It’s been quite the eventful day in Vancouver civic politics, with the mayoral race changing dramatically, and William Azaroff just made a huge announcement.
Just a couple of hours after COPE Vancouver’s Stephanie Allen dropped out of the Vancouver mayoral race, OneCity’s Azaroff has shown his cards.
Reports from Sitka on social media suggest that Azaroff, who was chosen as the OneCity mayoral candidate, unlike Allen, was going to stay committed to his campaign and would stay in the race.
Azaroff was scheduled to make an announcement at 1 p.m. today, but so far OneCity has not sent out an official press release.
OneCity hailed Azaroff as a community housing leader and city builder “who knows how to bring people together to get things done.”
Azaroff made several interesting pitches, including loosening rules for small businesses that would make it easier for residents to operate cafes and bike repair shops, among other types of small businesses.
Earlier this year, OneCity, COPE Vancouver, and the Vancouver Green Party reached an agreement to limit the number of candidates they would run in the Oct. 17 election.
In the earlier COPE announcement, Allen said, “We can’t put our egos ahead of doing the right thing for Vancouver.”
Allen says the decision means COPE’s candidates “across all boards” will be working with a progressive mayor instead of Sim.
COPE co-chair Sam Smart thanked Allen for her contributions.
“This decision is about more than the success of our party. It’s about serving the people of Vancouver. We believe real leadership means listening to the people, and the people are speaking. We urge other progressive candidates who are behind in the race for mayor to listen before it is too late,” Smart said.
After Azaroff’s announcement, it remains to be seen how the mayoral race will shape up.
The Vancouver Greens also thanked Allen for her contribution to the mayoral race.
“Stephanie brought experience, conviction, and a lot of integrity to this campaign,” said Fry.
“I have a great deal of respect for anyone willing to put themselves forward for public service, especially Stephanie, and want to thank her for the energy, ideas and principles she brought to this race,” Fry added.
The other notable mayoral candidates who are still in the running include TEAM’s Colleen Hardwick, Kareem Allam with the Vancouver Liberals, and former ABC Councillor Rebecca Bligh with Vote Vancouver.
Today’s press conference seems to indicate that there could still be a path forward that would see the parties uniting behind one candidate.
Azaroff stated that he and Fry would continue to have conversations.