Ex-councillor, 3 incumbents seek Nanaimo council seats
Sheryl Armstrong, Gord Fuller, Ian Thorpe, Wendy Pratt say they’re running
Three Nanaimo councillors and a former councillor, who quit part-way through her first term, are putting their names forward for the Oct. 20 election.
New faces will be elected next month for the nine-member council. Mayor Bill McKay is not running again. Three hopefuls for that job have filed nomination papers. A total of 21 candidates have put their names forward for a seat as a councillor.
Councillors Sheryl Armstrong, Gord Fuller, and Ian Thorpe are putting their names forward.
Wendy Pratt, who resigned in April 2017, wants to be back at the council table. The resulting vacancy prompted a July byelection costing $132,534.
Retired RCMP officer Armstrong, with a background featuring strategic planning and conflict mediation and resolution, easily won the seat, beating a dozen other candidates.
“I would like the opportunity to move the city forward. I think we have been stagnant with all the internal turmoil so a lot of council’s energy has been spent on that,” she said.
The city has lost a lot of momentum on overall maintenance of infrastructure and money is needed for that fund, she said. “We definitely have to look at the homeless population as well as affordability for those that are working,” Armstrong said. “I’ve stated all along that we should be starting community engagement with all aspects of the city, not just certain areas.” The city needs to do a better job of communicating, she said, adding that she would like to see the position of a communications manager restored.
A staff shortage has left Nanaimo lagging in its permit process at a time when a lot of building is going on, said Armstrong, who is calling for key staff positions to be filled.
Fuller has earned a high profile this past term. He told the mayor to “bite me” in 2016, questioned if a retired Nanaimo citizen had been involved in a private U.S. military company, and was found by B.C.’s information and privacy commissioner to have posted to his Facebook page confidential letters from a law firm.
Fuller said those letters were not identified as confidential when he received them. “If the OPIC wishes to carry further then I would be more than happy to see this in court,” he said on his Facebook page.
Fuller said he is running for reelection because of, “The sheer nastiness of the last four years and if I were not to run would I be able to live with myself and allow myself to be beaten by that? Or would I stand up and give it a shot again?”
Fuller wants to be around to see a review of core services carried out as recommended in a report, and tightened up financial policies as outlined in another study. “The potential of saving millions of dollars is there.”
Thorpe, also a first-term council member, said, “Nanaimo’s reputation has taken a real hit over the past four years through the unfortunate dysfunction of our council.”
He wants to offer his experience to new councillors. “I would really like to see us start fresh with a large number of new councillors and start to rebuild Nanaimo’s reputation and repair some of the harm that has been done.”
An “alarming” number of staff have left the city, Thorpe said.
“The new council is going to have to make sure that they get a new CAO [chief administrative officer] in place and with that step taken, try and attract good senior managers back to the city.”
Proper governance at city hall is a key issue for Thorpe, along with downtown revitalization and supporting the expansion of the waterfront walkway.
Pratt declined to do an interview but said on her Facebook page, “I believe I still have a great deal to offer at the council table and would be both grateful and honoured to be a part of a new council that operates at a completely different level and is able to create a vibrant and healthy community.”
She too pointed to infrastructure, saying much of it has suffered in recent years. The city lost the Nanaimo Economic Development Corp., Tourism Nanaimo (now handled through Central Island Tourism), and the Downtown Business Improvement Association, she said. “Perhaps more importantly, we lost a great deal of corporate history and expertise through the exodus of nearly 40 top managers within a very short period of time, all of whom had a great deal of expertise in their chosen field.”