Park board chair Niki Sharma seeks Vision Vancouver nomination for council

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      Niki Sharma wants to jump from the Vancouver park board to city council.

      The first-term park commissioner, who currently chairs the board, has announced that she will seek a nomination from her party, Vision Vancouver, to run for council.

      “As a new mom of a five-month old girl, I often think about the kind of city Vancouver will be for her when she grows up,” Sharma said in a news release today (February 26). “How will the air and water quality be? Will she be able to afford to live here? How will she get around? Poverty, childcare, climate change, violence against women, transportation, livability and social justice: these are global issues that I believe we must act locally to address, and this is the perspective I want to bring to City Council.”

      According to the release, school board chair Patti Bacchus and councillors Geoff Meggs and Andrea Reimer, who are also with Vision, are backing her council candicacy.

      Sharma is a lawyer with the firm Donovan & Company and practises aboriginal law. She's also on the board of Battered Women Support Services.

      The civic election is scheduled for November 15.

      Comments

      6 Comments

      Nelson100

      Feb 26, 2014 at 12:59pm

      The qualifications to run as a Vision candidate are simple. How completely can you ignore all those irritating people who actually dare come to council to speak? How quickly can you rubber stamp the next high rise development? How well can you spin that you are progressive and green (when you are anything but)?

      Mark

      Feb 26, 2014 at 2:44pm

      Vision and housing affordability? Biggest joke on this planet.

      G

      Feb 26, 2014 at 3:36pm

      Which developers are encouraging her to run? If she is going to win a nomination she will have to demonstrate to the party masters that the Vancouver she wants for her daughter is the one the developers want. Ultimately those who run for Vision know that the lives of their kids will be better with money from political friends and taxpayers than without.

      Lana

      Feb 26, 2014 at 3:40pm

      I hope people remember that Ms. Sharma sits on the PB which has been taken to court twice by the citizens and (thankfully) lost. Ask yourself, are these the type of people we want to 'represent' us for another 4 year term? Is this the best we deserve? Remember the words 'The election gave us the mandate to' ... and now fill in the blanks as to what they want to push through. We've heard it time over and many neighborhoods have suffered for it. There is no democracy and to tighten up on dissidents they have now moved meetings to day time hours which lets out a lot of people from attending and having a voice. There is definitely no 'transparency' and 'public consultation' died a slow and painful death.
      Playing on concerns of the 'air we breath,waters we drink, climate change' etc -taps emotions that effects us all. We all care. But, what has Vision done that is anything more than 'symbolic'. A lot of what they promise is beyond their level of government & they know it. A lot of their 'green initiatives' have favored their donors; some have failed - and we taxpayers are funding them. This election I vote for no more block voting. I will vote for the person that actually listens, does not talk down to or belittle the people or find us annoying. I don't know who that person will be, but it will not be anyone associated with Vision. I've had enough of being in this abusive realtionship. Democracy is NOT CUBED!

      Parks Board Observer

      Feb 26, 2014 at 9:40pm

      I've witnessed shocking and strident disdain for the public by Ms. Sharma while chairing Park Board meetings. She's got real chutzpah assuming she has any place in politics and public service. Ms. Sharma, we all care about our children's future in this city. We just don't have the level of condescending elitism that you carry.

      Yeah right

      Feb 27, 2014 at 9:46am

      So she didn't have the same level of concern for these issues before she had her first child? In other words, she only cares now because it will affect her personally. Beware of people like this because it just shows they are mainly it in for themselves.