2018 London Municipal Election

[haljackey]

Voting day is October 22

Use this thread for general discussion.

Already there is a poll out.

Mainstreet Mayoral Poll: Cheng 19.8%, Brown 10.4%, Undecided 52.2%
https://globalnews.ca/news/3975036/p...2018-election/

Found via https://www.reddit.com/r/londonontar...198_brown_104/

Note that the official campaign season has not yet started. Numbers and those running for the positions may change a lot.

[haljackey]

What do you think the main issues for this election will be?

Some thoughts.
1. BRT. Proceed as-is? Scrap? Upgrade to LRT?
2. Taxes. Freeze? Hike? Go at rate of inflation?
3. Downtown. Continue to invest here?
4. Growth. Enforce urban growth boundary or get rid of to encourage investment? (Making sprawl?)


Also I think Paul Paolatto will drop out at some point and put his support behind Cheng. Similar to what Roger Caranci did last election.

No Ivan this year. RIP

[kaiserLDN]

I think transportation in and around London will be the biggest issue for the election.

[K85]

1 - BRT should never have happened, it should always have been and stayed LRT

2 - Can we PLEASE have a mayor that doesn't somehow fuck up incredibly?

3 - Council needs a damn backbone, and be able to tell nimby's yes, shit is happening and you're gonna lose your house, so either take a deal or take less and be forced.

4 - Continue with downtown investment. Allow tower buildings to be expedited from proposal to build. Fine developers who demolish buildings with a plan in place who then sit on it or make a parking lot $10,000 a day.

5 - Expand the JLC, if possible. I believe it was capable of 14,900 in the initial design phase, but get that bad boy up to 12,000. We can always fill it.

6 - Get a proper parking structure downtown. They may be unsightly, but they are functional, encourage use of downtown, and take up way less space.

7 - Plant more trees in Victoria Park please... they are slowly losing more and more, and not doing anything about it.

8 - Springbank Dam. Turn it into what the St. Thomas railway bridge is becoming. A community hang out, and place to sit and enjoy the river.

9 - Can we pretty please have a centralized transit hub downtown? Get our bus terminal, and all downtown buss routes in one central area near the Via station, or near the HSR station if that's anywhere nearer with a set location.

10 - Transit hubs in Masonville, White Oaks, and Argyle need to be made cleaner looking, and more obvious of what they are. Pretty them up. Westmount should be cleaned up too, but less routes.

11 - VMP. Lets FINALLY start turning this into a proper link from north to south. Even if we can only do one intersection at a time...

12 - Proper connection to the airport. Bus route 36 is useless as it seems to not run all day, and only goes to Fanshawe. At a minimum, lets connect it to a hub at Argyle to make for easier transportation and connections.

[MrSlippery519]

Not really sure what I think yet, and I am not sold on Cheng at the moment either. Brown while I do not agree with everything (and set aside the affair) has done a decent job I think.

I certainly do not love the BRT push but again I am not sure we have the entire story on that. What is Cheng suggesting for rapid transit?

[Underground100]

Originally Posted by MrSlippery519

Not really sure what I think yet, and I am not sold on Cheng at the moment either. Brown while I do not agree with everything (and set aside the affair) has done a decent job I think.

I certainly do not love the BRT push but again I am not sure we have the entire story on that. What is Cheng suggesting for rapid transit?

A summary of Cheng stuff on rapid transit:

• In the last election, he called the London Plan (it informs Shift) a "painful fantasy"
• He attended a Downtown BIA meeting last March where some merchants demanded a poll on their opinions of BRT
• At the raucous May 3 public meeting at The Bud, he was one of the speakers and said BRT was "a fraud", London was "a village" and that it takes a long time to get from Adelaide/Huron to Adelaide/Bradley by bus
• Soon after that, he announced at City Hall that he was going to run for mayor and said that BRT wouldn't work because of the Richmond at-grade portion and that the Adelaide underpass was more important
• When the province announced their intentions to fund BRT, he said the plan was a "sandcastle built on an incomplete sketch" and that the $170M provincial funds would be better spent on the homeless or high-speed rail
• He wants to use bus bays

That's all I can find.

[MolsonExport]

Cheng is another one of those "let's run government like a business" bullshit artists. No way I would support this charlatan. Another Bozo that might slash taxes (for awhile until the shit hits the fan 4 years later and some double-digit rate rise occurs), as well as services. London cannot be an attractive place to recruit new residents/businesses (not to mention, offer a good quality of life to its residents) without a strong downtown and infrastructure. And that requires investment, other than the big box barf that is polluting every angle of the periphery.

Grudgingly I will probably vote Brown unless one of the more ambitious, visionary Councillors decides to run (Jesse Helmer has impressed me with his strong push for LRT)

[MrSlippery519]

^^^ kind of feel the same way about Cheng, not sold on him at all. Seems a lot like Trump to be honest, tries to get a reaction out of people are does not seem to fully understand the entire process.

Brown while certainly not perfect has for the most part gotten things done and is pushing London in the right direction.

[Djeffery]

I was listening to the AM980 morning show on Monday for their 11am round table discussion. One of the guests, I can't remember who, but when talking about Paul Cheng's knowledge of municipal government, started laughing so hard she started to cry.

I voted for him last time, basically because I thought he sounded reasonable at the time with what he wanted to try to do, and I was so sick and tired of all the councillors, past and present, that I just wanted them all gone. Frankly, Paul has done nothing to get me to vote again for him, although time will tell as the campaign officially starts in May. He just disappeared after the last one, didn't properly file his paperwork and then when he was told he was not eligible this time, he sued over it. And now he's flouting the rules again with his "campaigning" before the allowed date (so is Paolatto, but not to the same degree). I like Paolatto so far, but I suspect he's going to be on a hard uphill battle for name recognition for those who never listen to talk radio. I would love to see him run for council first.

You know who I'd really love to see run for Mayor is Bill Armstrong. Not because I think he'd win (or want him to), but it would be a great to finally get rid of this empty head out of there. I wanted the strip club to open back up just to spite him lol. This guy is the senior member of council and has zero sway, zero respect from anyone else on council. Just look at how quickly they all turfed the idea of applying for the International Plowing Match. I don't think the IMP should be looking at a city as host, but the city sure as heck should be looking at events like that to come here and I was shocked they just turned their back on it so quickly.

[Djeffery]

Given the events of early this morning, I would now love to see former London West MP Ed Holder toss his hat in the ring for Mayor.

[Stevo26]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Cheng is another one of those "let's run government like a business" bullshit artists. No way I would support this charlatan. Another Bozo that might slash taxes (for awhile until the shit hits the fan 4 years later and some double-digit rate rise occurs), as well as services. London cannot be an attractive place to recruit new residents/businesses (not to mention, offer a good quality of life to its residents) without a strong downtown and infrastructure. And that requires investment, other than the big box barf that is polluting every angle of the periphery.

Grudgingly I will probably vote Brown unless one of the more ambitious, visionary Councillors decides to run (Jesse Helmer has impressed me with his strong push for LRT)

Cheng is a lot like Stephen Harper and others of his ilk... someone who appeals to low-information, willfully ignorant voters who think a dollar paid in taxes is a dollar too much, and that any given expense undertaken by government is wasteful, never mind that taxes are designed to pay for the services that they enjoy.

People like that do not understand the old adage that "The cheap man pays twice over in the end".

[Blitz]

^ He should at least serve a term on city council before running for mayor. I'm not voting for anyone who doesn't have at least some experience in some form of government.

Regarding the "running the city like a business" thing, this is what former Windsor mayor Eddie Francis did for his three terms in office and he was very successful in doing it. He fought very hard (and somehow won) against the bloodsucking unions and greatly reduced the bloated, inefficient governance that had plagued the city for decades. Granted, it might be a slightly different situation in London though.

[Stevo26]

Originally Posted by Blitz

^ He should at least serve a term on city council before running for mayor. I'm not voting for anyone who doesn't have at least some experience in some form of government.

Regarding the "running the city like a business" thing, this is what former Windsor mayor Eddie Francis did for his three terms in office and he was very successful in doing it. He fought very hard (and somehow won) against the bloodsucking unions and greatly reduced the bloated, inefficient governance that had plagued the city for decades. Granted, it might be a slightly different situation in London though.

Francis may have been successful at doing what he did, but was the city of Windsor better off as a whole because of his 'run the city like a business' ethic?

[GreatTallNorth2]

Originally Posted by Stevo26

Cheng is a lot like Stephen Harper and others of his ilk... someone who appeals to low-information, willfully ignorant voters who think a dollar paid in taxes is a dollar too much, and that any given expense undertaken by government is wasteful, never mind that taxes are designed to pay for the services that they enjoy.

People like that do not understand the old adage that "The cheap man pays twice over in the end".

That's funny, I don't think Cheng is remotely like Harper or should I say Harper is not like Cheng. Harper has a master's degree in economics and was prime minister for almost 10 years. I would say Cheng is no where near as studied and seasoned as Harper was when he took office.

[Blitz]

Originally Posted by Stevo26

Francis may have been successful at doing what he did, but was the city of Windsor better off as a whole because of his 'run the city like a business' ethic?

The city is in a much better position financially now in being able to pay for big projects like the new arena, new aquatic centre, and major infrastructure improvements. The municipal debt was dramatically reduced during his tenure and the current mayor was one of Francis' proteges so he has continued with the same strategy. It just reached a point where things were so bloated that we needed those types of sweeping changes.

[north 42]

Originally Posted by Blitz

The city is in a much better position financially now in being able to pay for big projects like the new arena, new aquatic centre, and major infrastructure improvements. The municipal debt was dramatically reduced during his tenure and the current mayor was one of Francis' proteges so he has continued with the same strategy. It just reached a point where things were so bloated that we needed those types of sweeping changes.

Exactly! People don’t realize how bad the city was run back before Francis, it really was bad! Windsor today has a much brighter future, and has a lot more money to boot!

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by Stevo26

Cheng is a lot like Stephen Harper and others of his ilk... someone who appeals to low-information, willfully ignorant voters who think a dollar paid in taxes is a dollar too much, and that any given expense undertaken by government is wasteful, never mind that taxes are designed to pay for the services that they enjoy.

People like that do not understand the old adage that "The cheap man pays twice over in the end".

I know. We already had our fill of this bs with Shoeless Joe Fraudtana, who froze taxes, watched things deteriorate, and when kicked out of office, taxes went up faster than inflation.

You don't save anything in the long run, and incur plenty of costs in the short run.

[Dupcheck]

What do you guys think of this? Should this be part of the next election as a topic to be addressed?

539 city workers make $100K or more. 347 are firefighters

http://lfpress.com/news/local-news/3...-sunshine-list

[MolsonExport]

I think it will go up in smoke.

[haljackey]

Coming this fall:



Via
https://www.reddit.com/r/londonontar...fall_bus_wars/