The saying goes: Imitation is the greatest form of flattery.
So I am pleased to accept the praise from the incumbent in the West Vancouver mayoralty race. His platform release in recent days has a familiar ring to the one I released in mid-September. You’d think he signed on to join my slate.
As a journalist you occasionally run into someone taking your ideas, echoing your phrasing, and passing it off as theirs. As a candidate, I think it’s important for the reaction to be the same: Call it out, so that anyone paying attention can know that the imitator/borrower/plagiarist hasn’t produced anything original but at least respects what you did.
In my case, eight of the 10 platform planks in the mayor’s re-election platform were in my platform weeks earlier. I had dozens of other ideas, too, and maybe there will be more borrowing to come, but eight made their way into his initial 10.
To be fair, three of these ideas have been in the conversation in West Vancouver for some time. It’s just that he has failed to deliver them. To wit: an arts centre, a skating centre, an urgent care centre.
Four of them, though, are rather hilarious as platform planks, because he’s been capable of doing them for years: fixing the sidewalks, reducing commercial tax rates, renewing the retail districts, building housing for seniors and families.
And one stands out as a veiled admission of a mistake: the late-to-the-party promise of restoring free parking in Ambleside Park, after the fiasco of introducing paid parking cost businesses hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Only two of his 10 aren’t directly in my plan: activate the waterfront (nice, but with no specifics on how you’d do that, hardly a plan), and a review of fees and charges (I’m calling for a full program review, not just one at the edges of municipal spending).
To produce my platform, I spent many months talking to hundreds of residents to understand their priorities. It was well worth it to put in the work. I am grateful for the hundreds of insights because change requires thoughtful treatment of ideas.
As I launchd my campaign, I already had a few fundamentals to propose: better consultation, a push for accountability on the scandalous wastewater treatment plant costs, renewal of the business districts, and more financial discipline. These to me were obvious needs, but I wanted to hear from the community on specifics it sought.
Along the way I was pressed regularly to release a full platform. I replied that an early release gets stolen or forgotten by election time. What I hope is that voters don’t forget these ideas on October 17, but realize who first brought them forward for consideration.