Gregor Robertson, 43, will take over as Vancouver mayor. (VV)(ATR) Vancouver voters decide on a mayor to serve the city for a term that includes the Olympics, taking a turn to the left on the road to 2010.
In municipal elections held Nov. 15, the left-leaning Vancouver Vision party easily won city hall with businessman Gregor Robertson as its mayoral candidate. Vancouver Vision also claimed majorities on city boards and council.
Gregor Robertson beat Non-Partisan Association candidate Peter Ladner by almost 20,000 votes in the race to succeed Mayor Sam Sullivan, also of the NPA.
The campaign was dominated by a controversial $100 million loan to Millennium Southeast False Creek, developer of the Vancouver Olympic Village. The furor began when details were leaked of an October council meeting called to approve the bailout for the Millennium.
“It probably motivated people in their desire to make change at city hall and ensure there is accountability and transparency and that’s what I’m committed to providing,” Robertson said.
Robertson pledged to hold an open meeting within 30 days of his swearing-in to disclose details of the bailout. Robertson also promised to solve the city’s homelessness crisis by 2015.
Robertson, 43, has served as a provincial legislator and owns an organic juice company called Happy Planet.
It remains to be seen how much the city government changes will affect the Olympics in the final year to the Games. City manager Judy Rogers, also a VANOC director, serves at the pleasure of the city council.
Jeff Mooney, who was appointed to the VANOC board by Sullivan, is likely to be replaced, meaningnext week’s Vancouver 2010 board meeting may could be Mooney’s last.
Ladner, a former journalist, was a two-term councilor in Outgoing mayor Sam Sullivan took the Olympic flag for Vancouver at the closing ceremony of the Turin Games in 2006. (Getty)the right-wing NPA. He knocked-off Sullivan in last June's NPA nomination race.
Sullivan, a quadriplegic wheelchair-user injured in a teenage skiing accident, gained global fame when he accepted the Olympic flag at the Torino 2006 closing ceremony and rode in the Beijing 2008 Paralympic torch relay in China.
Robertson will become Vancouver’s third mayor since the city won the Games in 2003.
Mayors of other Olympic municipalities were returned, including Malcolm Brodie (Richmond), Pam Goldsmith-Jones (West Vancouver), Ken Melamed (Whistler) and Dianne Watts (Surrey).
British Columbians go to the polls next May to elect the provincial government.Premier Gordon Campbell and the Liberal Party hope towin a third consecutive term.
With reporting from
Bob Mackin in Vancouver.
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