Briana Tomkinson
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Saturday, November 15, 2008
2008 online civic election results
If you're looking for information on civic election results as they roll in, here are a few sites to check (I am watching and will post New West information as I see it as well):
- City of New West official results on the website.
- Lots of chatter on Twitter. Do some keyword searches ("civic" seems to work well, and you can also try "new westminster"), or follow me @10thtothefraser (I will retweet any New West-related info as I see it).
- The New Westminster Record is posting updates online . As of 8:20pm, Wayne Wright had the lead , but only two polls were reporting.
- CBC is promising live updates online (nothing there as of 8:55pm for New West). CBC is also asking people to tag their Tweets about the election with #civicvote2008.
- The Vancouver Sun has is liveblogging election results from around the Lower Mainland. No way to filter the info by municipality, and no way to get automatically pinged when there's something new. Refresh, refresh, refresh. They have also set up a live video feed ... but seem to be having some technical difficulties. No audio, last I checked.
- The Georgia Straight is also posting results via blog , but they have less volume of coverage than the Sun. Straight results are also appearing in the Straight Twitter feed .
Know of any other sources? Post 'em in the comments.
how strange is it that this new blog has the only online New Westminster Election Results.
GO 10th to Fraser!
It's shameful. Goes to show the regard the big news media has for New West. We were completely overlooked. The only other source for local info was The New Westminster Record, and we did scoop them. Even the city website doesn't have full results. New Westminster digerati have got to take matters into our own hands and bring this city up to speed.
On the surface things may appear to be the same but.....
Wright was pushing Brett and Owen to get more of a right sided council and the opposite happened.
He lost Donnelly his right sided standby.
McCovy is sure to vote on the left.
Donnelly must have thought after 18 years he was a sure thing. He should be proud of what he has done though.
Residents in New West may have said Go Wright Go but we tied his shoe laces together.
Hopefully council will be able to agree on something in the next 3 years.
@anon,
I really don't think that is the case. Armitage is the right wing choice. McEvoy is clearly left of Donnelly but both are staunch supporters of Mayor Wright and Wright clearly supported both of their candidacies. Net=zero for Mayor Wright.
Brett was brought in to the "Wright" camp only late in the campaign and I don't know if she would be described as "right wing".
My opinion is that the city rejected a right wing coalition in favour of the center-left group that continues to be in office. Even returning councillor Betty Mac was at the center and an "odd man" in the voice slate.
Hmmm Armitage be more right than Wright??
Wright has pushed the development agenda. Good/Bad?? Look at how many times Wright has brought the tower in Queensborough back.
Wright was supporting Owen and Brett strongly.
- Owen a business owner
- Brett pushing let's get this place hopping with business.
Both on the right but neither pushed the "What's wrong here" issues like Voice did.
Hopefully Armitage learned it is better find the fire than it is to ring the bell every time he sees smoke.
Hi Bree and Will,
First off, belated congratulations on the launch of Tenth to the Fraser. I’ve been following your blog for a number of weeks now and have been very impressed.
In the interest of accuracy, I’d like to point out that local election results were posted to the city website last night just a little less than an hour after the polls closed. A direct link to the unofficial results can be found on the website home page at www.city.new-westminster.bc.ca
As the city’s communication manager, I’m the first to admit our website has a few shortcomings and we are working to overcome them. In 2009, we will launch a new city website featuring a “fresh” look, new applications, easy to use navigation and access points to commonly requested information. We’ve added a link to a website survey in our “What’s New” section and would love to have your input.
Again, great work and I’ll be sure to add Tenth to the Fraser to our media release distribution list first thing Monday morning.
Hi Blair,
Thanks for your comment. Glad to hear you're enjoying the blog. We were monitoring the city's website as well as the other sources, and we didn't see any results until several hours after the polls closed (after we posted our results). Maybe we had the wrong link? We were checking the page for 'unofficial 2008 results' ...
Glad to hear the city site is relaunching - I took the web survey and linked to it from my Twitter feed earlier. If you'd like to meet up to discuss some ideas for incorporating web 2.0 concepts into the new site I'd love to chat. I've gone through a few major web portal relaunches in my time - I know there's a lot to consider!
Please do add us to your distribution list.
Thanks Briana - you read my mind. I noted your background in the Vancouver Sun last week (great article, BTW) and have been planning to contact you.
I'll be in touch.
One of our problems here is that people in this province, and in this city, insist on seeing people as either left or right, instead of the right ones to represent them.
If you really must look at people from that POV then Brett must be considered "right". Was she not seriously involved with the Yonah Martin campaign?
What Wright successfully did was split the vote of those who are not DLC supporters and who won't vote the way somebody phoning from the DLC office tells them to.
It will be interesting though having the DLC lefties running a majority. Spend, spend, spend. Up go our taxes!!
I guess DLC = District Labour Council.
They have impressive resources that no one else even comes close to. Now Mayor Wright will have to take their orders. I wonder how he feels about that?
The new VOICE group provides a possible long-term opposition to DLC, which is needed. I just hope they don't become a farm team for the Liberals like TEAM Burnaby and other centre-right municipal parties.
Anyhow, it will be interesting to see what happens to New West with the unionists fully in charge. The NDP often has problems with its own union allies when in government (high expectations) and I can see the same potential tensions with a DLC government in New West. There is only so much to go around in New West.
Too bad about the low turnout :^(
From what I understood:
Wright in not endorsed by DLC and both Donnelly and McEvoy were
Voice outspent the whole lot of them. (from the looks of things). McEvoy, arguably the most 'left' candidate on the ballot, campaigned 'with' Wright and Donnelly. Perhaps the old-saw 'left vs right' just doesn't work in this case.
I think it would be a mistake to credit the DLC with much in this election.
As for Owen, this was an incumbent's race and he had a lot of ground to cover. He really did not look comfortable in the position of candidate but perhaps we will see him again in 2011.
McEvoy was officially endorsed by the DLC, and Wright had some sort of affiliation with them. Donnelly had no backing from the DLC, hence he lost.
Voice had 14 candidates, so had a pool of resources in that sense. We'll see what they had when they file their financial report.
But I can guarantee you that nobody has what the DLC has in terms of the ability to fire-up union phone banks to repeatedly call union members and NDP voters, to identify supporters, make scripted arguments to the undecided, and get them voting on election day.
Don't kid yourself, the DLC is a hugely powerful force in New Westminster. They pretty much run the place now.
That is true, Donnelly was not endorsed by the DLC.
McEvoy must have outspent everyone, except WW, with his full-page ads.
WW manages to play the free-enterprise types and also get the support of the DLC. He may not be "endorsed" but in their mailout where they told us who the "progressive" candidates were they also gave us a handy bookmark telling people to vote for WW for mayor.
I have to agree with FNW'er, the DLC machine is very powerful. Those phone banks were working like crazy.
The DLC stands behind people that don't speak the Liberal or Conservative languages.
When we stop doing what we are told and vote for people that speak those languages the money will flow.
Until then New West will be a have not city.
anonymous, I disagree. I hate all political parties. None of them do anything for anyone but themselves. They are simply a necessary evil for our system.
FNW'er, I don't hate all political parties but what really bothers me is federal and provincial parties or politicians poking their nose into and interfering in the civic process.
In NW we have Dawn Black (NDP MP) nominating Bill Harper. A week after the federal election all her old sign locations had Harper, Cote and McEvoy signs up.
We also had Puchmayr campaigning/doorknocking with Lori Watt.
Mind you, that is de rigeur for the NDP. They've long looked to the civic arena for training up their next crop of provincial and federal candidates. Case in point, Puchmayr.
In Langley they had MLA's Coleman and Polak endorsing school trustees too.
Grrr!!!!!!!!
NewsLeader had complete and final election results by 9 p.m. on election night. Followed by stories, column and photos by 10 p.m.
Just thought I'd brag.