With less than a month before the Vancouver election, a nonscientific survey has suggested that Mayor Gregor Robertson is not faring well with residents of the West End.
The West End Residents Association website is running an online poll asking the question: Which mayoralty candidate would be best for the West End?
With 115 votes submitted, the winner by a long shot is Randy Helten, who is running with Neighbourhoods for a Sustainable Vancouver.
Helten has 66 percent of the votes, compared to just 28 percent for Robertson and five percent for the NPA’s Suzanne Anton. The only other vote-getter was homelenessness activist Darrell Zimmerman, who obtained the support of one percent of respondents.
Helten, who is still a member of Vision Vancouver, has opposed the way the current council has proceeded with rezoning applications across the city.
After Helten spoke to council last year, Robertson was caught on tape using expletives and calling Helten and others “NPA hacks”.
“God, we’re just tryin’ to have a little advisory committee, for fuck sakes,” the mayor said at the time.
Downtown voters can make a difference in a close election because they’re less predictable ideologically. Whereas the East Side generally votes for COPE and Vision candidates and the southwest part of the city votes NPA, the downtown area can go either way.
