Ben Burd: My choices for the vote!

Fellow blogger Ben Burd, who is a great gadfly and citizen journalist, made his calls for Monday's election. It would be criminal not to share them.

My choices for the vote!:

In making these choices I made two assumptions. One: none of the incumbents deserved to be re-elected, their offenses against the Official plan were of the hanging variety and their inability to listen to the electorate are the main reasons for me. Councillor Brocanier boasts about having listened to 45 delegations in the last year, well Gil listening and Listening are two different things. Sitting in one's chair like Buddha and then having the Mayor say, "Thank you for coming" is not meaningful listening.

You don't have to be a brain surgeon to be on Council, just an independent mind and the guts to state your opinion

So here they are:

• Mayor: Lloyd Williams, despite the bizarre campaign tactic of admitting that he will not win he succeeded in getting the issues out. He gets my vote because he has pledged to reform the "coordinator system", I hope he destroys it!
• Deputy Mayor: Manfred Schumann, despite a rather flat public performance he has put forward a platform of thought and substance. His opponent has only said that he plans to use a "line by line" budget review as his tax cutting tool. Sorry Gil but you used that last year and the year before that and the year before that and taxes never went down but spending spiraled upward.
• Councillor: Stan Frost, he has the biggest vested interest in reducing taxes - he pays the most, so get to it Stan cut taxes!
• Councillor: Howie McCourt, he is the most straightforward of the list, I like him, I have worked with him and I trust him. Besides he understands the Official Plan.
• Councillor: Miriam Mutton, Miriam knows the issues, she understands the damage that the developers have wreaked on this Town, I like her and trust her.
• Councillor Rob Harper, Rob is down to earth, knows what it is to be like to live on less than a Teachers' Pension all the time and still keeps his sense of humour. Besides the ONLY new idea that came from any of the candidates came from him, he's original and I like that.

• Councillor: Melissa Marshall, Melissa is the youngest and at 34 brings a perspective that might offend some of the "dead white male thinking" that prevails around the Council Chamber

Now in making this slate I realise that most of it will never come to pass (shades of Lloyd Williams - ed) but one can only hope and perhaps the list and the reasons behind each choice may give others the thought too.