City of North Vancouver voters have selected Linda Buchanan to be their next mayor.
Buchanan will take a seat at the mayor’s chair with 3,800 ballots cast in her favour, or 29.7 per cent of the total vote. (The results are considered unofficial until certified.)
Former councillor Guy Heywood came in a close second, netting 3,399 votes, or 26.6 per cent of the 12,789 total ballots that were cast for City of North Vancouver mayoral candidates.
Seven-term councillor Rod Clark received 2,828 (22.1 per cent) votes, while 2014 mayoral candidate Kerry Morris landed 1,987 (15.5 per cent) ballots in his favour.
Other mayoral candidates Michael Willcock and Payam Azad received 545 and 230 votes, respectively.
“I'm thrilled, I'm so humbled,” Buchanan told reporters moments after the results came pouring in on election night, Oct. 20. “This has been an over-a-year process and I’m just honoured that the citizens have put the faith in me to carry on with the city and I am thrilled with who else has been elected.”
Buchanan, a two-term councillor, identified affordable housing as a top priority when she announced her campaign back in May. The city needed to build “a lot more purpose rental,” she said at the time.
The election campaign was fought mainly between the pro-growth Buchanan camp and the trio of Heywood, Clark and Morris, who all advocated for a slower approach to development in the city as a remedy for skyline-obscuring construction and near constant traffic congestion.
Buchanan largely voted alongside outgoing Mayor Darrell Mussatto during her tenure on council and had his support as she sought election as mayor, but noted that, “you can’t rest on those laurels.”
“I think we’ve done some really amazing things in our city, and there are some really significant challenges,” she said.
Buchanan said her immediate priorities will be housing affordability and easing the burden of traffic congestion by following the guidelines laid out in the recently released Integrated North Shore Transportation Planning Project report.
“(We’ll be) looking at who’s been elected in the other two municipalities, to work with them to certainly start moving forward on the transportation piece and getting on the same page so that we’re one voice,” she said.
She also stressed: “We need to deliver Harry Jerome. ... We’ve got some work to do with that as well.”
Joining Buchanan on council will be Angela Girard, Tony Valente, Jessica McIlroy, Tina Hu, along with incumbents Don Bell and Holly Back.
63,249 total votes were cast for council, with Bell receiving the most at 6,091. Girard received 5,109; Valente received 4,539; McIlroy received 4,465; Hu received 3,767; while Back netted 3,662.
Heywood, who campaigned on a platform of slowing down the rate of development in the city in order to speed up traffic, said Buchanan’s win means that the status quo will be maintained to the detriment of the community.
“Seventy per cent of the voters didn’t want Linda to be mayor,” he said, before adding that between himself, Clark and Morris also running for the mayor’s chair a singular vision in opposition to Buchanan couldn’t be achieved. “The three of us did the community a disservice by not giving them the opportunity to get behind one candidate and make that statement. I take responsibility for my part in that.”
The new City of North Vancouver mayor and council are due to be sworn in on Nov. 5.
Below are the unofficial City of North Vancouver council results:
Elected
Don Bell (incumbent): 6,091
Angela Girard: 5,109
Tony Valente: 4,539
Jessica McIlRoy: 4,465
Tina Hu: 3,767
Holly Back (incumbent): 3,662
Not elected
Mack McCorkindale: 3,525
Bill Bell: 3,375
Robert Fearnley: 3,253
Antje Wilson: 3,228
Shervin Shahriari: 3,187
Anna Boltenko: 2,903
Joe Heilman: 2,662
Kenneth Izatt: 2,305
Alborz Jaberolansar: 2,123
Brett Thorburn: 1,722
Ron Polly: 1,717
Mica Jensen: 1,177
John McCann: 1,177
Max Zahedi: 1,177
Aaron Lobo: 585
Pooneh Alizadeh: 469
Thomas Tofigh: 426
Ron Sostad: 294
Also, click here for unofficial results, sourced from a feed provided by CivicInfoBC.
