It wasn’t his climb earlier this month to the Mt. Everest base camp nor was it the loss of the 2015 TransLink referendum that made up Greg Moore’s mind.
The truth is, Port Coquitlam’s mayor has been thinking about calling it quits for a while now.
And at tonight's city council meeting, Moore did just that.
Yesterday, in an exclusive interview at his city hall office, Moore told The Tri-City News he’s not just ending a decade in the top job.
Come November 2018, he’s leaving politics for good.
Provincial and federal politics are not in his future, he said firmly but he and his wife, Erin, want to take the next year to weigh the options for the next chapter in their life.
“It’s been 10 years as mayor and I think that’s a good tenure,” the 47-year-old said, adding, “I firmly believe there should be term limits for this position.”
And in his last year in office, he said he wants to focus on issues where he hopes to have some influence: Metro Vancouver housing affordability; a rapid-transit bus to connect Evergreen Extension riders to eastern suburbs, including PoCo; and the Metro Regional Prosperity Forum, among other things.
What about the Fremont connector? Moore is tight-lipped but confident Coquitlam has heard PoCo’s concerns about the ever-growing Burke Mountain and its effect on PoCo roads.
Still, what Moore can say for sure is that he believes his win as mayor in 2008 brought a much-needed boost of community stability following the controversial rein of Scott Young, who drew attention to PoCo with criminal charges for assault and breaking and entering.
Good governance, open and transparent leadership, and organizational management are skills he hopes he can transfer into whatever he does next.
Moore’s rise into the political realm started in 2000, when the deaths of PoCo councillors Mike Gates and Jon Baillie opened up seats on council. At the time, Moore’s only public profile was from co-chairing the Terry Fox Hometown Run. He said he spent just $600 on his election campaign and came in third to Mike Forrest and Arlene Crowe.
Six months later, with the passing of then-mayor Len Traboulay, another byelection was called. Young ran for the top job and his empty seat on council prompted Moore to run for a second time. Again, Moore lost, to Mike Bowen.
By then, Moore had a taste for politics and was eager to gain a council seat. In the 2002 general election, he topped the polls.
Six years later, he was elected the youngest mayor in the city’s history and, three years after that, became the youngest board chair in Metro Vancouver’s history — a position to which he was re-acclaimed last week, making him also the longest-serving Metro chair.
Moore remembers moving into the mayor’s office in 2008 and realizing a physical shift was also overdue. To make his quarters more welcoming, he dedicated a wall with community photos, another wall to Art Focus artwork and, behind his wooden desk (a hand-carved beauty to mark PoCo’s 100th year in 2013), a print of hometown hero Terry Fox — the PoCo secondary grad his dad, Bruce Moore, coached.
Hometown pride is where Moore’s heart is.
And though his future is currently undecided, Moore states he has no ambitions to leave the place where he grew up — and the place he and Erin Moore raised their daughter, Madison, now a UBC undergrad.
Though he stepped down earlier this year from the I Am Someone to End Bullying Society executive, he remains committed to volunteering and making a difference after he exits public office next November.
He said he won’t back anyone in the race for the mayor’s job and he’s bowing out now to give those candidates enough time to prepare to proper campaign.
“I don’t think people appreciate how hard the job is or understand it,” Moore said. “There’s too much in today’s political world where people say, ‘You’re right and he’s wrong.’ We have to come to a consensus…
“And I want people to get involved in local government more. We need to consult. We need to work together or nothing is ever going to work.”
jcleugh@tricitynews.com
