Parksville mayor-elect Ed Mayne believes his next term in office will be similar to when he served as mayor from 2008 to 2010.
Mayne said during his previous time as mayor, before he resigned to run for the leadership of the provincial Liberal Party, he focused largely on communication with the public, something he will continue to do once he’s sworn in on Nov. 5.
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“Coffee with the mayor is definitely coming back,” he said. “I’ve asked (city) staff, because I’ve met with them once already, to start to look for places we can have council meetings outside of city hall… so we can go out to the people and start to open up communications. That’s really what we need, we need to talk to people, for them to understand why we’re making our decisions and how they’re being made.”
Holding council meetings at various locations around the community, Mayne said, was something he did previously.
Mayne won 2,567 votes, defeating former councillor Kirk Oates, who garnered 1,518 votes, and third-place Chris Long, who got 219 votes. Maybe said he spent election night at his campaign office with close to 80 people including councillors and their families.
“My 12-year-old granddaughter came out and announced that I had won so that was a special thing for me,” Mayne said. “It was just a really good party after that. I had two of my high school friends there with me… so it was even more special.’
Moving forward, Mayne doesn’t see how the 222 Corfield supportive housing project won’t be the first issue “out of the box.”
“That’s going to court towards the end of November. There’s nothing that we can do, we just have to wait and see what the court says,” Mayne said. “If the court makes the decision that it has to go back to having another public hearing and move forward from there, than we will do that and if the court rules that no it was fine the way it was handled than we will just go from there. We’ve got to put it behind us and move on.”
Mayne, who owns property next to the proposed facility, said he will recuse himself from voting on the issue.
“ I just went down (to Victoria) and met with my lawyers to lay out how this all works and ask them for a legal opinion on it,” Mayne said. “Even if legally I can (vote), I think from a perception point of view I cannot in good conscience vote on the issue if it comes back to council.”
Another challenge Mayne is bracing himself for is learning what the people of Parksville want from their city.
“If you go around and talk, what I hear is is that some of the people don’t want [the city] to change at all, they want Parksville to stay the way it has been for 20 years,” he said. “Some of the people want it to grow into a major city and some people want it to grow within reason. There’s all kinds of different opinions… and that’s going to be the hard part, getting across to the people that are somewhere in the middle.”
Although challenges are bound to happen, Mayne said he is optimistic with his council’s abilities.
“I have an amazing council,” he said. “They are just so enthusiastic about this, it’s exciting to watch. I think that’s going to be the big difference.”
The councillors include: Adam Fras (2,879 votes), Teresa Patterson (2,508), Al Greir (2,486), Doug O’Brien (2,357), Mark Chandler (2,343) and Marilyn Wilson (2,070).