Victoria Greens
Working together for a better Victoria

Victoria News
By Keith Vass - Victoria News

Published: September 29, 2008 3:00 PM
Updated: September 29, 2008 3:02 PMThe buttons were printed, the pamphlets were ready and the supporters were gathered for Victoria’s civic Green Party candidates to launch their campaign for city council Friday.

But the speeches had to wait after candidate Philippe Lucas’ wife went into labour hours before the planned launch.

While Lucas stayed home to welcome his smallest supporter for the Nov. 15 municipal election, incumbent Green councillor Sonya Chandler was on hand, borrowing federal Green Party candidate Adam Saab’s campaign office to lead local Greens in a talk on supporting sustainable communities.

Chandler said the theme is a major focus for their campaign this time out, and goes beyond the Green’s traditional commitment to the environment.

Her promise is to work at shaking up the city’s bureaucracy, creating new departments of neighbourhoods and sustainability, to help community groups shape the city and get projects they want off the ground.

“There is a lot of paperwork and a lot of hoops for neighbourhoods to get the support for initiatives,” said Chandler.

Neighbourhood association volunteers are becoming exhausted after spending hours working on city plans or trying to rally support for projects and not getting the results they wanted, she said.

A sustainability office would ensure that social, environmental and economic goals are present in everything the city undertakes from the start, not as an afterthought, she said.

After winning a seat for the first time in 2005, Chandler said one of the biggest lessons she’s learned during her first term on council has been that bureaucracy tends to serve the status quo and stifle innovation.

She regrets that council didn’t seize on the building boom to require more construction with high energy-efficiency standards. “It would have really changed the fabric of the community,” she said.

A lack of teamwork also hampered council’s work, and she wants the new council to spend its first meeting working on a shared vision of what it wants to achieve.

kvass@vicnews.com