2018 MUNICIPAL ELECTION RESULTS – COLWOOD
October 26, 2018 ~ COLWOOD
by Mary P Brooke ~ West Shore Voice News
Riding on the wave of change, two-term Colwood Councillor Rob Martin won the October 20, 2018 election to become Mayor. His 2,348 votes were 57.4% of the votes cast, beating out two-term incumbent Mayor Carol Hamilton who acquired 1,694 votes (41.4%).
Martin primarily indicated to voters that he would listen to the needs of developers for both the housing and commercial development that the community wants and now knows that it needs. Where that requires changes to the freshly-minted Official Community Plan (OCP), so be it. He wants to move forward the city of almost 17,000 people.
In Martin’s wake have come four new councillors. Joining re-elected incumbents Cynthia Day and Gordie Logan are new to council (and new to elected politics): Michael Baxter, Dean Jantzen, Doug Kobayashi, and Stewart Parkinson. The gender composition of this council with only one woman elected, is counter to the prevailing trend in other jurisdictions where women comprise an increasing percentage of elected representatives.
Martin said shortly after results were announced on October 20 that “development needs to happen in a timely manner”. Adding: “that’s going to be the significant change”.
“It’s not just that we’re ‘open for business’ but we are ‘coming for business’, to be partners,” said mayor-elect Martin. He says the community will see that in the first six months of his 2018-2022 term.
“Council is ready to move forward,” says Martin. He describes his new Council as “diverse” which is “exactly what I was looking for”. He says Colwood council will have fulsome discussions that cover the spectrum and hear all opinions, and that a respectful process will produce better decisions.
Martin feels the key turning point for his success was the October 2 Colwood All Candidates forum where there was public engagement and he made clear his intention to bring commercial development to Colwood.
Afterward, at a local restaurant, outgoing Mayor Carol Hamilton told West Shore Voice News that she is proud of Colwood’s accomplishments as achieved while she’s been mayor for seven years. She hopes the Official Community Plan (OCP) won’t be undone. The councillor who took the lead on the OCP (Jason Nault) was not re-elected.
The OCP process undertook an extended period of time to collect an enormous amount of public input and detail, and then was essentially processed by staff into a substantial new document. Public input was heavy on preservation of the natural environment as well as wanting town center gathering places. But the resultant OCP seemed to limp along (with some changes toward the end in summer 2018) to only somewhat address the need for more housing and keeping it as affordable as possible. What it mastered in current detail it lacked in forward-looking vision for the growth that the small city community says it needs. The vote on October 20 changed all that.
A bit of campaign trivia: those bright-coloured homemade 3D checkmarks affixed to Dean Jantzen’s election signage drew a lot of unexpected and fruitful attention to his campaign.
::: As first published on page 3 in the October 26, 2018 print-PDF edition of West Shore Voice News.