Pollard may concede Vancouver mayoral race as early as today
The mudslinging of Vancouver’s hardest-fought mayoral race is settling into dust, with apparent mayor-elect Tim Leavitt widening his lead over incumbent Mayor Royce Pollard in ballot returns Wednesday.
Neither candidate officially accepted victory or defeat, but Leavitt’s campaign said that they are “accepting congratulations and remaining cautiously optimistic.” Leavitt also felt comfortable enough with his margin Wednesday to outline his first priorities once he takes office in January.
Pollard said that depending on how the results continued to unfold, he may hold a press conference as early as today to concede the race.
Leavitt, 38, added to his margin over Pollard, 70, Wednesday afternoon. He leads 54.2 percent to 45.4 percent with about 4,000 votes left to be counted.
“It is a long shot,” Pollard said. “But like Yogi (Berra) said, ‘It’s not over till it’s over.’”
Both men agreed that due to Pollard’s 14-year run as a largely popular mayor, it was the incumbent’s election to lose.
“It’s a campaign that I should have won,” Pollard said, before qualifying, “I’m not sure I haven’t won it yet.”
The mayor declined to name any specific things he would change about his campaign, but said his campaign team will surely spend time in the next few days reflecting on what lessons can be drawn from the last 10 months.
Leavitt said he believes Pollard’s team “threw everything out that they could to win this election.”
“It was my election to win,” he said. “It was a long uphill climb against an incumbent who I think the general public views as effective in many ways.”
It’s clear that both candidates are still rankled about the barbs traded between camps, but Leavitt said he is ready to leave the campaign behind and get back to work.
He was in his downtown office as senior civil engineer at PBS Engineering by 7:15 a.m. Wednesday, and he also attended his usual noon Rotary Club meeting, where he paid club “pride dollars” for his election and thanked his supporters.
“The campaign was something, but the work really begins now,” Leavitt said.
First and foremost among his priorities, should his lead stick, is to form a business advisory council to examine ways to make Vancouver more friendly toward its existing businesses, he said.
“The biggest opportunity to create immediate jobs in Vancouver is with businesses right here,” he said.
He said he’s already spoken with city staff on ways to streamline the permitting process. He will also look at rolling back the $50 per employee “head tax” on local businesses. That would cost the city about $2.4 million.
But Leavitt said he’s willing to look at any idea that creates work locally.
“If businesses can tell me it will create more jobs, I will want the council to consider it,” he said.
He said he hopes to offset such potential revenue cuts by also forming a city budget committee, composed of people he knows from the public and private sectors, who will “scour” the document for any extra items to be cut.
“They will go line by line, working with the city manager and his departments,” Leavitt said. “I suspect there will be other opportunities to save money.”
And should the need for revenue exceed the amount the council can slash from the budget, he said he has no problem approaching the voters with tax proposals.
Addressing the media at City Hall, Pollard said he’s concerned that Leavitt, a seven-year City Council veteran, may have overstretched with his campaign pledges.
“I think he made an awful lot of promises and I think if he’s mayor, people should hold him to them,” Pollard said.
Leavitt countered that he will do the things he said he would: fight tolling on the proposed Columbia River Crossing; scrub the city budget; form a business advisory council; and bring a cultural and performing arts center back to the forefront. “I’m careful enough not to make promises I can’t keep,” he said.
The campaign was fraught with small ironies, including that Pollard broke a divided council vote to appoint Leavitt to his seat in 2003. Pollard said he wouldn’t change that decision today.
The apparent mayor-elect said he and his rival kept things very civil at City Council meetings during the campaign — something he doesn’t expect to change.
Leavitt and Pollard, along with the rest of the council, will be involved with recruiting candidates to fill Leavitt’s vacated council seat should he ultimately win. The appointment, however, will not happen until after new and re-elected council members are sworn in.
Leavitt said he plans to consult with the mayor over the next two months.
“I’m hoping Royce is willing to help with the transition because he’s an institution of knowledge,” Leavitt said. “There’s no doubt about it that there are things we have to have conversations about.”
