The One-Legged Mayor and the Ass-Kicking Contest

Congratulations to Stew Young, who (we hear) is the campaign manager for Liberal party candidate Jody Twa, best known for his stewardship of Colwood's economic miracle disaster. Well! This has the makings of a fine comedy.

OK, we know Langford Mayor Stew Young doesn't literally have one leg. What we mean is, he's barely got a leg to stand on. His city is divided. To be blunt, at least as many people hate him as love him. (Except, the haters don't vote as often.) So what does Young bring to Twa's campaign, other than his good looks and charming personality? Big-money backers, we suppose. But as we've seen recently, big money is not enough to win elections. In fact, our analysis suggests that Twa's close ties to big corporate backers like Bear Mountain Resort could make him a target for a backlash against the culture of political favouritism.

In any case, according to our esteemed WTF? political panel, Young's supporters are basically the same as Twa's, so he's preaching to the converted rather than bringing in new voters. But Young will definitely draw the haters! That's why our blue-ribbon experts conclude that Young may actually lose votes for Twa. Whoops!

And how will a brazenly partisan Liberal mayor help Langford's citizens? What if the Liberals don't form the next government? Wouldn't that make his relations with the province a bit awkward? And how will he resolve potential conflicts of interest? Almost all local officials are adamantly NON-PARTISAN, for good reason. But that Stew Young, he's just mavericky. Ain't it a hoot?


But never mind all the political crap! What's important is taking care of business, right? So let's see .... While Young is running around stumping for Twa, Langford's budget for 2009-2010 is still unfinished. WTF is taking so long? Bad news, we expect. Big debt. Low revenues. Higher taxes. [UPDATED update: Creative accounting takes time .... Please don't look too closely at the $50 million that isn't there.)

Meanwhile, Young and his council face getting dragged into court to defend themselves against charges of bias and conflict of interest once they adopt the South Skirt Mountain bylaw, which could happen any time. And the city still hasn't found a new Clerk Administrator to replace Rob Buchan (who was summarily fired earlier this year, says the grapevine.)

Helluva time for a one-legged mayor to get into an ass-kicking contest. But it should be entertaining!