Unfortunately this is Tofino, where elections are a farce. Here, we don't elect the most qualified candidate, we elect the most popular.
In Tofino, people don't vote for the most qualified or more experienced candidate, they vote for their own personal favorite. They don't think about the upcoming challenges of administering the municipal office and budget. Instead they add their choices for mayor and council to the same list as their favorite movie star, musician, and team to win the Stanley cup. One guy, on facebook, has already announced his own choice, "regardless of who's even running". C,mon guy, can't you at least learn the issues and consider other points of view first?
And then we end up with more of the same thing we just got rid of. More left wing liberal social policy and bloated public staff combined with an irresponsible tax and spend fiscal plan that fails to meet Tofino's needs, present or future.
Tofino is at a crossroads. We need sewage solutions. We need water supply solutions. We need housing solutions (there's still no place for people to live!). We need to gain control of tourism numbers and effects. We don't have the money to pay for any of it under the current municipal taxation arrangement. We need skilled and experienced management quality people to serve on council and as mayor.
We don't need a movie star or a sports hero..... we shouldn't care who your "favorite person" is. We need skilled competent leadership in the DOT office.
The mayor that we elect in March will be guiding Tofino through a wave of change, as we adjust our community to the current and future challenges we all face. Think about this as you cast your ballot. Are you voting for the best candidate? Or are you voting for someone that you wish was the best.
I would love it if we elected people who actually take action and get things done. Forward motion in this town seems to be equated with destroying the environment or something equally horrendous and therefore needs to be stopped with enormous amounts of red tape, consultants, reports, data and new hires. A good example is the affordable housing expediter who was going to get some affordable housing built right away because nobody within the community knows anything about it. So now we have a permanent consultant who has appointed himself the director of the affordable housing fiasco and charges us $5000 every time he comes here from Victoria as well as whatever we pay him as the director. His partner in this, another consultant, gets paid other astronomical sums to hold our hand. This is a ridiculous waste of time and money and nothing has gotten expedited besides the flow of money from us to them. This nonsense should not continue please.
2:27, Who is considered the multiplex candidate? Not everyone knows these important details. Sounds like someone who wants to tax and spend like the previous administration.
5:55 Google time -looking for a former Tofino councillor who pushed hard for multiplex during previous stint on council and has a background in phys ed.
Three candidates for mayor. This makes me nervous. I would hate to see the someone that I least favour elected with 34% of the vote. Hopefully folks can rally round he best candidate.
I see that Mr. Ashton feels that he should be elected to council again..... Oh well, gotta get a laugh when you can. After the election, he can hang out with Andrea. Of course that'll be no place near council chambers, especially since neither one of them live in Tofino.
My prediction - Dan and JJ splitting the rational vote and Andrea winning. Pretty sure JJ knew that beforehand and went for it anyways. Maybe should have started with a council seat first... Does having a Post Office Box prove residency?
I'm not suggesting he should have started on Council because he needed the experience, I'm saying he could still have a voice from there without splitting the vote.
JJ is an employee of an out of community business Owner and probably lives on the owners property . He is a Mayor's Community Recovery Task Force member a pointless group and very ineffective in my opinion. He likes process over results and in conflict potentially with his community if his actual boss wishes it. Please do not vote for another conflicted individual.
I kinda liked to see JJ on Osborne's task force, where he kept her somewhat reined in, a sane voice in the politically correct madness of our previous administration.
Is it fair to automatically assume a lack of ethics and that JJ will be unable to separate the public's interest from his own career? If this were the case we'd only ever elect homeless and unemployed people to public office, lest they be swayed by loyalty to their own "personal interests".
I don't see where there's any conflict, in particular to JJ, and not likewise to all. Every candidate "already has a job".
Is someone implying former Mayor Osbourne, kept in check her own personal ambitions and only did what was right/good for others and the community......Give me a break.
Concern about JJ's ethics? Really? Or any other candidate for that matter? What is that all about? Get it out on the table if you know something we all don't know. It had better be good, but it is starting to look like someone is getting a little panicky. An adversary perhaps. Just sniping I suggest.
We would all be better off if we were looking for common sense implementable solutions to Tofino problems rather than anonymous personal attacks and random suspicions based on vapours.
In support of one of the mayoralty candidates I'm seeing some familiar terms that can be attributed to the last mayor: conversations, consensus, explore and a few other honeys. In my view this type of political cant implies the operational background of our previous mayor who used these terms to avoid actually dealing with anything while blatantly violating district zoning bylaws for personal profit. That's benefit number one for being employed as the mayor. Benefit number two would have to be the hidden agenda of riding roughshod over the needs of the community and pursuit of a bigger provincial political well-paid seat. So be careful what you believe in this election.
At the end of the day - He wants heads in beds and bums in restaurant seats. Nothing else matters.
His employment past is a who’s who of the worst of the worst as far as resort development goes: Intrawest and Aquilini are more or less self described profit before people organizations.
Want to see where this can go? Look at what those organizations did to Whistler. Pissed all over it and there’s no actual people left in that town.
Whistler has three classes of people: the super rich, tourists and minimum wage workers.
The sad truth is that in Tofino there are no highly qualified candidates who have the education and expertise necessary to deal with the complex issues in this resort town and are willing to run for this rather thankless job. I would have liked to see Duncan McMaster run for Mayor. No candidate can satisfy every voter in Tofino but it would be good to have someone do the job who has the competence, leadership and brain power needed to run this place. Maybe we wouldn't need the endless expenses for consultants if our mayor and council would be able to make a few informed decisions on their own. We have to be grateful that at least 3 people came forward to run for mayor but I would feel much better about the future of my beloved Tofino if they were more qualified. Unfortunately - since money rules the world - I see Tofino being exactly like Whistler and the rest of the popular tourist traps in the world: only the super rich, well to do tourists and minimum wage workers will visit, but not live in Tofino.
I've had a friend (a Tofino property owner) from out of town ask me how they would go about voting by mail in the upcoming municipal election. The answer, as of today, is "You can't". Looks to me like the time frame involved is so tight that most non-resident property owners won't make the deadline to get their ballots returned and counted. No ballot applications are available until Feb17th, and although the district claims that ballots are available until March 4th, realistically ballots would need to be mailed by Feb 25-26 to have any chance to make it in time to be counted. That's a thin window of only eight days. Assume that I request a ballot application on Feb 17. Assume five days for it to arrive to me in the mail, that's Feb 22. Now I've got only 3-4 days to get it returned to the mail, in order to arrive back at the district office in time to be counted. That's a pretty tight schedule. We've all known who the candidates are for two weeks now. Why this long delay, until the 17th, to get the ballot requests issued? To me, this smells of a deliberate ruse to suppress the right to vote to all non-resident property owners. As a senior citizen with health related issues, it also tends to force me to attend to vote in person, during a pandemic, rather than use the mail-in option.
Unfortunately this is Tofino, where elections are a farce. Here, we don't elect the most qualified candidate, we elect the most popular.
ReplyDeleteIn Tofino, people don't vote for the most qualified or more experienced candidate, they vote for their own personal favorite. They don't think about the upcoming challenges of administering the municipal office and budget. Instead they add their choices for mayor and council to the same list as their favorite movie star, musician, and team to win the Stanley cup. One guy, on facebook, has already announced his own choice, "regardless of who's even running". C,mon guy, can't you at least learn the issues and consider other points of view first?
And then we end up with more of the same thing we just got rid of. More left wing liberal social policy and bloated public staff combined with an irresponsible tax and spend fiscal plan that fails to meet Tofino's needs, present or future.
Tofino is at a crossroads. We need sewage solutions. We need water supply solutions. We need housing solutions (there's still no place for people to live!). We need to gain control of tourism numbers and effects. We don't have the money to pay for any of it under the current municipal taxation arrangement.
We need skilled and experienced management quality people to serve on council and as mayor.
We don't need a movie star or a sports hero..... we shouldn't care who your "favorite person" is. We need skilled competent leadership in the DOT office.
The mayor that we elect in March will be guiding Tofino through a wave of change, as we adjust our community to the current and future challenges we all face. Think about this as you cast your ballot.
Are you voting for the best candidate? Or are you voting for someone that you wish was the best.
Just for fun, this time, let's elect someone who's capable of counting other people's money, and spending it wisely.
ReplyDeleteI would love it if we elected people who actually take action and get things done.
ReplyDeleteForward motion in this town seems to be equated with destroying the environment or something equally horrendous and therefore needs to be stopped with enormous amounts of red tape, consultants, reports, data and new hires.
A good example is the affordable housing expediter who was going to get some affordable housing built right away because nobody within the community knows anything about it.
So now we have a permanent consultant who has appointed himself the director of the affordable housing fiasco and charges us $5000 every time he comes here from Victoria as well as whatever we pay him as the director. His partner in this, another consultant, gets paid other astronomical sums to hold our hand.
This is a ridiculous waste of time and money and nothing has gotten expedited besides the flow of money from us to them. This nonsense should not continue please.
Forget everything else. The most important thing that has to be done before housing, sewer water, all those little things is a campfire bylaw.
ReplyDeleteNo sewage system, but the multiplex candidate is trying again, to get back on council.
ReplyDelete2:27, Who is considered the multiplex candidate? Not everyone knows these important details. Sounds like someone who wants to tax and spend like the previous administration.
ReplyDelete5:55 Google time -looking for a former Tofino councillor who pushed hard for multiplex during previous stint on council and has a background in phys ed.
ReplyDelete4:46 PM I can assure you that the only past Councillor with a physical ed background was not a fan of the multiplex. A pool yes.
ReplyDeleteThree candidates for mayor. This makes me nervous. I would hate to see the someone that I least favour elected with 34% of the vote. Hopefully folks can rally round he best candidate.
ReplyDeleteThey call it democracy
I see that Mr. Ashton feels that he should be elected to council again..... Oh well, gotta get a laugh when you can.
ReplyDeleteAfter the election, he can hang out with Andrea. Of course that'll be no place near council chambers, especially since neither one of them live in Tofino.
My prediction - Dan and JJ splitting the rational vote and Andrea winning. Pretty sure JJ knew that beforehand and went for it anyways. Maybe should have started with a council seat first... Does having a Post Office Box prove residency?
ReplyDeleteNO
ReplyDeleteDoes not having a PO Box prove you don't live here?
ReplyDeleteWhat makes you think it would have been easier for JJ to win a council seat.?
ReplyDeleteRe: 7:18PM Past two mayors, Perry & Josie never served on Council before being elected as Mayor.
ReplyDeleteI'm not suggesting he should have started on Council because he needed the experience, I'm saying he could still have a voice from there without splitting the vote.
ReplyDeleteJJ is an employee of an out of community business Owner and probably lives on the owners property . He is a Mayor's Community Recovery Task Force member a pointless group and very ineffective in my opinion. He likes process over results and in conflict potentially with his community if his actual boss wishes it. Please do not vote for another conflicted individual.
ReplyDeleteI kinda liked to see JJ on Osborne's task force, where he kept her somewhat reined in, a sane voice in the politically correct madness of our previous administration.
ReplyDeleteIs it fair to automatically assume a lack of ethics and that JJ will be unable to separate the public's interest from his own career? If this were the case we'd only ever elect homeless and unemployed people to public office, lest they be swayed by loyalty to their own "personal interests".
I don't see where there's any conflict, in particular to JJ, and not likewise to all.
Every candidate "already has a job".
JJ, is that you?
DeleteIs someone implying former Mayor Osbourne, kept in check her own personal ambitions and only did what was right/good for others and the community......Give me a break.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteConcern about JJ's ethics? Really? Or any other candidate for that matter? What is that all about? Get it out on the table if you know something we all don't know. It had better be good, but it is starting to look like someone is getting a little panicky. An adversary perhaps. Just sniping I suggest.
We would all be better off if we were looking for common sense implementable solutions to Tofino problems rather than anonymous personal attacks and random suspicions based on vapours.
even
In support of one of the mayoralty candidates I'm seeing some familiar terms that can be attributed to the last mayor: conversations, consensus, explore and a few other honeys.
ReplyDeleteIn my view this type of political cant implies the operational background of our previous mayor who used these terms to avoid actually dealing with anything while blatantly violating district zoning bylaws for personal profit. That's benefit number one for being employed as the mayor.
Benefit number two would have to be the hidden agenda of riding roughshod over the needs of the community and pursuit of a bigger provincial political well-paid seat.
So be careful what you believe in this election.
Agree with you 7:29. There is enough"diversity and inclusion"in some candidates platforms to ensure nothing gets done.
ReplyDeleteWho is this JJ Guy?
ReplyDeleteHis “top ten” is a pile of horse shit.
At the end of the day - He wants heads in beds and bums in restaurant seats. Nothing else matters.
His employment past is a who’s who of the worst of the worst as far as resort development goes: Intrawest and Aquilini are more or less self described profit before people organizations.
Want to see where this can go? Look at what those organizations did to Whistler. Pissed all over it and there’s no actual people left in that town.
Whistler has three classes of people: the super rich, tourists and minimum wage workers.
To 12:47 There was never anyone there before either. a few loggers and some disgruntled hippies. made for good fights at the Ski Boot.
ReplyDeleteThe sad truth is that in Tofino there are no highly qualified candidates who have the education and expertise necessary to deal with the complex issues in this resort town and are willing to run for this rather thankless job. I would have liked to see Duncan McMaster run for Mayor. No candidate can satisfy every voter in Tofino but it would be good to have someone do the job who has the competence, leadership and brain power needed to run this place. Maybe we wouldn't need the endless expenses for consultants if our mayor and council would be able to make a few informed decisions on their own. We have to be grateful that at least 3 people came forward to run for mayor but I would feel much better about the future of my beloved Tofino if they were more qualified. Unfortunately - since money rules the world - I see Tofino being exactly like Whistler and the rest of the popular tourist traps in the world: only the super rich, well to do tourists and minimum wage workers will visit, but not live in Tofino.
ReplyDeleteI've had a friend (a Tofino property owner) from out of town ask me how they would go about voting by mail in the upcoming municipal election. The answer, as of today, is "You can't".
ReplyDeleteLooks to me like the time frame involved is so tight that most non-resident property owners won't make the deadline to get their ballots returned and counted.
No ballot applications are available until Feb17th, and although the district claims that ballots are available until March 4th, realistically ballots would need to be mailed by Feb 25-26 to have any chance to make it in time to be counted. That's a thin window of only eight days.
Assume that I request a ballot application on Feb 17. Assume five days for it to arrive to me in the mail, that's Feb 22. Now I've got only 3-4 days to get it returned to the mail, in order to arrive back at the district office in time to be counted. That's a pretty tight schedule.
We've all known who the candidates are for two weeks now. Why this long delay, until the 17th, to get the ballot requests issued?
To me, this smells of a deliberate ruse to suppress the right to vote to all non-resident property owners.
As a senior citizen with health related issues, it also tends to force me to attend to vote in person, during a pandemic, rather than use the mail-in option.