Candidates from all municipal parties attended one of the first of several community election events Monday (October 24), organized by the False Creek Residents’ Association.

Mayoral candidates Suzanne Anton of the Non-Partisan Association and Randy Helten of the electoral group Neighbourhoods for a Sustainable Vancouver were present at the two-hour meeting, as well as over 20 park board, school board and city council candidates.

Some of the issues raised by audience members and organizers included questions about Creekside Park, and citizen and community engagement in the planning process.

Mayoral candidates had two minutes each to address the question of community engagement in the planning process.

“Neighbourhoods know best what goes on in their own neighbourhoods,” replied Anton.

“They know what their neighbourhoods need, they know what works well in their neighbourhoods, they know what deficiencies are in their neighbourhoods… and the city needs to be listening and paying attention.”

Helten claimed that city hall “is not listening to the citizens”.

“In July 2010 I spoke to city council about an important issue, and my message to the mayor and council at the time was that our whole city has to function based on trust,” he said. “If we cannot trust city hall, we are wasting our time.”

The result of that meeting, Helten noted, was “the famous f-bomb incident”.

Each of the candidates from Vision Vancouver, the NPA, NSV and the Green party had a chance to make a brief opening statement at the beginning of the meeting. Independent park board candidate Eleanor Hadley was among the candidates who addressed the small crowd in a school gymnasium.

Hadly, a 90-year-old parks activist, has been speaking at city council and park board meetings for decades, mainly in opposition to the aquarium and commercialization in Stanley Park.

“Just this summer, this parks board commissioner gave the aquarium permission to build four buildings, one seven storeys high…I was the only one there to oppose it,” Hadley told the audience.

“That’s what’s happened to public meetings. Nobody goes. I go, and I’ve been going there since 1960.”

Several candidate meetings are scheduled in neighbourhoods across the city over coming weeks, including one hosted by Shaughnessy and Arbutus Ridge neighbourhood groups this evening (October 25), and one hosted by RAMP (Residents Association Mount Pleasant) on October 26.

A mayor and council candidates meeting was held by the Cedar Cottage Neighbourhood House on October 22.

The first major mayoral debate between Anton and Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson, hosted by the Vancouver Board of Trade, is scheduled to take place at 4 p.m. today.