Ellen Woodsworth [COPE], pictured above holding the microphone, was elected as a Vancouver City Councillor with 45,877 votes in yesterday's Vision-COPE election sweep. When Larry Campbell was mayor, Woodsworth was one of the COPE councillors who he couldn't work with, saying they were "too ideological".
Woodsworth wants to make buses free in some areas of Vancouver, not a pipe dream when you consider that Seattle has free bus service downtown. Also, she wants to make Vancouver a one fare zone, not a two fare zone which tripped up Mayor-elect Gregor Robertson and left him with a $173 fine.
Woodsworth apparently used to run Neighborhood Helpers on the Downtown Eastside.
As a Councillor from 2002-2005, Woodsworth pushed for a "Peace" conference to be held in Vancouver. The Peace conference turned out to be a thinly veiled Hate-Israel conference.
Audrey Laferierre, pictured on the left with the microphone in the above photo, did well for an independent candidate for councillor: 4,196 votes.
6 comments:
I was really pleased to see how many people, would be councillors and audience speakers alike, gave Audrey the respect she deserves as a hard working fighter for the rights of homeless who is actually truly in touch with people and their needs. She talks to them everyday and knows sometimes they just want a bed to-bloody-night!
Among the candidates without any organization behind them, Audrey came very close to tying for third place with Marc Boyer who had 4305 votes. That's pretty respectable for a lone woman with a goal.
It's too bad that Parks Board candidate Jamie Lee Hamilton couldn't have seen her way to offering a little more support to Audrey...a write-up or two on her blog possibly, and maybe an invite to speak at the Independent all candidates meeting she(JLH) helped organize over in Kits.
As it was, I believe Audrey's voice was heard, and hopefully Vision and the new mayor will follow through with some serious effort to resolve the immediate needs of the street homeless.
Good job, Audrey!
I congratulate Audrey a well on a good job well done.
As for the rest, not so much. The last thing this city (or any other) needs is sanctimonious moralizing yuppie religious fanatics infantalizing the people. Until these creatures start grasping individuals as individuals, we will be stuck with fascists communalizing the people, dehumanizing the people, and turning them into a mass-product of people as farm animals in the neo-feudalist dystopia that is working its way across the land so quickly.
Can't work with these ideologues? Just wait till they micro-manage every tiny detail of your life and demand you not only pay them for it but tell them as well that you love them for it as well.
No to the "community." Yes to individuals.
All of the City of Vancouver is one transit zone. Gregor must have been going to Burnaby, North Van, Richmond, or somewhere like that. Gregor's account of what happened sounded like a lie. But there is a real injustice in the system: if you travel, for example, one stop on the skytrain between Burnaby and East Van, you have to pay for two zones. If you travel eight stops within Vancouver you only have to pay for one zone. So people traveling a short distance but in two zones are tempted to pay for only one zone. And then eventually they get caught and can face the big fine.
truepeers,
Thanks for clarifying that. When I heard Robertson talking about his fine, I did wonder, "Isn't Vancouver just one zone?"
And I wondered that again when I was listening to Frances Bula and some other journalists doing election night commentary on CKNW. First one of them said that Woodsworth wanted to create free bus service in parts of Vancouver and Bula said, 'Yeah, but she's only one voice and who's going to pay for it?' Then one of them -- I think it was Bula -- said that Woodsworth also wanted to make Vancouver a one-zone fare.
I suspect these journalists and Robertson were referring to what you just explained but they were simplifying it.
What Geller was referring to was a question I asked at the All Candidates Meeting at Strathcona Community Centre wherein I asked the VISION candidates to explain how was Gregor going to consult with the community leaders to solve street homelessness when there are no community leaders in the DTES only churches who are accountable to God and non-profits who are accountable to no one. The VISION candidates never answered me.
Today being November 18 2008 I attended an Urban Core meeting, the shelter/service providers in the DTES, a motion was made (not by me) to recommend to City Council that Storyeum, the last big city-owned building be reserved as a community centre for the DTES (Cadman recommened this to City Council January 31 2008) and in the meantime that the location be used as an shelter. The motion was defeated by 9 against and 6 for. There was some discussion by Karen from Lookout about the need for real housing first. Her solution that people die on the streets until the elusive carrot is realized. Unless we in the DTES join and demonstrate there will never be enough shelters for those that need it. As a reminder to all all the new social housing and existing social housing is going to the most vulnerable. What about the working poor and others who are not on their death beds? To the publisher of the Downtown Eastside Enquirer, thank you for reporting what you did.
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