Lately, there has been a great deal of discussion around the position of Deputy Mayor. Many people are trying to figure out if Stephen Chase will be the Deputy Mayor. There have been rumors that Ivan Court does not want this; but, could he actually pick someone else?

On February 12th, 2008, the following motion was passed by Council:

11.6 - Position of Deputy Mayor
On motion of Deputy Mayor Hooton
Seconded by Councillor Chase
RESOLVED that the current system of electing the Deputy Mayor which is the election of the Councillor who receives the most votes in the municipal election be maintained.
Question being taken the motion was carried

The important thing to note is that everyone on Common Council voted in favor of this motion, including Ivan Court.

This motion clearly shows that Stephen Chase will be the deputy mayor when he is sworn in for this new Council term.

Any changes to this position would require a motion to be made in the next session; but, would this be a motion that the people support? Since Stephen was elected with the most votes (even more votes then than Ivan himself), he has demonstrated his support with the people in this city.

I can’t see any motion to remove him being successful.

Here is a strange story that I read today.

The Saint John Police are spending $13,000 on a T3 personal mobility vehicle. This is a three-wheeled electric vehicle. The device can travel at speeds up to 40 km/h and has a siren and high beams.

What gets me is the following:

The T3 will allow police to quickly and easily manoeuvre through crowds and hard-to-reach parts of the city, Hanley said.

“It just allows our officers to get from point A to point B quicker,” Hanley said. “If he’s running, he’d be tired when he got there. This will allow him to save his energy. Plus it’s a green vehicle.”

The device will likely be used in the Harbour Passage area along the Saint John waterfront and at parades and other community events, Hanley said.

“We’ve had some robberies there, some people have been beaten up along here, so this allows an officer get along through here,” Hanley said. “It can get in and out of traffic and crowds easy, and we’re looking forward to purchasing more of them.”

Police are undergoing training now to drive the vehicle, he said, and it will begin to be used in the summer.

What I would like to know is - wouldn’t a bicycle work?

They are: fuel-efficient, cost effective, and they don’t require any training!

Heck, it’s even good exercise, and it would keep our officers in great shape.

I could see upwards of $1,500 for a bicycle; but, that’s really pushing it. $13,000 for this vehicle seems like an awful lot to spend.

Is it worth it? Well, I’d like to hear more.

Call me crazy; but, I can’t be the only one thinking this!

Today, CBC and the Telegraph-Journal wrote stories around the Ward 2 recount.

It looks like these rejected ballots were actually special ballots, ones that were filled out ahead of time, and not read into the machine until election night.

This was too late to detect the error in the ballots. However, even though there were problems with the ballot (in once case, someone marked two people for Mayor), the section for the Ward was marked fine.

These two ballots were set aside on election night by workers. It took until yesterday for these two ballots were finally looked at by officials in Fredericton.

CBC describes it below:

The problem developed when poll officers attempted to insert the two special ballots into the machine but the machine rejected them, Jones said.

The mayor section of the ballot had been spoiled though the councillor section was valid, Jones said. The machine recognized that part of the ballot had been spoiled and asked if that was correct and if the voter wanted to proceed with scanning the results.

But seeing that the councillor section was valid and unsure how to proceed, the poll officers apparently set the ballots aside, Jones said.

“Sometimes the machine doesn’t pick them up for various reasons and it tells them to take a look at something,” said Mary Aculiffe, a returning officer in Saint John. “They had set them aside in the spoiled ballots and when we took a look at them, we decided they were really not spoiled.”

The Telegraph-Journal describes it as a glitch; however, I don’t think that is the case.

A comment on the CBC article said it best:

Before people start jumping up and down whining about the machines.. If you read carefully you will see that the machine did its job and said there is something wrong here!! How do you want to proceed? And it was the election people that did not do their job and find out how to deal with it right then. The machine worked. The put the ballots aside and forgot about them.

The breaking news just in is that two previously rejected ballots have been counted, and both ballots were for Higgins.

On election night, White was declared the winner by a single vote. With these two votes now counted, Higgins is now ahead of White by a single vote. It looks like White will have the chance to see these ballots tomorrow, and he will have to decided if he should launch a formal judicial review.

I hope that White does appeal and there is a formal judicial review. White is the better candidate, and I believe that he would be the most capable on this new Council.

Country 94’s news item is below:

It’s like the weather around here - wait five minutes and it will change — well it’s a little longer than five minutes but the unofficial winner of the battle between incumbent Carl White and challenger Patty Higgins for a council seat in ward two here in the city has changed.
Returning officer Mary McAuliffe tells us while preparing for tomorrow’s preliminary review of the results with the candidates — two ballots previously rejected on election night were deemed sufficient be counted.

And as a result — White’s one vote win over Higgins Monday night has been overturned — Higgins is now the winner by one vote with a total of 2364-votes.

The candidates will view digital images of the ballots cast and can then decide whether to launch a formal challenge of the results.

The results are in for the Saint John 2008 Municipal Election!

Overall, the turnout was lower then I was expecting at 50.58%; however, 24,078 people did vote, and they did make major changes to Council.

I believe the big winners were Ivan Court and Stephen Chase. Court was elected as the new Mayor of Saint John with 8850 votes, and Stephen Chase was re-elected at large with 9926 votes.

Below is our new Council:

• Ivan Court - Mayor (8850 votes)
• Stephen Chase - Deputy Mayor (9926 votes)
• Chris Titus - Councillor ‘At-Large’ (8486 votes)
• Peter McGuire - Ward 1 Councillor (3577 votes)
• Bill Farren - Ward 1 Councillor (2763 votes)
• Gary Sullivan - Ward 2 Councillor (2764 votes)
• Carl White - Ward 2 Councillor (2363 votes)
• Patty Higgins - Ward 2 Councillor (2364 votes)
• Donnie Snook - Ward 3 Councillor (1874 votes)
• Carl Killen - Ward 3 Councillor (1550 votes)
• Bruce Court - Ward 4 Councillor (2309 votes)
• Joe Mott - Ward 4 Councillor (1987 votes)

Note that there will likely be a recount in Ward 2 because Carl White only beat Patty Higgins by 1 vote. I guess we will find out how accurate the voting machines are after all!

Update: Patty Higgins had two previously rejected ballots counted in her name.  This puts her one vote ahead of Carl White.

Find out the full results here!

Today, I attended ACAP’s March Creek Cleanup with Stephen Chase. The event was sponsored by Canaport LNG.

While the weather wasn’t the nicest, the turnout was more then the organizers expected! I think that says a lot about our community. Freezing weather along with the chance of rain won’t keep people from making Saint John a better place to live!

I was on team 8, and we cleaned the area behind Michael’s to Rothesay Avenue. I was pretty suprised by the amount of garbage and trash that ends up in the waterways around the malls.

One interesting thing that we did discover was the remains of a copper stripping operation. It looked like the wire was stripped for the copper, and the insulation was left in a pile not far from Rothesay Avenue.

Anther discovery was a groundhog living nearby this mess. We found several deep holes, then we found him sticking his head out of another hole near the water. Just goes to show the wildlife that lives right beside our malls!

I do feel bad for the groundhog though, The water was really gross. It was reddish colored, and it smelled pretty bad.

After the cleanup, we headed back behind Parkwall mall where we were able to see the amount of garbage picked up by each team. It blew me away to see so many rusting shopping carts that were picked up.

The strangest thing that I found was several backpacks containing crushed beer cans near an empty bottle of Colt 45. As strange as that may be, that is nothing compared to the winner of the “strangest item” contest. Someone actually found a bong. How stange of a thing to end up in Marsh Creek!

It was definitely a successful event, and I would be interested in participating again next year!

I saw this hilarious video today. Someone translated the video into English; but, it’s not a normal translation, they just put down what it sounds like in English. Even if you don’t find the words funny, you will find the video to be exceptionally ridiculous!

You gotta check it out:

Today, my latest letter to the editor was published. I find it really disappointing how much they try to attack the one candidate who stands up for the taxpayers in Saint John.

Recent attack ads are uncalled for
Telegraph-Journal

This week, I’ve had the displeasure of listening to a special interest group’s attack ad on the radio. This group does not believe that the citizens of Saint John are able to decide who to vote for on their own.

To sway voters, they have launched attack ads on the radio. The person that they attack is Councillor Stephen Chase. Unknown to many, he is the councillor who made the historic motion to reaffirm the city’s commitment to public ownership and control of its water supply.

Stephen continues to support looking at all options in service delivery and selecting the one with the best value for the taxpayers - after all, it is our money that council is spending.

Shawn Peterson
Saint John

Last night, Campaign by the Clock took place in Market Square.

The event was organized by Fusion Saint John and the Saint John Board of Trade.

We were able to attract most of the candidates, including everyone running for Mayor, who took the time to speak with the people on-on-one.

Although we didn’t get a huge crowd, a few first time voters were out meeting with the candidates, which is something that I am very happy to see. I believe that every person that we can get out and engaged early on, is likely to keep voting as they get older.

For more information, check out the Telegraph-Journal’s writeup here.

Today, Stephen Chase set the record straight on the radio attack ads targeting him personally.

“I feel like I’m a prime minister in a federal election,” Chase said Thursday, referring to the very personal nature of Federal politics.

Who is responsible?

The radio ads are being played by the “Coalition for Concerned Citizens”, the same group that tried to boycott the Santa Clause parade in the past.

Bruce Court involvement?

Bruce Court’s brochures say that he is the chairman of the Coalition of Concerned Citizens, Unions & Small Business; however, he says that he stepped back from the group when the campaign started.

“It’s nothing to do with me,” Court said. “I don’t even know what the ads say.”

He said the correct person to talk to would be Linda Stoddard, who couldn’t be reached for comment.

Special Interest Groups Interference

“It’s all very interesting,” Chase said. “It’s unfortunate that special interest groups want to misrepresent my position for self-interest.”

Chase has come under attack before over his stance on the city’s water infrastructure. The Canadian Union of Public Employees has been distributing signs and pamphlets urging “no to water for profit,” while Chase says he has no intention of selling Saint John’s water.

He says he only wants council to look closely at whether the private sector can do a better, more cost-effective job running the filtration plants than the city’s union workers have.

Stephen’s Public Ownership Motion

Keep in mind, Stephen was the Councillor who made the motion to Council that reaffirms the city’s commitment to public ownership and control of the water supply. This is something that CUPE fails to mention in their disinformation campaign.

Chase wants for safe, clean drinking water

Chase says citizens want public ownership of the water itself and safe, clean drinking water - in both cases, he wants the same, he said. But if a private company can do a better job running the plants then council should consider it, he said. If the research shows that the union workers are still the best choice, Chase says he can live with that. But he says he won’t let the union management control the agenda.