Vision Vancouver announces 11 candidates for council, school and park boards

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The Vision Vancouver civic party has released its slate for this fall’s municipal elections.

the Vision endorsements include four candidates for city council, five for the Vancouver School Board and two for the park board.

There are two incumbents among the 11 candidates — Allan Wong on the school board and John Irwin on the park board — while multi-term park board commissioner Stuart Mackinnon is making a run at a council seat.

One thing that’s missing: Vision does not plan to run a candidate for major this time around. That decision came this past weekend during the nomination process and discussions on the issues facing Vancouver.

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“Vision’s strength has always been in the broad coalition of people who come together to elect candidates who reflect the diversity of our city and who want to make life better for people in every neighborhood,” said school board candidate Aaron Leung.

The civic party said in a release it has hosted dozens of online and in-person engagements this past year and tripled its membership.

Here are the Vision Vancouver candidates:

CITY COUNCIL

Honieh Barzegari: Barzegari was a family doctor in Iran who came to Canada in 2015 and became a citizen in 2019. She has worked at a Vancouver-based health-care technology startup company for the past four years and is a volunteer at Mount Saint Joseph Hospital in Mount Pleasant.

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Leslie Boldt: Boldt is a small-business owner and has worked at Vancity and in senior roles in the BC government. She also directed marketing and communication for the Vancouver Public Library. A longtime member of the environmental group Georgia Strait Alliance, she doesn’t own a car and gets around the city by foot, bike, transit, car share or carpool.

Stuart Mackinnon: Mackinnon has been a park commissioner through three terms and is against any type of privatization of parks and natural spaces. He is a retired special education teacher and volunteers at May’s Place hospice, the VanDusen Botanical Garden Association and the Wilderness Committee.

Kishon Roy: Roy is an author and affordable-housing advocate who wrote Make Housing Central: British Columbia and the Affordable Housing Crisis. Roy has served as CEO of the BC Non-Profit Housing Association and chair of the BC Rental Housing Coalition, and has been a senior adviser on housing to government leaders at the provincial and federal levels. Roy has worked for the SFU Beedie School of Business and holds a master’s in leadership from Royal Roads University.

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SCHOOL BOARD

Steve Cardwell: Cardwell has been superintendent and CEO of the Vancouver School Board and superintendent for the Delta School Board, and is now vice-president for students at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. He has served in multiple education roles over the years including president of the BC Science Teachers’ Association. I have received the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee medal for his contributions to public education in 2013.

Aaron Leeng: Leung has worked with the Vancouver School Board on environmental issues and won a Greenest City leadership award for his contributions on sustainability. He was chair of the city’s children, youth and families advisory committee and is a dedicated advocate for youth voices.

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Kera MacArthur: McArthur has been in the education sector for 12 years, holding administrative positions at both UBC and SFU. A mother of two, she acted as treasurer of the school’s parent advisory committee (PAC) and was on the board of a non-profit that provides service to youth facing significant challenges.

Hillary Thomson: Thomson is a lawyer and former PAC chair, and sits on the board of Inclusion BC, which advocates for rights and opportunities for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. She has worked on making her local school more wheelchair-accessible and believes the district needs to make schools accessible to everyone.

Alan Wong: Wong was first elected to the school board in 1999 and has served on the board ever since. He is an advocate for student safety and served as chair of a committee that began Vancouver schools’ seismic upgrades. He got his teacher’s degree from UBC and taught for five years before starting a career at Telus, where he has worked for more than 25 years.

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PARK BOARD

Carla Frenkel: Frenkel is formally trained in architecture and focused on understanding the built environment and complex problem solving. She worked in the field for a decade, specializing in affordable housing, green building and urban design. She volunteers with Green Streets and supports pollinator habitat as a Butterflyway Ranger. She is president of the Strathcona Community Garden.

John Irwin: Irwin was elected to the park board under the COPE banner in 2018, and serves as a liaison to Kerrisdale Community Center Society, Kitsilano War Memorial, Mount Pleasant and Dunbar community associations, the planning commission and transportation advisory committee. He has a PhD in sustainable urban development and is a lecturer at UBC and SFU.

Voters across British Columbia go to the polls on Saturday, Oct. 15.