Saanich Mayor Richard Atwell has three words to describe the learning curve in his first year in office: “Vertical. Straight up.”
His first three months were an ordeal, he said, a brutal comedown after he outpolled six-term mayor Frank Leonard by more than 1,000 votes.
“I don’t think it could have been any worse,” Atwell said. “It was a confluence of, I would say, the most difficult employee-manager relationship, combined with the nastiest politics, combined with the greatest pressure and media focus, all at the same time.”
That’s one way of putting it.
The controversies came fast and furious, from the departure of chief administrative officer Paul Murray with a $500,000 severance package — largely blamed on Atwell’s desire for loyal new blood — to Atwell’s 911 call after an altercation with the fiancé of a female campaign worker, then a news conference where Atwell admitted to not being “totally truthful” about an extra-marital relationship.
Add to that being pulled over four times by traffic police and administered two breathalyzers (he passed) not long before and after he took over as chairman of the Saanich Police Board — after the Saanich Police Association had taken the unusual step of endorsing Leonard in the 2014 election.
Top that with the mayor’s bombshell accusations — which turned out to be true — that illegal keystroke-surveillance software, or “spyware,” had been installed on his computer at the behest of the municipality’s information technology managers.
There’s more.
His request that the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner investigate a Saanich police leak to the media regarding his embarrassing 911 call was rejected in June, as the leak does not constitute misconduct under B.C.’s Police Act. Ditto for whether police were in a conflict of interest when they reviewed the legality of the Spector 360 spyware that was installed on the mayor’s computer as well as the computer of his executive assistant Jennifer Downie, wife of Saanich Police Chief Bob Downie. Police had found there was no criminal wrongdoing by municipal staff.
Atwell said his mayoralty was set back six months by the spyware issue. One of the disappointments of his first year in office is that Saanich has yet to follow through on the recommendations of B.C. privacy commissioner Elizabeth Denham, who vindicated his concerns and noted that none of the Saanich officials she interviewed understood “even the most basic principles of privacy law.”
The municipality has yet to hire a privacy officer and have that officer ensure the district complies with the law as Denham advised, Atwell said.
As for suspicions of targeting by traffic police, Atwell said he decided not to pursue the complaint because it would focus energy on personal rather than professional issues.
With a professional background in information technology, Atwell continues to be frustrated at having no more computer access to the workings of Saanich than anyone tapping into the district’s website. His push for a webcasting system for council meetings has been bundled in with updating of council furniture, with a budget Atwell called “outrageous,” so it’s been sent back to the drawing board.
A no-comment mayor he’s not, even when it’s in his political interests to let well enough alone.
In a 90-minute interview with the Times Colonist, he addressed every question: personal, professional, financial or political.
Atwell, 45, speaks quietly but he speaks his mind.
He makes it clear that his marriage survived the onslaught of personal publicity, that had it not, the mayoralty would have been too high a cost and that his wife’s privacy is paramount. He declined to share her name for this profile. “I have a wonderful wife and I’m grateful for her,” he said. “Despite the stress of being mayor’s wife and the media attention, I need to do good by my wife as much as I need to do good by the people of Saanich.”
The worst that can happen to him as mayor is over, he said. “I’d rather have had it happen at the beginning and work through it and learn to become a better mayor and a better person than to struggle with it mid-term.”
As far as his fellow members of council: “Things have settled down to the point that there’s a level of trust that’s building on the council. It’s not there yet, but it’s coming.”
Remember, this is a council that issued a news release 16 days after his Dec. 1, 2014 inauguration distancing itself from the mayor’s “actions” in Murray’s departure.
“I think the censure was unwarranted,” said Atwell, sounding ready to re-engage a year later. He said he did not force Murray out and council could have passed a motion on Dec. 2 in support of Murray staying.
Clearly, there is still strain in the relationship between mayor and council.
Asked to comment about Atwell’s first year in office, veteran councillor Susan Brice referred the question back to Atwell. “I believe he would be better to comment, rather than me, on his time in office,” she wrote via email.
Despite the shaky start, Atwell is comfortable talking about his accomplishments. Number one is the rezoning of the Alberg Farm property in Gordon Head for a residential subdivision, after a standoff that had led to a cattle feedlot operating in suburbia and a community that petitioned the previous council for relief from noise, odours and rats.
Solving the “Catch 22” that had the property ping-ponging between the municipality and the Agricultural Land Commission for the better part of a decade was “a huge, huge thing to get done,” he said. “If I hadn’t won the election last year, I don’t think this would have happened.”
Another is getting student representatives from Camosun College and the University of Victoria a seat on the Greater Victoria Transit Commission. “They are the biggest group of riders on the transit system and they didn’t have a voice,” he said, while small municipalities with far fewer riders had representatives on the commission as a matter of course.
Classic suburban politics puts the interests of homeowners first, but Atwell connected with “an overlooked constituency of voters,” said Michael Prince, University of Victoria Lansdowne Professor of Social Policy, including public administration.
Atwell acknowledged news the long-awaited $85-million McKenzie interchange is finally coming has been a bit of a free ride on his watch. “What I have to do now is to work hard to make sure we get the version that’s good for Saanich and not just the highways department.”
He estimates that he’s put about 20,000 kilometres on his used Audi A4 sedan in the past year doing Saanich business, checking out issues for himself, such as parking restrictions at the Glendenning Road entrance to Mount Douglas Park. Asked if he could claim mileage expenses, he said: “I probably could but I don’t … I don’t like nickel and diming the public.” Then he mused about why municipal administrators often get cars with their contracts, when mayors in general travel more. It’s the kind of remark that’s normally a no-no for mayors, who aren’t supposed to be seen criticizing staff.
He’s also not afraid to comment on his counterparts in other municipalities. Being mayor is his only job, he said, rhyming off a list of outside jobs held by other local mayors — topped by Langford Mayor Stew Young, with 30 companies on the go.
Atwell takes pride in the fact that members of the public can now address council just before it meets, without being on the agenda. Defeated councillor and Leonard supporter Paul Gerrard gives Atwell credit for the move, allowing that some citizens felt “pretty constrained” by the way it was previously done.
The mayor sets aside two days a week for meetings with the public, organizations or developers, which Prince calls a smart move.
While he gets kudos from outsiders, Atwell said he hasn’t felt much support from his fellow council members, acknowledging he does not have strong allies. He was touched when two incumbents shook his hand after a recent meeting, congratulating him on how well he chaired the session.
The governance issue that Atwell said factored into Leonard’s defeat — the convoluted ballot question on amalgamation — has proved slow going for the new mayor.
Barely a week into his mandate, council put the issue into the hands of staff and consultants: The call for applicants for Saanich’s governance review committee closed only on Nov. 20.
On issues major and minor, the mayor has stood alone.
In September, he asked council to rescind, then rework the contentious Environmental Development Permit Area bylaw, saying it placed an “overwhelming” burden on property owners by restricting changes to their properties in the name of protecting sensitive ecosystems. He visited many EDPA properties where the owners were effectively “locked down” from making changes, and said municipal staff downplayed the discontent.
The rest of council voted with Coun. Vic Derman, who said scrapping the EDPA was “beyond the pale.”
In May, Atwell tried to exempt 11-year-old Jillian McCue from appearing before three council advisory committees to address a bylaw change to allow miniature goats in backyards. Atwell asked council to request a staff report instead. Councillors protested that would contravene municipal process.
Coun. Fred Haynes, one of two new councillors amid six incumbents, said despite the differences, there’s been plenty of consensus in Atwell’s first year.
“Sure it’s been a rocky road this year. At the same time, much has been achieved and we need to recognize that amongst the rocks, that the mayor and members of council ended up voting unanimously on many issues.”
Those issues include the Alberg rezoning, support for several recommendations on affordable housing sent to the Capital Regional District, reviews for Saanich development-permit costs and processing time, the creation of Vancouver Island’s first LGBTQ sub-committee and the sign-on to the South Vancouver Island Economic Development Association.
And there’s the unanimous decision to hire Paul Thorkelsson to start as new chief administrative officer in late January. Council members and senior administrators hope Thorkelsson will steer their relationship into conciliatory waters.
Considering the deafening buzz from early controversies, Gerrard said the year has been “extremely quiet” as far as new development. “I see so much happening in Langford, Sidney is now going strong and Victoria definitely … I just don’t hear any chatter out there about Saanich at all,” Gerrard said.
“It’s a weird experience because we were so busy,” he added, citing construction of the Craigflower Bridge, Uptown and the Mount View Campus of Care.
Developers like certainty and “they always knew where they stood with Frank,” said Gerrard, a veteran of the construction industry. “Mayor Atwell certainly doesn’t have that experience.”
It took him a year, but Atwell has finally posted a detailed biography on the municipality’s website — something the rest of council did right away.
Atwell was born in London, England, but his family moved to Surrey when he was four and to Victoria in 1982. In his final year at Oak Bay High, the family moved to Saanich. Atwell later earned a B.Sc. in computer science at the University of Victoria. He drove to Austin, Texas, where he worked for Metrowerks Corporation, which devised software development tools for desktop, handheld and gaming platforms, then moved to Apple Inc. in California. Ten years in computers did not make him independently wealthy, he said, but enabled him to pay off a house and move back to Saanich debt-free in 2008, which was always his plan.
He began attending Saanich council meetings as a representative of the Falaise Community Association and became a director with the Sewage Treatment Action Group in 2013. Once a vocal critic of the way sewage treatment was handled by public officials, Atwell now sits on the CRD’s Core Area Liquid Waste Management Committee, which is still on the hunt for a treatment site.
More than once Atwell reiterated how his council didn’t take farmer/philanthropist Allen Vandekerkhove seriously when Vandekerkhove proposed a treatment plant on his Watkiss Way property. When that was stymied, Vandekerkhove took steps to chop down 4,900 trees on the Agricultural Land Reserve property to make way for growing hay.
Atwell questions why he wasn’t alerted by staff when the tree-removal permit was granted. That kind of criticism is atypical political behaviour, said Prince, who said in this case, administrators should have provided a heads-up to the mayor.
After Atwell’s dramatic unseating of “great King Frank,” he was left to preside at a council table with highly experienced incumbents, some of whom would have preferred that Saanich continued in the style they were comfortable with, Prince said. On top of that, he had to face “the forces of inertia and processes” found in government, Prince said, while having no previous council experience.
Act One was the stormy early period. Act Two was the clarification and vindication of issues and Act Three will involve getting down to work, Prince said.
For the first year, the public could fault a neophyte mayor for not getting things done, with the fallout from Murray’s departure as the bureaucratic link between council and staff using up months of Atwell’s initial mandate, Prince said.
“As we move on, if there’s concerns residents have, I think it’s fair for them to say, ‘Well, the mayor is trying to do this, or the mayor said that, and where are my councillors on this?’ ”
The arrival of the baggage-free Thorkelsson — the go-between for the administration and council — will provide the opportunity for Atwell to “re-set” his mayoralty, Prince said. “He’s finding his feet, but I think he’d like to move his feet a little more quickly forward. I think he’s still seen by some as a lone wolf, the lone voice, the outsider mayor.”
Atwell agreed that there’s still a sense he’s an outsider and said he’s OK with that. “I feel I was given a mandate for change and I need to stay on track.”
These days, he’s excited to head to the mayor’s office — a place he seldom frequented at first.
“Once I get there and I start to meet the wonderful people in the community, that’s when my heart starts to swell,” he said. “And I feel part of something that’s bigger than myself. That’s when I feel that I’m in my element.”
It’s enough that he’ll likely run again in 2018, he said.
