With just over four months until Richmond’s municipal election, the latest slate has been announced.
At an event on Thursday night, which more than 100 people attended, RITE Richmond announced its team for the Oct. 20 election including incumbent Coun. Carol Day, Michael Wolfe, Henry Yao and new candidate, Niti Sharma.
“I committed from the very, very beginning to create a team that was representative of the community,” Day told the Richmond News.
Sharma, who moved to Richmond in 2003, is a language teacher and has post-graduate degrees in literature and teaching. At the event, Sharma explained that it was “the pace and the scale of demolitions and new construction in (her) neighbourhood that compelled (her) to speak up publicly,” calling development in Richmond “destructive and mindless.”
Wolfe, who Day said “has many elections under his belt” missed out on a council spot by around 800 votes behind Coun. Alexa Loo in 2014. Yao, who has lived in Richmond since he was 11, was a little over 8,000 votes behind Loo in the previous election.
Day said the team will focus on many issues in their platform, which will be released closer to the election, including home sizes on the ALR, fiscal responsibility, community connection, public art and housing affordability.
“We have the ability to tweak what we’re doing in the city,” Day said. “As a councillor for the last, almost four years, I’ve been frustrated with the lack of flexibility and foresight and I think it’s time to have a big change.”
