District of North Vancouver council is welcoming two new faces following Saturday’s municipal election.
Mathew Bond and Jim Hanson are joining re-elected incumbents Lisa Muri, Doug MacKay-Dunn, Robin Hicks, and Roger Bassam. District Mayor Richard Walton ran unopposed and was acclaimed.
Bond has the distinction of being the first member of Generation Y elected to council on the North Shore. Bond is a 30-year-old engineer with expertise in transportation who campaigned on improved mobility and accessibility, opportunity for young adults and families, and accountability.
“I’m really honoured that people saw what I was offering — a fresh and professional perspective on council and a perspective from a younger generation as well,” he said.
Bond said his highest priority will be making sure that transportation investments from council are spread equally across all types all modes of transportation — “that our investments in walking or cycling keep up or catch up with our investments in road capacity,” he said
Bond said he’ll also have an eye for mitigating the negative impacts of development while maximizing the public benefits — not saying no to development altogether.
Hanson previously ran as a provincial New Democrat in North Vancouver-Seymour. He campaigned on protecting green spaces and wilderness and dealing with traffic congestion. “My priority is to make sure our infrastructure, especially our transportation infrastructure, catches up to our population growth,” he said. “I also believe it’s very important we take every effort possible to pursue amalgamation on behalf of North Van district voters.”
Specifically, Hanson said he’d like to see a new east-west route to the Seymour area that doesn’t involve the TransCanada Highway.
Walton said he is eager to meet with the new council members as they are all sworn in on Dec. 1. “I’m very pleased with the council elected. I think it shows a lot of balance,” he said, adding he was particularly enthused to see a young person on council.
Among the first things the new council will have to deal with is the fallout from the damages done during the flood on Nov. 3 and doing a “major mid-term check-in on the OCP.”
“We certainly heard during the campaign that there’s significant concerns about the rate of growth and about how broad the OCP growths rates could be and should be interpreted. We heard from a number of candidates saying our public engagement process is not as good as it could be,” he said. “I think certainly listening closely to what we heard in the all-candidates meetings and trying to make sure we go forward, reflecting on those concerns, solving the problems and shifting our perspective if we need to.”
Voter turnout inched upward to 23 per cent from 21 per cent in 2011, still the lowest on the North Shore.
Here are unofficial results for District of North Vancouver council:
Lisa Muri — 7,682
Doug MacKay-Dunn — 7,470
Robin Hicks — 6,817
Jim Hanson — 6,309
Mathew Bond — 5,750
Roger Bassam — 5,714
Non-elected council candidates:
Linda Findlay — 5,405
Wayne Hunter — 4,432
Glenn MacKenzie — 4,254
Kevin Macauley — 3,954
Len Laycock — 3,420
Connie De Boer — 2,815
Amelia Hill — 2,719
Hazen Colbert — 2,665
Elected to represent the district at the North Vancouver school board are:
Jessica Stanley — 5,980
Barry Forward — 5,354
Cyndi Gerlach — 5,253
Franci Stratton — 4,450
Non-elected school board candidates:
Yael Drinkle — 4,149
Heather Skuse — 3,732
Susan Lockhart — 3.026
Kelly Muirhead — 2,795
Dave Jackson — 1,967
Shane Nelson — 1,797
Edward Desaulniers — 1,218
Bobbi-Lynn Nestor — 646
