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Some familiar NPA faces on school board ballot

The NPA has named five candidates for the race to fill vacant school board seats in the Oct. 14 byelection, including two candidates who were among trustees fired from the board in October 2016 — Fraser Ballantyne and Christopher Richardson.
Fraser Ballantyne and Christopher Richardson
Former NPA trustees Fraser Ballantyne and Christopher Richardson will run again for school board, after being among the trustees fired from the board in October 2016. Photos Dan Toulgoet

The NPA has named five candidates for the race to fill vacant school board seats in the Oct. 14 byelection, including two candidates who were among trustees fired from the board in October 2016 — Fraser Ballantyne and Christopher Richardson.

Lisa Dominato, Robert McDowell and Jorge Julian Prieto are also running on the NPA ticket.

The previous board, which featured four NPA trustees, four Vision Vancouver trustees and one Green Party trustee, was fired after it failed to pass its budget on deadline. The then-Liberal government appointed Dianne Turner as the district’s official trustee. She is expected to stay on after the byelection to help with the new board’s transition.

The district has been in disarray in recent years after several senior staff members went on leave and two reports raised concerns about morale and bullying. Superintendent Scott Robinson also resigned as of June 9. John Lewis is interim superintendent.

In the 2014 civic election, Ballantyne placed third in the race for nine seats with 65,659 votes. Richardson captured the last seat with 58,081 votes.

Richardson told the Courier this is a byelection he couldn’t sit out because “it’s too important.” He said several people encouraged him to run again because they want to bring "stability back to the board because we’ve already lost some very senior people and we have to stop the hemorrhaging of our senior staff.”

When asked how a new board would be different than the previous board, especially with a new NDP government supported by the Green Party in place, he said: “If we just simply returned to the dysfunction that we had before, that would be a tragedy for everybody. Given who is running, the board is going to be fundamentally different than the previous board because of personalities… and we can help but be aware that everything we do has intended consequences and unintended consequences and we would be negligent if we weren’t a lot more careful.”

Dominato, meanwhile,  has worked in senior political and government positions, most recently as manager of student wellness and safety with the Ministry of Education. She is also chairwoman of Vancouver’s Kettle Society, a not-for-profit focused on helping people with mental illness.

McDowell, a former diplomat, ran for a council seat in the 2014 municipal election. He earned 53,965 votes for 15th place in the race for 10 seats.

Prieto, who speaks English, Mandarin, Spanish and French, went to Lord Byng high school. The 26-year-old is an Oxford University graduate in mathematics. He was a University of Toronto board member in 2011-12, has taught in China and now teaches at the language school on Pender. He also worked on Liberal MLA Sam Sullivan’s recent campaign for the Vancouver-False Creek seat.

Vision Vancouver announced its school board candidates for the byelection last week. It’s running three candidates who were fired from the previous board — Mike Lombardi, Allan Wong and Joy Alexander.

Alexander won 68,264 votes for second place in 2014, while Wong collected 65,342 votes for fourth place that election and Lombardi earned 61,523 votes for fifth place.

Vision is also running Ken Clement, a trustee on the 2008 board, and newcomer Theodora Lamb.

The Green Party is running former trustee Janet Fraser, who sat on the fired board, as well as first-time candidates Estrellita Gonzalez and Judy Zaichkowsky. Fraser placed seventh in the 2014 race with 59,218 votes.

OneCity has selected Carrie Bercic and Erica Jaaf, while COPE has picked Diana Day as its school board candidate.

Transgender activist Jamie Lee Hamilton also recently announced her candidacy for school board under the Independent Democratic Electors Alliance Banner.