You know them as sooks, Ma’am.

In Corner Brook, they are apparently called penders, after the big sooky former mayor of the great city of the west.

Rather than be gracious in defeat, Charles Pender decided to moan and whine a bit:

“It wasn’t a one-on-one campaign,” Pender said. “I had other forces I had to deal with ... Mr. Greeley had a definite strategy with the support of Gerry Byrne’s campaign team, which is a formidable opponent, and Eddie Joyce bringing people to the polls all day in Curling.”

Pender must get the sooks from some of the company he’s been keeping since 2001.

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Municipal round-up

1.  St. John’s:  A bunch of things already noted.  Here are a few additional quickies:

Municipal politics has never been issue driven and that seemed to be the case across the board.  2009 confirms the iron law:  to get elected talk about anything but what you’ll be responsible for.  Tom Hann and Sandy Hickman both boosted their votes at large, Hann by talking about search and rescue and Hickman with ferry service at Port aux Basques.  Colbert reputedly took a holiday in the middle of the campaign.

Recycling is popular in the city, especially if you look at the trend to re-elect incumbents.  In Ward Three, voters elected a guy who used to be on council almost 20 years ago.

Cost per vote:  Sheilagh O’Leary brought up something about finances but it wasn’t clear if she was complaining about the cost of  campaigns or about the fact that campaign contributions aren’t tax deductible.

Doesn’t matter:  just take a look at what the candidates spent in the mayoral and deputy mayoral campaigns compared to the votes received.  Gigantic sums, even if some of its was comp/in-kind and the vote results were appalling. On the other hand, look at what other candidates in city-wide races did with only a tiny bit of spending. 

We’ll have to wait until the official reports, but a preliminary winner would be Gerry Colbert who spent nothing but sweat apparently and pulled in 16,000 votes.

2.  Paradise:  Ralph Wiseman loses either way.   As of last night, a 19 year old second year university student beat him by three votes.  If the recount affirms that victory, the voters just slapped Wiseman hard.  if he wins on the recount, they have slapped him hard and put him in a really tough spot for the next four years.  held have to radically change his approach or risk being run out of town on a rail.

3.  Corner Brook:  A last minute promise of hundreds of millions in a new hospital couldn’t save Danny and Tom’s hand-picked mayor.

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Ron Ellsworth: R.I.P

The big political story of the 2009 St. John’s municipal election has got to be the political implosion of Ron Ellsworth.

The supremely ambitious fellow burst on the political scene in 2005 with a big win in Ward 4.  His lust for higher office was no secret and in 2008 he ran for the deputy mayor’s job grabbing more than 19,000 votes.

But he fumbled badly a little over a year later, polling almost 7,000 votes less than he got in 2008 and going down to defeat at the hands of one of the weakest mayoral incumbents in recent St. John’s history.

Heck the top six at large candidates all polled more votes than Ron Ellsworth.

Talk about a political catastrophe.

And in record time.

Ellsworth may have made a furtive try at municipal politics in 1997 but when he came on so strongly in 2005, he seemed to be destined for bigger things.

A mere four years later, he is politically left high and dry.

Maybe he’ll do -  as the rumours suggest -  and look to replace Bob Ridgley as the Tory candidate in St. John’s North provincially. 

If he does, Ellsworth will need to find new help with his political advertising.  Whoever did the work for him this time did him a huge disservice at every step.  The only mayoral campaign that sucked more was the winner’s. 

The surprise upset in the election has to be Danny Breen’s victory in Ward One over incumbent Art Puddister.  That isn’t the way your humble e-scribbler called the race and this is one case where it is great to be proven wrong.

St. John’s city politics and its appalling mail-in ballot system are notoriously skewed in favour of incumbents.  Where else but at Tammany on Gower could the polls close at 8:00 PM and the election machinery – literally a machine – could declare victors two minutes later?

It normally takes a herculean effort to unseat a townie incumbent unless you have some kind of momentum behind you as a local celebrity of sorts.  Name recognition and affability often count for  more than any demonstrated knowledge or ability. 

Whatever Dan Breen did to win, he deserves much praise and a whole pile of credit. No one helped him outside of his driven campaign team and that should prove interesting if and when some of the moneyed interests come forward looking for friends to return favours.  

Meanwhile, in the deputy mayor’s race, Shannie Duff handily defeated Keith Coombs.

That wasn’t much of a surprise since Coomb’s resort to negative ads was a huge tell that his campaign was getting desperate.  he wasn’t helped at all by the poor timing of them since they hit the papers – who reads any more – and the airwaves after the crucial date for voting. 

Coombs might have beaten Duff in a old-fashioned race, but he and his crew should have know all that the mail-in ballot system changes the voting dynamic dramatically. 

Pushing poorly executed negatives ads too late in the campaign was just a waste of time and money.  Going negative may have suppressed some of Duff’s vote – which is what going negative does – but it also may have turned off some of Coombs’ potential supporters as well.

At this point, it doesn’t matter.  Keith will have two years to get ready for a provincial run or four years if he wants to try and pull a Sears.  Maybe he an Ron will get together and compare notes.

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Blow-out

If the NTV/Telelink poll is correct, Doc O’Keefe will waltz back into the mayor’s job after this month’s municipal election and Ron Ellsworth can start campaigning for the provincial district of St. John’s North.

The poll puts O’Keefe support at 38% with Ron Ellsworth at 17%. Mark Wilson has one percent and 44% are reported as undecided. Bear in mind that Telelink doesn’t distort their numbers by reporting percentage of decideds. Of the 1,030 people they polled, only 17% backed Ellsworth.

Those numbers generally conform to the poll numbers tossed around in rumours since the middle of the summer that supposedly had O’Keefe ahead of Ellsworth by two to one.

Given the past voter turn-outs in St. John’s, you can probably consider that the final results will show that the undecideds actually won’t to vote at all.

In the deputy mayoral race, Shannie Duff leads Keith Coombs 36% to 28%.

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Municipal election reality reminder

There are three weeks left in the municipal election in St. John’s.

Ballot kits go out in the mail on Friday, September 11 and they will start arriving in mailboxes on September 14.

The first ballots will start arriving back at City hall on September 15 and over the next week and a bit roughly 50% of the ballots that will come in will either be safely at Tammany on Gower or will be on the way via Canada Post.

About half the eligible voters in St. John’s will not bother to vote. 

Incumbents are more likely to get re-elected in any election but in St. John’s with the mail-in ballot system, the bonus that comes from incumbency is exaggerated even more than usual.

In other words, unless you have the misfortune of being an incumbent with some issues associated with your term on council – as in one ward in 2005 -  odds are heavily in your favour that you’ll go back to Tammany on Gower.  

Familiarity counts for a lot in St. John’s politics and in this election the dominant view seems to be that as long as you haven’t shagged anyone over, there’s no reason to change.  Bland is good, for the most part.  It’s a conservative town, at least on the outside, and sameness counts for much. What that means is that with the exception of a couple of spots, the incumbents are going back.

Over the next couple of days, your humble e-scribbler will take a look at the four spots where there is anything like a race:  Ward Three, At Large, Deputy Mayor and Mayor.

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Chiep basturds

If Quentin Tarantino wanted to shoot an homage to the political sign oeuvres of local municipal candidates, that’s what he’d call it.

So like how many city council incumbents are reusing campaign signs from at least one election ago?

Pretty well all of them.

Got pictures?

Send ‘em in and your humble e-scribbler will post ‘em.  bondpapers at hotmail dot com.

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The sincerest form of flattery…

2005

Simon Lono municipal campaign slogan:  Back to basics.

2008

Ron Ellsworth deputy mayoral campaign slogan:  Back to basics.

2008

Doc O’Keefe mayoral campaign slogan:  Leading a Great City.

2009

Ron Ellsworth mayoral campaign slogan:  Standing up for a Great City.

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Oh-cripes-it’s-worse-than-it-first-looked-update:  The news release announcing Ellsworth’s candidacy (thus far the only “news” on his website) is titled “Ready to Lead a Great City”.

Visions are nice…

Ron Ellsworth has a plan.

Well Ron claims he has a plan in slick little web ads that pop up on some Telegram pages.

Ron calls it The Ellsworth Essentials.

Ron says he has a vision.

A vision of Ron as mayor, apparently.

Ron thinks that this slick little campaign will serve to help Ron fulfill his vision.

It might.

But that doesn’t mean the city will be better off.

That’s because Ron doesn’t have a plan for the city itself.

Ron says the city needs a plan.

He’s right.

It needs a plan badly.

And Ron is ready to provide such a plan.

In fact, having a plan for the city is so important that Ron’s first plan is to develop a plan.

But not before the election.

He’ll develop the plan later.

When later?

After we’ve elected Ron and his vision to be mayor.

How long after that, then?

Ron won’t say.

But did I tell you Ron has a vision?

Oh.

I did.

Well, he does.

So while Ron has a vision and doesn’t have a plan, he does plan to get a plan.

Sometime.

Meanwhile, Ron will be doing other stuff.

Without the plan he should have now, before he gets elected.

Stuff  like spending your money.

How much money is a mystery.

Apparently telling you - the people of St. John’s  - how much of your money he wants to spend on his “essentials” is not essential to Ron’s vision.

Or his plan.

When he finally gets one.

Eventually.

Ron will spend your money on snow clearing, which, as part of Essential Number Three Ron assures us will be “better”. 

It will be “better” because Ron “will shorten plow [sic] routes to provide better snow clearing service for the city with intensified efforts to get to the curb the first time, thereby reducing the number of plow [sic] passes needed to get the job done right.”

Good, sez you. 

We need “better” snow clearing.

We do.

“Better” snow clearing sounds great.

It does.

Except for the few minor problems.

First, getting to the curb the first time is not a function of how long a route the snow plough has to travel.  It is a function of how much snow falls in a given period.

Very little snow and one plough can do the whole city the first time, right back to your doorstep, let alone the curb.  Tons of snow coupled with high winds and freezing rain – a typical St. John’s storm, he said on somewhat tongue in cheek - and the entire snow plough supply of Canada won’t get you to work in 15 minutes.

So Ron’s vision is – shall we say – just a little  fuzzy on this crucial point of how shortening the length of a route will make snow clearing “better.”

Second, we don’t know how many snow ploughs will Ron need to “get the job done right.” 

Ron doesn’t say.

Ron doesn’t say likely because Ron doesn’t know. 

Ron just has a vision.

So let’s just say  - for argument sake – that Ron thinks that in order to get the job done “right”, a snow plough route should be 11.5 kilometres long instead of the current 23 kilometres.

That would mean Ron needs twice as many trucks and twice as many employees as the city currently has.

This will not make snow clearing “better” because  the route length isn’t the key thing.

But let’s humour Ron.

Doubling how much you pay for snow clearing doesn’t work out to “better” snow clearing.

It just means you pay more.

Which brings us to point three:

How will Ron pay for all this?

Ron doesn’t know.

That’s something to be worked out.

Maybe.

because nowhere in Ron’s vision does Ron say he will ever figure out how much all this stuff will cost or how much he’ll get you to pay for it.

Meanwhile Ron is concerned about public debt.

He wants to be responsible “with your tax dollars.”

No plan.

Lots of promises.

That’s how taxpayers got the huge debt in the first place.

More of the same is not a vision.

It’s a nightmare.

So where will Ron find the money for snow clearing?

Look at your wallet.

That’s where Ron will get the money for his vision.

Keep looking at your wallet.

Ron has more ideas.

Remember the para-transit tax grab?

That’s just the beginning.

Now Ron thinks it is “essential” to put together buses, para-transit and – wait for it – commercially run taxi cabs –  in a single transportation system paid for, presumably, with your tax dollars.

Ron also wants more affordable housing.

Great idea. 

It’s a federal and provincial responsibility.  Let Danny and Steve figure it out. 

Let Danny and Steve tell Len to pay for it.

But if Ron gets together with Danny and Steve, those three won’t be footing the bill.

You will.

Ron Ellsworth has a vision.

No plan.

Just a vision.

Lots of people have visions.

Visions are nice.

But if Ron Ellsworth thinks he can reach into my pocket and suck out whatever cash is there to pay for stuff without a real plan, then Ron isn’t having a vision.

Ron is seeing things.

And hearing voices.

People who see things and hear voices don’t get to be mayor.

They should be under a doctor’s care.

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Lono calls for municipal auditor general

From the candidate’s website:

Councillor at Large candidate Simon Lono says
St. John's needs a Municipal Auditor General

St John’s  - Councillor at Large candidate Simon Lono says he would work to have a Municipal Auditor General (MAG) appointed for the City of St. Johns.

A municipal auditor general would perform independent reviews of city spending and operations and make recommendations on how to improve the way the city spends taxpayer's money. The office would also help make sure taxpayers know how city council is spending their money.

Lono said, “Our city, the city of St. Johns, is the largest public institution in the province still not subject to scrutiny by an autonomous auditor general. We need a MAG that is outside council control with the power of independent investigation and the mandate to share its findings with the citizens and tax-payers of St. Johns. It would go a long way to improve transparency and accountability at City Hall.”

There is a federal auditor general and a provincial auditor general, but there is no equivalent for the municipal level of government in this province.

Nova Scotia has recently instituted a province-wide system of municipal auditor generals. In Alberta, a bill is before the provincial legislature to create provincially funded offices. Responsible cities across Canada have taken the initiative to create their own office of MAGs , including Toronto.

“The capital city of a vibrant province with a growing economy needs a Municipal Auditor General, “ says Lono. “This is no time for council to be defensive and cling to old ways of operating. In the next 4 years, the St. Johns municipal budget will exceed $200 million a year. If we are a great city, let’s act like one and be open to an independent public sector audit. Let’s make sure that taxpayers get value for money and residents get the best possible service, the service they deserve.“

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