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Looking Forward to the Future
Ted Godwin For City Council 1999
Position Paper
Updated: November 14/99
What follows are brief outlines of my thoughts on a number of issues I believe are important to the citizens of Victoria. This page is sure to expand as the campaign moves ahead so please give me your feedback and come again.
Amalgamation of Local Governments
Regardless of the biased and pre-judged report of Dr. Bish, I believe that at the very least the four core municipalities should be merged into one. To balance that, I also believe we should return to a ward and aldermen system where one area of the city elects one representative to council.
One police force, one fire department, one business licence, one mayor, one council, one set of rules. The hodgepodge approach is charming but anyone can see that it makes no sense as people work and play and live all over, yet they might have to cross several artificial boundaries to do it.
It is only by amalgamation that we can best deal with those issues which will make Victoria a great place to live for the next 20 years. The arena deal fiasco was, in part, caused by the Balkanization of the region. Everything from the lack of progress on light rapid transit to the shameful lack of affordable housing are all affected by the petty fiefdoms of the multitude of municipal councils for what is, in fact, one city.
This election has made the need even clearer to me than before I started. The sheer number of candidates that a person must endure at the all-candidates meetingsa has shown me one source of voter apathy. Too many choices without any meaningful way to undertsand who the candidates are, not to mention the spiralling costs associated with running.
IF we elected based on a ward system then the meetings would be more meaningful as the candidates and electors cold more easily interact. Even if they were more candidates overall, there would still not be 30 or more council candidates to be heard from in a single one-hour meeting time. As well, the need for hugely bloated campaign budgets might be curtailed as candidates would not have to depend on expensive print and broadcast media to reach the whole city. Instead, a grassroots postering campaign of the candidates ward might produce better results at a much cheaper cost.
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Memorial Arena Replacement
The VSEA deal was a fiasco that showed us that the current members of council are incompetent and should hide their heads in shame. I believe we need to replace Memorial Arena, but with a realistic plan and without selling our collective souls.
I do not oppose public-private partnerships. I would not however let us get screwed-over by big-talking charlatans with nothing more than pie-in-the-sky tales.
As a personal note: I was appalled that they proposed changing the name from Memorial Arena. It was built to honour those who made the ultimate sacrifice for us and I feel it would be an insult to those who fell to sell naming rights to a new arena. Memorial it was named and Memorial it should stay.
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Parks and Greenspace
I support wholeheartedly the Sea-to-Sea Greenbelt. We must preserve the land for our children and grandchildren. I only hope that some developer gets as pissed off at me as at Mayor McMinn of the Highlands. From what I have read, he should be a hero for his vision, and boo-hoo for the greedy developer who did not get quite as rich as he wanted.
I also support the efforts to clean up the Gorge and feel that whatever resources the city can provide should be offered to this cause. (For more information check out the