The 2011 municipal election was business as usual for Harold Steves, as the Richmond Citizen Association's longtime council stalwart overcame a competitive field to earn another nod from voters Saturday.
Steves, who won his first term in 1968, said the election held no surprises.
"I called the election 100 per cent," Steves said.
Steves finished sixth among council candidates. Despite finishing first in 2008 and second in 2005, Steves was undeterred by the result.
"Basically, I had a very high vote total in the last election," he said, attributing his first-place finish to the prominence of the Garden City Lands as a major election issue.
"I gained 30 votes," he said, in regards to the 2011 election.
Steves finished with 13,908 votes in 2011, up from his 2008 total of 13,878.
Looking at the makeup of Richmond's council for the next three years, Steves said he's encouraged.
"I'm really pleased Chak Au got elected," he said. "I supported Chak Au behind the scenes."
Steves credited Au with being a champion of the Garden City lands. While serving as a school trustee, Au organized a dinner that included United Nations officials, mayor Malcolm Brodie, fellow RCA councillor Linda Barnes, Steves, and the president of Kwantlen College. The dinner eventually resulted in an international farm school at the Garden City lands, according to Steves.
"He now gets to plan the Garden City lands that he helped save," Steves said of Au.
Steves, a former elementary school teacher, also praised newly-elected school trustee Eric Yung.
"He was my top student," Steves said, recalling the bright-eyed third grader Yung used to be.
Yung finished fourth among trustees, garnering more than 14,000 votes after just missing out on the school board in 2008.
RCA candidate De Whalen finished well out of the running, finishing 14th and garnering 5,619 votes.
Although he expressed disappointment, Steves said Whalen's finish was typical for a first-time candidate.
"It's unusual for anyone to get elected their first time running for council," he said. "But she'll be able to run again."
"The results make sense to me now," Whalen said, speaking two days after the election. "I'm known in the volunteer community, but not elsewhere."
Whalen, who volunteers with the Richmond Poverty Response Committee and the Richmond Women's Resource Centre, said lack of name recognition might have been her downfall.
"Some of the folks, the ones who got in, had name recognition," she said.
Whalen also wondered if her environmentally-minded decision to have no campaign signs was a tactical misstep.
"If I was to do it differently, I think we would have signs," she said.
Within hours of her loss, Whalen said her staff was telling her it was time to start preparing for the 2014 election.
As Steves prepares for another term serving alongside Barnes, he said his priorities haven't changed.
"My priority is going to be the Garden City lands."
The lands are a global example of returning to sustainable agriculture, according to Steves.
"We need to work really hard on affordable housing," Steves said, identifying another priority.
Council should investigate allowing granny flats and coach homes where appropriate, according to Steves.
Council also needs to lobby the provincial and federal governments to contribute funds to alleviate the dearth of affordable housing in Richmond, according to Steves.
Steves' final priority is something he's been working on since Pierre Trudeau was Prime Minister.
"When I got elected in 1968, one of my campaigns was to develop Steveston Waterfront, and we haven't done it," he said.
All election results are unofficial until certified.
