BC: Sam Takes Vancouver
SAM TAKES VANCOUVER
It's full speed ahead for strategies to deal with drugs, homelessness, and crime, said Vancouver's brand-new mayor.
A day after earning the mayor's chair in a close victory over Jim Green, a bleary-eyed Sam Sullivan told reporters the previous council had turned complacent on drugs.
"I was disappointed that we weren't taking a more proactive approach," Sullivan said outside a coffee shop near his Yaletown home yesterday. "Personally I didn't see a lot of new actions from this council."
Not one to keep his progressive views drug strategy a secret, Sullivan told 24 hours in a previous interview he'd like to push ahead with a more aggressive form of NAOMI, the controversial heroin maintenance program that's now in its trial stages. But although Sullivan also supported a city plan to look at legalizing marijuana, the new mayor acknowledges it's strictly a federal government matter.
When Sullivan takes the mayor's seat for the first time in December, he'll be looking at a council that's evenly divided between the traditional left and right parties.
Vancouverites can likely look forward to a rethink of a trial plan to close two lanes of the Burrard Bridge - Sullivan wants to cancel the trial immediately and widen the sidewalks.
2005, Canoe Inc
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Website: http://vancouver.24hrs.ca/
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