Veteran councillor Jonathan X. Cote took on a four-term mayor – and came out on top in November’s civic election.
Cote was born in New Westminster and moved around the Lower Mainland before returning to the Royal City 12 years ago and getting to work at making his mark on the city. The newly appointed mayor is The Record’s 2014 Newsmaker of the Year.
While Cote’s election win didn’t come until late in the year, the three-term councillor was busy all year long, juggling a job at ICBC and council duties that included co-chairing the city’s master transportation plan committee, as well as completing a masters in urban studies at Simon Fraser University and enjoying some family time with his wife and three young daughters.
When council meetings went on hiatus for the summer, Mayor Wayne Wright headed Down Under for a vacation in Australia. There wasn’t a lot of R&R for Cote, who spent the time pounding the pavement in his quest to become New Westminster’s next mayor.
By the time Wright announced in September that he’d be seeking re-election, Cote had already hit the campaign trail, knocking on doors and consulting on platform issues. Cote had a plan – and it was a winning one.
Shortly after announcing his plan to run for mayor, past and present NDP politicos and party supporters started throwing their support, which had often gone to Wright in the past, behind Cote. While he had significant support from “the machine,” Cote also garnered tremendous grassroots support from young and old who joined him at berma-shaves and other campaign activities in the fall.
While many thought the race between the incumbent councillor and the incumbent mayor would be tight, Cote topped every poll in the city. As the polls reported on election night, Cote’s lead grew, eventually leaving him more than 2,500 votes ahead of Wright and miles ahead of challengers James Crosty and Vladimir Krasnogor.
“We are so proud of the campaign we ran,” Cote told The Record after the election. “It was interesting because we could see in the last two weeks something was happening out there.”
During the campaign, Cote logged 1.1 million steps and knocked on 5,000 doors – something that gave him a good sense of what was happening “on the ground level” among voters.
In the days that followed the election win, Cote did something he hadn’t done for a couple of months.
“I have been catching up on a bit of sleep which is nice,” he said. “For the last two nights I have slept longer than five hours – I haven’t done that in over two months. To have two dinners at home with the whole family, I don’t think we have done that in a couple of months either. It was nice to take a bit of time off.”
Cote, who was sworn in as New Westminster’s mayor or Dec. 1, wasted no time in making a few changes at city hall. At his first official meeting on Dec. 8, he introduced three new mayors’ task forces and a new committee.
“I did set out a very ambitious policy platform,” he told The Record. “I do think it was very pragmatic and very doable but it’s going to require a lot of work.”
Cote quickly introduced a change to a longstanding practice at council meetings that allowed council members to talk about the events and meetings they’d attended since the previous council meeting. An announcements section aims to help speed up the meetings and make reports more meaningful.
Cote also got up to speed on his new role as a member of the Mayors’ Council on Regional Transportation and threw his support behind the mayors’ council’s proposed referendum question concerning transit and transportation funding in the region.
With no shortage of issues on the city’s radar, we’ll soon see what mark Cote – whose middle name Xerxes comes from a Persian king who is also known as Xerxes The Great – will leave on the Royal City in the years ahead.
