Lord Acton famously observed that power tends to corrupt. In Vancouver politics, this tendency is most flagrantly demonstrated by Vancouver Mayor Timothy Leavitt.
Candidate Leavitt became mayor opposing tolling to finance the Columbia River Crossing project, only to renege on that commitment seven months after assuming office. Mayor Leavitt compounds that betrayal of trust by gerrymandering and delaying a public vote on the operational/maintenance funding for the CRC’s planned extension of Portland’s light rail into Vancouver.
By these machinations, Mayor Leavitt hopes to either win approval for light rail by disenfranchising voters inclined to oppose it, or, if light rail is voted down, rendering that rebuke irrelevant by delaying an election beyond the point where the CRC project can be easily abandoned.
Now Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler’s, R-Camas, insistence on a prompt light-rail funding referendum by all voters in C-Tran’s transit district provokes Mayor Leavitt to demand the Congresswoman “recalibrate” her position to accord with what Leavitt deems to be “leadership.” That Leavitt perceives his carefully contrived manipulations as leadership, and Herrera Beutler’s proper regard for voter consent on such an important matter as the abdication of leadership, is yet more evidence of how power taints his character and judgment.
