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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2014
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Stuffing the burger poll
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Dishing on politics: Burger Heaven’s general manager Chris Geib holds up two beefy options at Burger Heaven, where it was busy on the weekend as candidates and their supporters voted with their mouths in the (b)unofficial burger poll.
New West voters and candidates were really sinking their teeth into the election campaign during the final full weekend of campaigning. Burger Heaven is carrying on its longstanding tradition of offering a (b)unofficial burger poll for the civic election. If the burger poll is any indication, it could be a tight race for the New Westminster mayor’s chair. “Wayne Wright had taken a huge lead right from the beginning. Over the past three to four days, Cote is making a strong comeback,” Chris Geib, the restaurant’s general manager, told The Record late Friday afternoon. “As it stands right now, it is basically a tie between Cote and Wayne Wright.” The tie had disappeared by Monday morning, when the Cote burger took the lead with 294 votes, with the Wright burger just nine votes behind at 285. Trailing behind were the Crosty burger at 73, and the Krasnogor burger at 45. Undecideds were at 96. It would appear that some candidates needed a little sustenance on the campaign trail, as several candidates’ vehicles were seen outside the eatery on the weekend and others tweeted photos of themselves dining at the restaurant at 77 10th St. “We had a really phenomenal weekend,” Geib told The Record Monday. – By Theresa McManus, staff reporter
Does district need seven school trustees? BY NIKI HOPE REPORTER
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In the Surrey school district there are upwards of 70,000 students and an annual budget of $600 million, and it has seven trustees on the school board. New Westminster is under a tenth of the population and the budget, but has the same number of school trustees making decisions about management, money and education. Is it necessary? Could New Westminster make do with five school trustees, who earn
an annual stipend of approximately $21,500 each? Dropping two, for example, would free up enough cash for at least an extra education assistant to work with students who have special needs. Trustee candidate Mark Gifford said it’s a question he heard when out door knocking recently. For the Kelvin father, having seven trustees on the board brings “balance.”
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“The range of issues doesn’t change much on the scale,” Gifford said, referring to neighbouring Surrey. “One concern with moving to five trustees is that there would be fewer new faces, unless we can increase voter turnout,” candidate Cort Ray Caldwell wrote in an email to The Record. “We see a number of veteran trustees who have a reliable base of seven to 10 per cent of registered voters turning out for them,
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and they get re-elected over and over. We wouldn’t have as much opportunity for the change the community wants within that model if turnout remains low.” Incumbent Casey Cook said it is “possible” to make do with five trustees, but questioned the challenges around conflict of interest. Cook removes himself from discussions on the budget related to Canadian Union of Public Employees because his daughter works as an education assistant in the district.
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