What can we learn from the school board by-election results?
And our meme-able city
The preliminary results are in and Sarah Holland and Shar McCrory have been elected to school board, by a wide margin. The breakdown of votes looks like this:
Sarah Holland - 1,590
Shar McCrory - 1,384
Milton Mahoney – 672
David Low – 632
Lucy Duncan – 194
Bill Price – 154
Don Fitzpatrick – 101
Dusty Martin – 97
Heather McKenzie – 95
Josh Silva – 69 (pulled out of the race mid-campaign but was still on the ballot)
So what can we take away from this? A few stray observations:
4,988 votes were cast in this by-election, compared to 1,137 in the last one, held January 2022. There was clearly far more interest in this campaign than there was in that one and for fairly obvious reason, given everything that has led up to now. Still, it’s far, far below the more than 15,000 votes in the regular election last fall — by-elections simply do not get the same number of people out. Sarah Holland’s 1,590 votes may be a landslide in this campaign, but they would have placed her dead last in October (it’s not apples to apples though, it’s just turnout — McCrory got far more votes in 2022, when she ran).
I think it’s a fair guess that two camps coalesced around the top four candidates. Holland and McCrory were endorsed by the teacher’s union, among others. They campaigned together at Pride. Their names came up together, quite a bit. Plus, they actually showed up to school board meetings and have worked in the system in the past. They seem to have been the consensus choice among people who have a sense of how school board works and, more broadly, reality.
In contrast, 3rd and 4th place finishers Milton Mahoney and David Low’s names also came up together — notably among people who want to see SOGI out of classrooms. Low appeared on a local podcast/video channel where he was urged to have the RCMP look into using the criminal code on teachers for what they are teaching in the classroom and later in that same podcast, after Low left, there was a panel discussion about how no one really has to pay taxes, which gives you a sense of where that support was coming from.
That said, if Josh Silva had continued to run we might be looking at a different story. I’m sure Holland would have still been elected, seeing the results now, but he was more successful than Mahoney in the last election and he was more prominent up to the moment he decided he wasn’t actually going to campaign so had he stayed in, things might have been tighter.
Most of the other candidates had more in common with Holland/McCrory but again, Holland/McCrory just seemed to show up more and actually campaign, so that’s where the support went.
It’s also worth noting that in a by-election, especially, it tends to be people who work in the school district who are going to go and vote and they are probably not that interested in voting for someone who takes seriously the notion that teachers need to be investigated by the RCMP for teaching provincial curriculums.
For all this, Holland and McCrory are still just two voices at a table of seven people. They are replacing two trustees who resigned because they didn’t feel like they would be able to productively work with the majority of people still at the reigns. That said, these two are going into it knowing what to expect and without the baggage of whatever prompted the previous two trustees to step down, so they may be able to have a more productive session moving forward, especially if the rest of the board is eager to be seen as moving forward, as well — which, I expect, they probably are.
So that’s that! Watch this space for developments, I guess.
Meme-able Prince George
Two big memes have been going around about the city lately. I’m not where the first one came from but it’s been everywhere.
The other is from the popular Vancouver-based Sea Bus Memes:
As somebody said, wait until they see the balloons.
Quick news:
Since I’ve not been writing this newsletter with regularity, a lot to catch up on. These are the highlights:
On Wednesday, a cultural healing event was held at the Moccasin Flats homeless camp. On Friday morning, RCMP announced they had seized multiple drugs and weapons from the encampment at Millennium Park. Later that day, Premier David Eby showed up to sign a memorandum of understanding with the city aimed at fast-tracking new housing projects and eliminating encampments.After that he headed out to celebrate the opening of Canada’s first renewable diesel refinery completing construction in town.
Meanwhile, a code orange was called at the hospital afer a bus carrying camp workers crashed north of the city. Fortunately, everyone has now been released but it has prompted a discussion about the need for safer forestry roads.
Speaking of roads, Northern Development is looking for public input on transportation challenges in northern B.C.
And the David Douglas Botanical Garden broke ground on its new $1.2M expansion.
The Donnie Creek fire is now the largest wildfire recorded in B.C. history.
Westbin Waste — which you’ll recognize as having those yellow dumpsters around town — has unionized.
Prince George is facing its slowest construction season in six years.
On the vet shortage: How one foreign-trained veterinarian is navigating the licensing process in Prince George, B.C.
A B.C. Supreme Court has stopped a Hart woman from operating a daycare without a licence — but has left the door open for her to operate if she does get a licence.
The owner of Lambda is trying to get a court ruling overturned by going directly to the Attorney General which, I’m no legal expert, but I’m pretty sure it won’t work.
The latest round of Northern Health restaurant inspections includes mouse droppings.
Alex Cuba will be performing with the Prince George Symphony Orchestra next year.
Things I need to write about in future newsletters: efforts underway to buy am urban farm, hundreds sign petition against proposed College Heights developments and city council delays decision on Mega Park.
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