Who are you supporting for council?
Councillors Lou Sekora, Neal Nicholson and Selina Robinson, and candidates Randy Delmonico, Fred Soofi and Vincent Wu.
Who are you being funded by?
Businesses, individuals and CUPE.
What groups have endorsed you?
New Westminster and District Labour Council, CUPE, Paramedics union Local 873.
Do you think your campaign got off to a bad start with the reception to your criticisms of Mayor Richard Stewart?
No, I think when you're telling things that are truthful, people respect that. I did not appreciate the spin that was put on my words and I've chosen to take the high road on that and not defend myself against things that I never said.
Do you want to clarify your comments?
No, I don't want to add any credibility to mistruths that have been circulated. Quite frankly, there have been a bunch of things happening in this campaign that I felt have been rather distasteful.
You have criticized the mayor's leadership abilities. Why is that?
I have not found Mr. Stewart to be decisive when he's making decisions or providing leadership. There's certain types of leadership that I would respect but we in the city do not need a figurehead or a ceremonial leader. We need someone who is going to be actually representing our city externally and we need someone who's going to be in the meetings, chairing the meetings and providing direction.
Do you think you've been intentionally left out as chair of committees?
There was an interview question three years ago when we were asked [by reporters] who we would like to see in the mayor's seat. At the time, I made the comment, "Myself in three years." Mr. Stewart took that as a direct challenge. He has made a conscientious decision to exclude me from any opportunities for me to show, as I have done in the previous six years, to my strong leadership capabilities and chairmanship.
You have studied the rules governing meetings but is it necessary for you to point out Robert's Rules of Order to the chair during a policy debate?
I believe Robert's Rules of Order is a tool, not a weapon. I certainly have not brought anything to anybody's attention publicly unless it has been pretty grievous. And there have been some abuses. The chair is supposed to be respectful and allow different people to speak, and not play favourites and that, certainly, has not been happening.
As a city councillor, why do you claim the highest amount in expenses every year?
It's because of the way we report our expenses. There's no way my expenses are going to be higher than the mayor's when he's been to Korea and China. My expenses are mainly attributed to my representation for the city on the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. That is something council discussed several years ago. There is a standing resolution that authorizes my [FCM] expenses.
Coun. Lou Sekora supports you and he wants a zero-based budget. If elected mayor, would you adopt this policy?
I have never said that is the only way we can manage our finances; however, that being said, if that's what it takes in order for us to get our taxes under control, that is something I will look at.
How, as a potential mayor as well as a past director of Metro Vancouver's Labour Relations Bureau, will you keep the taxes down when the civic workers' collective agreement is due to be re-negotiated?
Are we going to see a 4% increase again next year for the employees? I don't think so. I know what the labour bureau is looking at is between zero and 1%. That's the starting post. The last three years, under Richard Stewart, we've had increases between 3% and 4%.
And with management to match.
Well, that's another issue that I have some discomfort with.
As a result, you may run into the risk of not being able to retain high-quality managers.
That is the argument. But on the other hand, I'm also being told that whenever we consider that maybe somebody isn't going to stay with the city that we have to give them a significant compensation package when they leave because of the difficulty of them getting another job.
The city is growing so fast. Do you think staff are overworked?
I think our staff work very hard. We are at the point that we're having to bring on people on a temporary basis to get over the bulge that we're having. We certainly don't want to take on full-time employees for a temporary boom.
If you had the choice to do it over again, what alignment and technology would you choose for the Evergreen Line?
My first priority is to get some type of a transportation system. You will probably recall when councillors went down to Portland and we explored the light-rail system. I can tell you from the impact on the community's perspective, light rail seems to have less impact. It's not as invasive. So my first choice would have been to go with a light-rail [system] as long as there was grade separation wherever there was interaction with the high-traffic volume. It's worked very well, including in Calgary.
That being said, we were told as a council that if we were to go with an elevated SkyTrain-type system, we would be able to get federal dollars to move the project forward. So we said, OK, fine, we'll take an elevated system, if that's what it takes to get something to the City Centre. But then there was the impasse on reaching the additional funding. It seems like we, as a city, have accommodated anybody's proposal to try to make something happen and there has always been a reason why it doesn't come forward.
Would you be in favour of Evergreen heading to Port Coquitlam rather than down Pinetree Way?
There is a spur line that's going to be done where the West Coast Express station is. I personally think the transportation system needs to go not just to PoCo but much further out in the [Fraser] Valley. However, I do feel that it is important for us to service the area up towards Douglas College because we have a lot of students up there and we have a lot of people who are going to be using the transportation system when we have festivals [at Town Centre Park].
What's your vision for Coquitlam if you're elected mayor?
I would like us to have more businesses that we're able to rely on for taxation and jobs. I think we're doing a really, really good job at providing different types of homes. But the new residents need places to work so we need to be promoting, recruiting and retaining businesses and good-paying jobs here. And we have to provide the type of amenities that they want. We want to provide a complete community.
