent
3. Marianne Alto          12,016 (+4,523) incumbent
4. Jeremy Loveday         10,852
5. Pamela Madoff          10,354 (+3,022) incumbent
6. Geoff Young             9,934   (+994) incumbent
7. Margaret Lucas          8,145
8. Christopher Coleman     8,017 (+1,224) incumbent
9. Erik Kaye               7,295 (ran in 2005)
10. John Luton              6,850   (+507)(elected in 2008, lost in 2011) 
11. Hilary Groos            6,653
12. Justin Stephenson       5,268
13. Andrew Reeve            4,336
14. Steve Filipovic         3,856 (ran for mayor in 2011)
15. Ian Hoar                3,466
16. Paul Servos             2,577
17. Ryan Moen               2,108
18. Sean Murray             1,897 (+1,170)
19. Jonathan Carroll        1,739
20. Jeffrey Olafson         1,693
21. Gordon MacKinnon        1,334
22. Saul Andersen           1,183 (+128)
23. John Stewart            1,107
24. James Harasymow           764

Referendum

Are you in favour of reducing the number of municipalities in Greater Victoria through amalgamation?

Yes 18,351

No   4,601

1,713 people did not vote in the referendum

CRD Director  - 3 elected

1. Ben Isitt        11,807 
2. Marianne Alto     8,941  
3. Geoff Young       7,063  
4. Jeremy Loveday    6,496 
5. Chris Coleman     5,163  
6. John Luton        3,536  
7. Erik Kaye         3,475 
8. Justin Stephenson 2,517  
9. Steve Filipovic   2,046 
10. Andrew Reeve.     2,033 
11. Sean Murray       1,017 
12. Ryan Moen           865 
13. Jonathan Carroll    740  
14. Jeffrey Olafson     733  
15. Gordon MacKinnon    662  
16. Saul Andersen       617  
17. James Harasymow     316  

Past Election Results
2011 2008 2005 2002 1999 1996 1993 1990

Advance voting in the City of Victoria is dramatically higher

The City of Victoria has seen a dramatic increase in the advance vote

Here is a table of the trends over the last four elections:
Vote         Election Year
Opportunity 2014 2011 2008 2005
Day 1       1033  555  433  952
Day 2       1268  853  702   *
UVic         268   -    -    -
Other Adv    575   -    45   78
TOTAL       3144 1408 1180 1030
(in 2005 I only have the results for both days combined)
(Other Adv in 2014 is Our Place, in 2008 Special Adv and in 2005 Hospital Adv)

Federally, provincially and municipally there has been a consistent rise in advance voting in every subsequent election.  In the City of Victoria I would have expected the advance vote total to have been 1600 or so without the UVic poll.    The actual advance vote in Victoria is 1200 or so higher than I would have expected.

Yes, there is more interest in the campaign because there are more candidates, each extra serious candidate for mayor would have likely boosted the total by a bit, but nearly that much.    There are a lot more votes than there should be and that can only mean one of the campaigns is good at getting the vote.   Based on what I have seen I am reasonably certain this is the Lisa Helps campaign. 

Conservatively, I think Lisa Helps took 50% of the advance vote.    

City of Victoria Mayor's Race - some last thoughts

I am posting this because CTV Vancouver Island came by yesterday and asked me to predict the City of Victoria mayor race.

The race for mayor of the City of Victoria this time has been the most interesting one in the decades and the only time I know of where there have been four strong candidates.  We have seen more and better coverage of the election by the media than in a long.

The single most important factor that will decide who wins the race will be who increases the voter turnout the most.

We have seen a dramatic increase in voters at the advance polls, a big enough increase that it is more than just the natural increase that has been happening in all elections over the last decade.  This is most likely happening for two reasons - more people are interested in voting and the campaigns are working harder to get people out to vote.

Ida Chong
To say that it is odd to see a former BC Liberal cabinet minister run for mayor in Victoria is putting it lightly.  To give you an idea how weak the BC Liberal brand name is in Victoria, consider that in the 2013 election the the two provincial ridings that cover the City of Victoria are the only two in all of BC where the BC Liberal candidate did not come 1st or 2nd in the last four provincial elections.

Victoria is the municipality in this region where the issue of residency in the city is not that big an issue, but on the other hand it does not help you especially if you are running for mayor.  It says something that the chamber crowd could not find a Victoria resident to make a run on the right.

In the last week Ida Chong has started to no longer just focus on Dean Fortin but on Lisa Helps.  Rumour has it that the polling the campaign had done showed Lisa leading.

I have not seen nor heard of any strong grassroots support for Ida Chong.   I am not seeing many volunteers.  I know of no one who is excited about her campaign.  It is like the chamber crowd is going through the motions as a quixotic campaign as a protest against the strong left wing tendency of the city of Victoria council.

Stephen Andrew
He came into the race very late and I think this is a handicap he is having trouble overcoming.  
One of the problems in municipal elections is that the campaign team has to be built up from scratch and that takes a lot of time and effort.  In a provincial or federal election major political parties have a core group of people that have been the campaign in past elections and that means you do not need to build it up.   In most municipal elections the only thing that the campaign team has in common is support for the candidate.  There is no sense of a team, tt takes a couple of months to build this.   Stephen Andrew may just be getting the team spirit properly in place this week.

In many ways he looks more like a mayor than anyone else has in a long time, but then I watch his YouTube intro video and I am left with more of the impression that he would make for a very good councilor and not the mayor.    There is nothing really wrong with the campaign, just rough edges that need more polish.  Once again something that comes about because the campaign started so late.

The one thing Stephen Andrew has going for him is his name recognition.   A lot of people trust him.   He may get a lot of last minute people voting for him, people that may finally make their decision when they have their ballot in front of them.

Dean Fortin
My true Orange friends in Victoria are voting for him, or so they tell me.   Many of them sound like they are giving me the NDP party line and show no enthusiasm for Dean Fortin.   Interestingly most of them are dismissive of Lisa Helps as a serious candidate.   Certainly there has been a whisper from the orange side of the spectrum that Lisa can not win and will only split the vote letting Ida win.

Dean has been very good at keeping to his message about why he should be re-elected, the problem is that I do not see it going over well with people who are neutral or negative about him.   People that are not disposed to supporting him seem to be energized by how he answers questions and this motivating a number of them to work against him.

I see little reason evidence that his campaign will get any new people to vote him.   I expect his 2008 results are a reasonable measure of the upper end of his possible support.  That would be enough to win if voter turnout is no higher in this election than past elections but I do think we will see a significant rise in voter turnout.

Lisa Helps
Yes, I support her to be the next mayor.  

What Lisa has going for her is the most organized ground campaign I have ever seen for a local election in this region.   Somewhere close to 400 people have volunteered for her campaign.  Not only do they have a large group of volunteers, Lisa started her campaign early enough to make this group a real team.

What her campaign is doing very well is the boring grind of the basic campaign 101.   They are IDing their vote and they seem to have the system in place to get their vote out on Saturday.   Calling supporters on election day and getting them to vote is much more important in local elections than federal or provincial ones.   Doing this well boosts voter turn out.    While I can not prove it, I think the dramatic increase in advance voting in the City of Victoria is largely down to the organization of Lisa Helps campaign.  

In my opinion, Lisa's very strong grass roots campaign is what will win the election for her.   The partial details of three polls that have been shared with me each show that Lisa is leading among the decided vote, though undecided is still very large.

Final Comments
While my preference is that Lisa Helps is elected as mayor, I think the City would be well served by Stephen Andrew as well.    But do not forget that the mayor only has one vote on the council.   As it stands, we are likely to see between three and five strongly NDP oriented people elected to Victoria City council and if it is five, both Lisa Helps and Stephen Andrew would be in the minority on the council.

I think a voter turn out of between 35% and 45% (22,000 to 29,000 voters) is probable

In Victoria, please vote for Justin Stephenson

I am not sure how I managed not to write this two months ago, but somehow I never did write it.

Justin Stephenson is running for Victoria City Council and he is a stellar candidate.  Here are some of the reasons why I am a fan:

He has more real business experience than anyone that has ever served on a council in the CRD.   He was a managing partner with RBC Capital Partners.   We need people that understand the needs of innovative emerging businesses on our councils.   It also can not hurt the region to have a man with his business connections sitting on a council

He now works on using the methods and skills he learned as a venture capitalist to effect real change through social enterprises.  I believe that harnessing market forces to change the world for the better is the fastest way will see meaningful and lasting change.

He has a vision for Victoria that includes being the best.  This matters a lot to me.

Many candidates talk about financial accountability and transparency, he has some concrete ideas on how to achieve it - Justin makes the points this video:


He is a pragmatist.   He is not some ideological right winger or left winger, but someone that believes in stewarding our resources and making good decisions that are supported by the public

He listens.  I meet a lot of candidates that run for local office (this time around it is somewhere in the range of 70 in person) and few listen as well as he does.   How I know?  Because he asks the questions that show he is taking in what I said and making sure he understands what I said.   On the current city council only Chris Coleman and Lisa Helps come close to listening as well as he does.

I could go on, but since I am behind on a number of these profiles I will leave it at this.   On Saturday make Justin Stephenson one of your choices for Victoria Council.

All of Greater Victoria would be lucky to have Hilary Groos on Victoria City Council

So many candidates, so little time.   I have been meaning to get this written for well over a week.

I had a chance to have coffee with Hilary Groos a week or two ago and I was very impressed.   I had not known what to make of her because her website did not do a good job of telling her story.   She has since improved it but I think she still undersells herself.

Hilary is a smart woman who has had a very interesting and varied career, most if it in Europe.   We would be lucky to have some with her skills and experience on council, in fact we have never seen anyone with quite the same global experience she has run for any council in this region.

One of the things  I really like about her is that she has worked within in a multitude of governance systems in her career.   It is normal for someone running for local council in this region to have very little governance experience and have to learn on the job while being heavily influenced by sitting council members and staff.   Most new councilors are easily "tamed", this is not what see happening to her.  

Robin Teverson, a former Liberal Democrat MEP from 1994 to 1999, does a very good job of summing up Hilary:

I worked with Hilary over five years. Hilary is one of those rare people you know is going to get the task done.  Someone who’s not satisfied unless she has achieved what she said she would.  A person that’s focused not just on that task at hand, but has a real concern for the people affected. She not only acts, she listens.  She understands how to make politics work for the citizen.  She will make an excellent representative for the people of Victoria.

From having lived in various places in Europe Hilary has seen what is possible in a real way.   Visiting a city for a few weeks or even few months does not give you any real sense of what works and what does not, the classic example of this is the love certain people in this region have for Portland.   When Hilary speaks of the sort of excellence that she thinks is possible she has personal experience to back this up.

She is smart and very quickly understands issues with a degree of complexity that other people struggle with.   In our conversation we covered numerous topics from around the world very, very quickly but with some clear detailed understanding on her part.  We did this in two and a half languages, the half being my crappy French.

Personality-wise she has a strong confidence presence that should mean she can question what is going on at City Hall in such a way that answers will be forth coming.  You can see some of that in her Shaw TV Candidate Profile:

 

I highly recommend that you take some time and get to meet her, you will not be disappointed.

Not only Victoria, but the whole region, would benefit if Hilary Groos were elected to city council.  Please make her one of your top choices.

Ted, Bernard, and Shawn Talk About The Johnson St. Bridge

All three of us have our issues with the Johnson Street Bridge project
\

VictoriaVision Video: Are We Making the Best Use of the Inner Harbour?

How can you stand out in the election? Be fun and innovative

What these signs show is that people can fun with elections.  It  shows that Colin Plant can think outside the box so he can stand out from the crowd.  

It shows that he does have people willing to help his campaign because he did inspire the artists to put in the energy and make the signs.

It is a very intelligent way for him to highlight his belief in the importance of the arts.

Here are 7 of the signs

For Halloween he modified some of his signs once again showing that he has a sense of humour

Meanwhile one of the candidates in Victoria went for minimalist handmade signs.    It is not uncommon to see people made crude handmade signs for the campaign, but this really is at bottom end.   Not much effort shown here.   As nice as the guy is, I could not vote for him because he is not willing to put in the effort to get elected.

This is a sign for Ryan Moen in Victoria - it is complete opposite of his website

FOCUS magazine and election ads

FOCUS has been, to put it lightly, a stern critic of the current administration of the City of Victoria for some years now.  It has built itself a very clear niche audience interested in the narrative of how much Dean Fortin has screwed up with the bridge etc....  In the November issue there are eight pieces that relate to the current local elections which is a fair amount of their space.  This would be good place advertise for the local elections.

Based on the sort of businesses advertise in FOCUS, the sort of stories they run and who writes a regular column for them, I suspect that their readership is much more likely to vote.

With that in mind I thought it would be interesting to see who did advertise in the November issue.   In total it was only five candidates running for Victoria City Council.

Candidates with Ads in November

• Lisa Helps for mayor
• John Luton
• Steve Filipovic
• Geoff Young
• Justin Stephenson (twice)

Overall the ads are forgettable, nothing to make you think.   The only upside is that FOCUS is not too ad heavy and the readership could very well be looking for the ads

The Lisa Helps I know is not well represented in this ad - there is nothing innovative

I am really surprised that no one running for SD#61 Greater Victoria has an ad.   This strikes me as the perfect place to reach most of that electorate.

I am also surprised that no candidates in Saanich took out an ad.   I suspect many of the people not thrilled about the whole sewage thing read FOCUS.

Since he was the most consistent voice of skeptism on
the bridge project, it makes sense for him to have ad in FOCUS

I am not sure if this will work or not?  It looks more
like one of the articles so maybe more people will
read it>

Interesting he has these meeting dates, I am not sure what will happen at them

The slogan I Like Luton works for me - I still would not vote for him
Given his advocacy for the new bridge
I am really surprised he took an ad in FOCUS

.  
Of the ads, John Luton's, Steve Filipovic's and one of Justin Stephenson's do not have the "authorized by...." line on them.

Jeremy Loveday Makes My List

This afternoon I had a really informative meeting with Jeremy Loveday. Long story short, this impressive young man will be getting my vote (added to My Picks for Victoria City Council 2014).

Loveday clearly has a passion for this city and making it a better community. But more than that he already has a notebook full of micro-issues that need attention which he gained from the hard work of door-knocking around the city. He showed a passion for and understanding of the big infrastructure issues but when he speaks just as passionately about fixing potholes or getting a light installed at a crosswalk I know I have found a councilor I can support.

One area not being spoken about in this election is support for the arts. Understandable in a time of huge infrastructure issues it is not on people's minds but Loveday clearly has an intimate knowledge of the needs of the arts community. As an organizer (spoken word poetry is his thing) he understands the logistics and management needed to produce a successful event. What was even better was when he combined this with the practical reality of vacant commercial properties downtown and suggested an opportunity that the city could facilitate: short-term leases for artists in vacant storefronts. As he said to me, if Mayoral candidates can do it for the campaign why can't artists set-up pop-ups for Christmas?

As a friend of Ben Isitt Loveday has certainly been inspired and mentored in this run for councilor. I clearly saw the affection and respect he has for the incumbent councilor but just as clearly I see that they are not joined at the hip. Collaboration and cooperation is essential, as is a variety of opinions. I think any who were afraid that Jeremy is some sort of Isitt "clone" can rest easy.

I think that rounds out my picks. I hope my thoughts have helped you make your own decisions.

My Picks for Victoria City Council 2014

updated: November 6 2014

With advance polling beginning and the general voting day fast approaching I thought it was time to share my thoughts on the candidates I will be voting for this election.

Mayor

I will be voting for Lisa Helps. She is truly non-partisan and in my view she has a good plan for making council work and work better. Her willingness to listen to residents and to try fresh approaches to issues would make a welcome change in the mayor's chair. Of the candidates in the race her website is the most comprehensive on the issues facing the city for the next four years and in person she clearly states her position and disagreements without turning into a negative, attack-oriented tape recorder, mouthing pre-scripted sound-bites.

Council

There are 8 councillors seats and thus far I think I have chosen the following people.  I have tried to include what I see as a balance of interests and experiences on the council but mostly I have simply chosen those people I think would make the best councilors without regard for past or present party affiliations.

Ben Isitt is the only incumbent to earn my vote, Isitt is often criticised by many (myself included) for some rather radical views on some issues. As I recall his record however I realized that much of what he is being criticised for are provincial and federal issues of equality and fairness. His record as a councilor on local issues has been one of someone working hard for his constituents. In both cases I like someone who cares for those he represents.

Andrew Reeve is my pick for "youth" at the council table. I find his thoughts on most issues align with my own. I think he does have the experience required to fill the seat and his pitch for a new generation of councilors resonates with me. On the issues, I particularly like what he has to say about the downtown core.

Justin Stephenson recently became an enthusiastic choice for me. I find myself agreeing (mostly) with his positions on the issues and where we disagree it again becomes a case of someone choosing to do more for the city than less. I like the sound of experience with mediation and government alongside his experience in the business community.

Hilary Groos is a choice that comes naturally to me. I believe that international experience combined with deep roots in the city makes her an excellent choice for council. She is my choice for "accountant" on council to offer a voice at the table that will force her fellow councilors to carefully consider any spending hikes or upward adjustments to taxes or fees and her stance on transparency (along with several of my other choices) offers something that is currently lacking on council.

Erik Kaye impressed me one-on-one as someone willing to make a rational decision for the city based on evidence. His commitment to a walkable city and public transport seem genuine. I hold the dream of LRT close to my heart and his involvement in efforts to make that a reality deserve support.

Jeremy Loveday was on the cusp for me until I had a chance to meet with him.  His passion and ideas for this city are just what we need. He may be young but new ideas come from new people and he has a lot of good ideas that I look forward to seeing him bring forward during his term.

There are two candidates missing from this list because for some reason they chose to run for mayor instead of council. As first-time candidates I would have been happy to endorse both Jason Ross and Stephen Andrew for council but neither is ready to be mayor.

Well that is my list so far. It may expand before I head to the polls and if so, I will update as appropriate.

Why would I vote for Chris Coleman in the City of Victoria?

I am writing this today because too many people in the City of Victoria do not understand how valuable an asset they have in Chris Coleman being on council.

I lived in the City of Victoria from 2004 to 2013 and voted for Chris in 2005, 2008 and 2011.   I would still vote for him if I were living in the City of Victoria.

A major reason I would continue voting for Chris is that he really understands the role of councilor.   I do not think most of the public understands how council really works, the meetings of the council are only the final action of a long process that involves the council, the public and the staff of the city.   A good councilor has done 95% of the work on an issue before it comes up for debate at a council meeting, Chris is that sort of guy.

Because Chris is always well prepared on all the issues he understands that simplistic answers do not work.   He also more than aware what the limits are given the council of the day and political reality in the city.  From all of this he is able to be a very effective councilor.

Chris is not at the council to thump the table and rant and rave, he is there to get things done.   He is measured and pragmatic which is not what some people want.  They want some that rails against the system instead of someone that can effect useful change.

Chris is also very good at bringing people together and finding commonalities.   His skill at this allows him to be instrumental in getting people past deadlocks.  He rarely will take any credit for what he has done.   It is for this skill that he is called a fence sitter or flip flopper which shows people do not understand what he is doing.

Chris is not the sort of guy to spend his time promoting himself.  He can be self deprecating to a fault.  He very much lets his actions speak for themselves but the media does not cover competent councilors that quietly do a great job on council.

I know of no other councilor in this region that goes to the effort to talk to the people as Chris does.  He does not only show up at community association meetings and such, he constantly is seeking out the people that do not show up.  He goes to the doorsteps all year round and asks the public what they think of the city and what issues they might have.

Chris is also very approachable, getting him to sit down with you over coffee is easy to do.   If I ever had an issue with the City, he was the first person I called.  Call him and have coffee with him, I sure he will meet with you.  

Finally, and most importantly to me, Chris is one of the most ethical and honest people I have ever met.  If he thinks you might be misled by what he is saying he will make sure you are not.  

I highly recommend to anyone in the City of Victoria to please vote for Chris Coleman. (I only added the please because it is what Chris does - he always asks people to please vote for him.)

Victoria Council Candidate Margaret Lucas has very diverse supporters

So far I have never seen a group of people on Facebook come out in an unsolicited way like this in support for one candidate.   Margaret Lucas has a very diverse group of people that like her.

What I find very interesting is that both Susan Brice and Lynn Hunter back Margaret.  Susan Brice was the BC Liberal MLA for Saanich South from 2001-2005 and was the Social Credit candidate in the 1989 Oak Bay Gordon Head by-election.  Lynn Hunter was the NDP MP for Saanich Gulf Islands from 1988 to 1993.

Here is the Facebook posting:

Bernard von Schulmann

Yesterday at 4:27pm · Twitter · 

Inform yourself for the City of Victoria election - One page with lots of links and all the info you need http://t.co/4h90b8cmv1 ‪#‎yyj‬

Victoria Vision: 2014 City of Victoria Council Candidates

Victoria BC is an interesting city off of the coast of BC. I think it has everything to be one of the great cities on earth other than the public will to be the best.

VICTORIAVISION.BLOGSPOT.CA

LikeLike ·  · Share · @BC_Iconoclast on Twitter

• 

  Robert Randall I have met Margaret Lucas; she manages the Hotel Rialto. Smart business person, knows a lot about issues and downtown and would be a good fit on council in the style of Bea Holland and Helen Hughes.

  21 hrs · Like · 1
• 

  Susan Brice I agree with you Robert. Margaret Lucas would make a great addition to council

  18 hrs · Like
• 

  Lori King yes i concur

  5 hrs · Like
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  Bernard von Schulmann I should go have a coffee with her given the people that are recommending her

  4 hrs · Like
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  Susan Brice I first met her when we served together on the Coalition to End Homelessness and then working in the downtown are myself for the past 5 years I had occasion to see her working positively on downtown economic issues.

  1 hr · Like · 1
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  Lori King yes, i knew her through chamber of commerce, believe she was a director there, maybe a chair but she was always very pleasant and very sharp lady

  1 hr · Like
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  Lynn Hunter Been trying to get her to run for years.

  4 mins · Like
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  Bernard von Schulmann Interesting the support for Margaret Lucas - a former BC Liberal MLA as well as a former NDP MP backing her

  Just now · Like