Mayor Wayne Wright has never had a free ride into the mayor's office, and this year's election will be no different.
Wright was first elected mayor in 2002, after narrowly defeating incumbent mayor Helen Sparkes. He then defeated incumbent councillor Casey Cook in 2005 and Voice New Westminster mayoral candidate Blair Armitage in 2008.
"It's probably good for the community to have a choice," he said. "When they do (reelect you), you know there is some support there."
Longtime New Westminster resident James Crosty announced last week that he'll be vying for the mayor's seat in the Nov. 19 municipal election. He said the current mayor and council are fiscally irresponsible, focus on big projects and ignore too many of the small items that matter to residents.
Wright said he takes care of the small things that need his attention, but the mayor's job isn't to deal with small matters such as parking tickets but to have a vision for the city's betterment.
"He's a little thinker. There are jobs for people like that," Wright said when asked to respond. "A mayor is supposed to be a person who has vision. I think I am a much more visionary thinker."
Although Crosty believes that the city has been fiscally irresponsible, Wright said that's not the case at all.
"We have been very fiscally responsible," he said. "Where else would we get upwards of $100 million from other levels of government? It's never been done before."
Crosty contends that the City of New Westminster has been "borrowing a lot of money" for bigger projects, but Wright said the city is "far under its borrowing capacity" and has sold off surplus lands to offset the amount of money being borrowed to fund major projects that will benefit the community.
Wright said the city has focused its efforts on developing sites in the city that had been vacant or derelict, including the Westminster Pier Park, civic centre and Degelder properties.
"There has been no loss," he said. "We are getting taxes where there has been no taxation."
While Crosty believes he has a "lot of fire in his belly to make things happen and make things change" and he can do better than the current mayor, Wright believes he's still the best man to get the job done. He said positive changes are underway from Queensborough to Sapperton.
"If he can do that, believe me he will be a shooting star," Wright said. "I'd probably be an asteroid going so much higher."
Wright said he has no trouble accepting an election loss if people believe someone else has good ideas for the city, but he feels he's done a good job and wants to carry on.
"I think the people of the city are going to look here and say, where is this guy coming from? They have got to produce," he said. "The wheel is not broken. Do you want to start changing what is working?"
Regular council watchers have long known that there is no love lost between Crosty and Wright, as the two have had differences of opinion on a number of issues, including construction of a tower at Port Royal.
"We are two different people, totally different, how we live, our lifestyles," Wright said. "The only thing we have in common is we live on the same boardwalk."
The two Quayside residents seem to have found common ground in the fact that they don't look at contributors to their campaigns until after the election.
Crosty has stated that he will recuse himself from any vote involving a developer that has made a sizable donation to his campaign.
Wright questioned whether that means he would also recuse himself from voting on all issues involving people who have contributed to his campaign, such as a resident wanting to build a new garage and needing council's approval.
Wright said he's been part of an open council, which has provided many documents to people like Crosty and others through Freedom of Information requests.
"I don't have anything to hide," he said. "Anything that has happened under my time has been positive."
Crosty has said that if he's elected one of his first tasks would be to do a core review of the city's staffing and operating costs.
"We look, we review. We are a growing city. We need people to do the jobs. When jobs come available in other cities, they look to New Westminster," Wright said about its workforce. "You can't do the work without the staff. That is always under scrutiny. We are always looking at it. They (residents) are lucky to have the people who are working here."
Wright said several city employees have questioned him about comments Crosty made in The Record, in which he stated that 97 per cent of people in city hall feel they're not being heard. Wright said morale is good among city departments and he's unaware where that came from.
Crosty provided The Record with the document he referenced in his comments - an April 2011 staff report about the city's corporate asset management capacity. The report stated that 94 per cent of employees disagreed that a cross-functional asset management team exists, meets regularly and makes decisions in a collaborative manner; and 93 per cent of employees disagreed that a documented asset management policy to guide deci-sion-making and prioritysetting exists.
As part of the city's framework for developing a comprehensive city asset management plan, it hired Urban Systems Ltd. to con-duct a review about staff knowledge and readiness for asset management. The consultant distributed surveys to 17 city employees who are involved in the city's asset management.
