The Green Party of Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»plans to run a candidate for school board in the 2011 municipal race, but it will be a couple weeks before it's clear who that candidate will be.
"Our board has decided to run one person for council, one person for school board and one person for park board," said Desmond Rodenbour, chairperson of the Green Party of Vancouver, Wednesday. "We've had some people come forward for all three positions. We're not, at this time, disclosing any of the potential names until they've been vetted by the nominating committee. That's over the next couple of weeks. Eventually, the recommendations of the nominating committee will go back to the membership at an AGM."
(Adriane Carr, the deputy leader of the Green Party of Canada, told the Courier's Mike Howell earlier this month that she would likely decide within a month whether she'll seek a seat on Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»city council.)
In 2002, Andrea Reimer, now a Vision Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»city councillor, was the first Green candidate elected to the school board. She earned the last of nine seats, but lost her re-election bid in 2005, placing 14th out of 21 candidates.
The Green Party didn't run a trustee candidate in 2008, instead opting for a deal with COPE and Vision Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»that limited it to one candidate in the municipal election for park board-the Greens' Stuart Mackinnon won a park commissioner seat. Reimer, meanwhile, quit the Greens and joined Vision. She cochaired Gregor Robertson's successful mayoral nomination campaign before she won a council seat in 2008.
This term on the school board there are four Vision, three COPE and two NPA trustees. COPE and Vision have made another coalition for the 2011 race that will see Vision field five trustee candidates and COPE field four.
I asked Rodenbour what a Green trustee could offer. "We think the great record that Stuart Mackinnon has achieved over the past three years has shown that it's very valuable for the citizens of Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»to have that Green voice at the democratic levels in the city," he said. "The Greens have shown a very high respect for democracy and we want to really work hard to develop policy to have the school board do a lot more consultation with parents and the community."
Rodenbour maintains the VSB should adopt more Green measures in its operations, including those pertaining to food choices for students. He insists his party offers a different voice than Vision or COPE.
"Once thing we've seen over the past three years with Vision, and even to some degree with COPE, is that they really toe the party line. It's pretty apparent to a lot of people who've watched the [developments] that lots of decisions get made in the backroom and are made at the Vision office before the actual school board meeting happens," he said. "So it would be good to have someone at the table to poke and prod them and the important issues, and to make sure the debates happen right at the school board."
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