Whatever the outcome of the Oct. 27 election, 2014 will be remembered as a great leap forward for the progressive movement in Peterborough, with a wide selection of strong candidates in every race putting forth good ideas, as documented on this blog over the past weeks. It’s also been notable for the popularity of female candidates, with Maryam Monsef leading the way. Monsef has emerged as the clear alternative to business-as-usual in Peterborough, with the backing of much of Peterborough’s professional community.
Regardless of her gender, Kim Zippel is the intelligent
choice for Otonabee Ward, the only ward with two
female candidates for council. Is it possible that Otonabee voters could send
both Zippel and Lesley Parnell to
City Hall, and Dan McWilliams back
to the trucking biz?
The South End of Peterborough has a distinct character and is
in some ways a world unto itself. With the Memorial
Center, Kenner,
Holy Cross, Fleming, Harper
Park, and the city’s
primary industrial and commercial areas, Otonabee Ward is largely self-sufficient. The south-central residential area has
been noted for its high degree of community
continuity across generations.
The ward, which roughly comprises everything southwest of
General Electric, Lansdowne and the Otonabee
River, was represented
for a long period by homegrown citizens Glenn
Padgett and Jeff Leal on city
council. Leal, a Kenner graduate, has gone on to
represent Peterborough
at Queen’s Park. The two incumbent councillors, Dan McWilliams and Lesley
Parnell, who were both first elected in 2010, owe much of their success to
having been long-term residents with family ties in the south end.
Parnell, a graduate of Kenner
and Fleming, was elected with nearly 3000
votes despite limited business or professional experience. McWilliams, owner
of McWilliams Moving and Storage, a high-profile South End business, was elected with just over 2500 votes. Gary Baldwin (now running in Ashburnham) finished well
back with 1700.
Their only serious challenger this time is Zippel, also a long-time resident of
the ward. Stephen Morgan’s campaign
is strictly amateur, and Camille Parent
withdrew his candidacy after the deadline for getting his name off the ballot.
McWilliams reinforced the public impression that he’d been recruited for council by Daryl Bennett
when he waited until Bennett registered in the mayoral race before announcing
his own bid for re-election, and when he said in his Cogeco clip that
“people” came to him asking him to run. His campaign received contributions
from some of the same businesses that supported Bennett, including Saverio
Montemarano of Melody Homes.
Throughout his first term, it seemed that city council was
just one more board of directors for McWilliams to sit on. He supported the
Parkway, the Jackson Park bridge, the Lily Lake
subdivision, and anything else the mayor wanted him to. McWilliams provoked
sharp rebuttals a few months ago when he argued that the Peterborough library didn’t deserve to be renovated because libraries are “dinosaurs” that we don’t
need any more. He also made the news when he got busted for over-fishing. Maybe if he’d been to the
library, he’d have been able to understand the fishing rules.
In his Cogeco clip and his website McWilliams tries to paint
himself green, but his stilted, clumsy script-reading suggests he’s dropping a few progressive-sounding terms he doesn't entirely comprehend in hopes of
minimizing the defection of supporters. His simplistic website provides no specifics on any city council
actions in the past term, yet his slogan is “Making a Difference.” A difference in what? McWilliams’s campaign suggests
that everything is just fantastic in Peterborough.
Parnell comes across more as a rookie just excited to be
there than a wise managerial presence for a quarter-billion-dollar budget.
She repeatedly tells us how much she “loves” representing Otonabee at council.
Other than having lived in the ward since the age of two, Parnell’s primary
selling point is that she’s a “very,
very positive person.” Her slogan is “Positive for Peterborough.”
Everything’s just as hunky dory for Parnell as it is for McWilliams. She
provides a list of all the committees she’s served on, but nothing about what
they did, and nothing of substance on any issue. Parnell tried to sit on the
fence regarding the Parkway and the bridge.
Enter Kim Zippel,
whose campaign seeks to tap into citizen discontent around the unresponsive and
uncritical council of which McWilliams and Parnell have been part. Zippel has
oriented her campaign around “you” (us) rather than on herself with the slogan “Respecting Your Opinion.” The series
of modest and practical points she makes in her Cogeco speech suggest that Zippel
already has a better understanding
of the issues facing Peterborough
and Otonabee Ward than the incumbents she’s up against.
A retired nuclear operator at Darlington now pursuing a B.Sc
in Environmental Science at Trent, Zippel has a history with local activism and
has lobbied for the preservation of Harper Park
from careless development. She’s also a Rotarian and a member of the Field
Naturalists. Zippel’s website calls for a more holistic vision of Otonabee Ward at city hall. She wants a more
attractive “gateway” to Peterborough along the
Parkway off the 115, integrated cycling
paths, community gardens, and
more arts and culture in the south
end. She also wants a proper management plan for Harper Park.
Like the thoughtful candidates in Ashburnham and Town Ward,
Zippel has realized that spending millions on the Parkway is going to do
nothing for Otonabee tax-payers but divert
dollars away from their own local projects. Her website suggests that she
would find more economical and sustainable alternatives to the Parkway
boondoggle.
We’ve lagged behind other Ontario municipalities in terms of female political representation on council. But this year
the lone female incumbent Parnell is joined by Zippel, Monsef, Jocasta Boone, and Diane Therien as credible candidates.
For the first time, female voters have a realistic opportunity to change the
makeup of council by supporting female candidates whose maturity of outlook and energy
levels in general surpass those of their male rivals.
Can we improve on our standard 10-1 male-to-female ratio?