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Nominations close Friday for run at empty council seat

Anyone interested in claiming a chair at West Vancouver’s council table has until Friday to fill out the paperwork. With the byelection set for Nov. 19, all nomination forms must be mailed, emailed, or handed over by 4 p.m.
WV municipal hall

Anyone interested in claiming a chair at West Vancouver’s council table has until Friday to fill out the paperwork.

With the byelection set for Nov. 19, all nomination forms must be mailed, emailed, or handed over by 4 p.m. at the legislative services department at municipal hall.

The successful candidate should have a working knowledge of the community and an “overall philosophy of helping everyone,” said Coun. Bill Soprovich, who’s currently serving his seventh term on council.

Hot button issues are expected to range from the size of West Vancouver’s houses to the length of its traffic jams.

“To me it’s still a bedroom community – a flow-through bedroom community,” Soprovich said, discussing traffic snarls around Taylor Way and Marine Drive.

The challenge of securing non-market rental housing, particularly for seniors, young families and first responders may also be up for debate in the next two years.

“We know for sure if there’s a major disaster we would have only a handful of (first responders) come out in the first hour because a lot of them don’t live on the North Shore.”

With voter turnout typically sluggish in byelections, there is a potential for a successful candidate to ride to power based on the favour of a single community group.

“That’s not the way to go,” Soprovich said. “They have to represent the entire community.”

Slightly more than 28 per cent of West Vancouver’s registered voters cast ballots in the 2014 municipal election.

Coun. Christine Cassidy narrowly won her seat, as her 3,233 votes were enough to squeak past both Joanna Baxter and Jim Finkbeiner by fewer than 55 ballots.

Former councillor Michael Evison and architect Peter Lambur also had strong showings in 2014, finishing with 3,079 and 2,893 votes, respectively.

The byelection was triggered by the recent death of Coun. Michael Lewis.

Soprovich called Lewis a “good friend,” and a “pretty good friend on council.”

Lewis supported the Grosvenor development on the 1300 block of Marine Drive, arguing that while it wasn’t a masterpiece or the single answer to Ambleside’s revitalization, it was a step in the right direction.

“I’m not sure it’s the Eifel Tower … but it’s not the London Wheel, either,” he said.

When discussing a ban on LNG tankers in Howe Sound, Lewis said he envisioned “the LNG tanker coming out from Woodfibre crashing into an oil tanker coming out of Burnaby; but it was all getting mopped up by the stuff coming off the garbage barge.”

Byelection candidates must be at least 18 and have resided in B.C. for at least six months.