It was hardly a secret that the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of V.I.A. (it's me, hi) didn't have a very high opinion of now-former Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart's work at city hall from 2018 to 2022.
During his time in office, I wrote columns about how he disguised a tax on renters as a "climate levy," how he literally stole from our business, how he was completely uninspiring and unable to step up for folks during COVID, and more.
"One day Kennedy Stewart will be the mayor of Vancouver" was the headline of a column I decided not to publish in the middle of his term, but it pretty much sums up my feelings.
Last October he became the first incumbent mayor to lose an election here since 1980, so I guess I wasn't alone.
In his defense, Stewart was a party-less mayor who was tasked with heading up a fractured council that could hardly agree on anything and seemed to only want to solve the world's problems and not the ones in front of them that they could actually affect. The fact that he didn't manage to achieve jack squat wasn't entirely his fault.
However, this week he did manage to complete a task that he should have done a long time ago. He blocked me on Twitter.
After it was announced that he was going back to work for SFU after a 12-year "leave of absence," I tagged him in a tweet I wrote, pointing out that the gap between politics/the public sector and the private sector that I work in is huge.
Then he blocked me, along with a number of other Vancouverites who engaged in various discussions about his return to the university.
Honestly, if I was him I would have done it years ago, as I have a tendency to go into J. Jonah Jameson mode on that platform (and in the columns I write) when it comes to elected officials. I imagine it was a satisfying click of the mouse or tap of the finger for him.
Now let's see what our new mayor Ken Sim can manage to get done once he gets settled and makes it through his honeymoon phase.
Only time will tell how much he may or may not accomplish, and if he ends up blocking me entirely as well. So far he's only asked me to lose his still-active personal cell number that he gave me years ago, but that's a story for another time.
Politics and academia is craaaaazy. I can't imagine taking a 12 year "leave of absence" from an employer in the private sector, as is described in this notice about now-former-MP and now-former-mayor Kennedy Stewart resuming work for SFU. #cdnpoli #bcpoli https://t.co/lWhRAPxnln
— Bob Kronbauer (@BobKronbauer) January 16, 2023
