Lest we forget, let us look back in Squamish’s electoral history and remember slates of past as our next election approaches.
For those who have forgotten what slate politics produced in the past and for those who weren’t around we’ll start with the 1996 election, when Corinne Lonsdale launched her second term in the mayoral chair. The councillors in that term were Paul Lalli, Ron Barr, Lyle Fenton, Meg Fellowes, Dave Young and Sandra Bauer. Fenton, Fellowes Bauer and Young campaigned in 1996 under a banner called Options ’96.
“We are going to work as a team,” Lonsdale said to The Squamish Chief the morning after the 1996 election.
That didn’t really happen. Over the course of the term 4-3 votes were common.
In 1999, Options ’96 must have been too 1976 as voters decided the former slate was no longer welcome at municipal hall. Fellowes took on Lonsdale for the mayor’s seat and Lonsdale came out well ahead.
Lalli and Lonsdale were re-elected with a group of business-friendly coucillors.
“It was a backlash from the power brokers in town… things are back to normal,” said Bauer, capturing the popular sentiment.
Many felt this new group looked an awful lot like a slate, minus all the formalities.
By 2002 a new slate called Squamish New Directions (SND) had formed. SND leader Ian Sutherland had served a portion of the term after winning a by-election to replace Smith. He went into the next election gunning for the mayor’s office with political newcomers Ray Peters, Sonja Lebans and Dave Fenn. Sutherland beat out Lalli for the mayor’s office and Lonsdale found herself often butting heads with Sutherland over council direction. Sutherland and his SND supporters completely dominated council and the town’s direction. History repeated itself again in 2005 when the SND banner was dropped and Sutherland barely squeaked out a win over Terrill Patterson.
Then publisher Tim Shoults described SND as the biggest loser in the 2005 election.
“A slate whose caucus fits in a two-seater car with nobody in the trunk can’t do much,” wrote Shoults after the results were announced. The pendulum swings a wide arc over time as we wait to see what the ballot looks like on Nov. 15.
