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A pair of politically active parents announced bids for Vision Vancouver nominations Tuesday.
Catherine Evans wants a city council seat, while Patti Bacchus is after a school board position. Both women are well known within Vancouver school district circles and spent years lobbying trustees on behalf of public schools.
Evans is a partner in Ethos Strategy Group, a planning, research and public relations firm. She's president of the B.C. Society for Public Education. Formed in January 2005 by parents as a non-profit group, it evolved out of the Save Our Schools coalition that fought education budget cuts.
The 51-year-old is also a lawyer and the mother of two sons, both now in university. She served two terms as chair of Point Grey secondary school's Parent Advisory Committee and three as its District Parents Advisory Council representative.
Evans canvassed for former federal Vancouver-Quadra Liberal MP Stephen Owen and ran unsuccessfully for the Vancouver-Quadra Liberal nomination when Owen resigned.
"I've long been involved in public issues. In order to make meaningful change or meaningful decisions, that I hope will benefit a large number of people, you have to go where decisions get made," she said of entering municipal politics.
Aside from working on public education, Evans has been involved with homelessness and community issues. She's running for a Vision nomination because she feels an affinity with others involved in the party, but would prefer if Vancouver didn't have political parties. She supported the failed ward movement.
Evans and Bacchus know each other, and Bacchus is a former board member for the B.C. Society for Public Education.
"We follow a fairly familiar pattern of people that get involved and active on issues and then see that in order to make a real difference, sometimes you need to run for office and we both reached that stage where we feel we need to run for office," Evans said.
Bacchus' background is in journalism, public relations and communications. She also does some work for Balfour Properties, a family-run business. She holds a political science degree and has two children who are 12 and 14 years old.
She's been involved with Queen Mary and Lord Byng PACs, as well as DPAC.
The 46-year-old decided to seek a nomination with Vision after Gregor Robertson declared his intention to run for the party's mayoral nomination, which he won. "I thought it was someone I could really see building a big enough tent that we could really get some great people involved," Bacchus said.
While she recognizes some of the school district's difficulties stem from provincial funding, Bacchus maintains trustees should take a greater role in lobbying the province and should become advocates for more funding.
Bacchus was a DPAC representative on the VSB's educational facilities review committee and has worked on other school issues ranging from seismic upgrading to special needs. But she's never been interested in partisan politics. "I've certainly never even come close to even thinking about running for office. This even terrifies me. I'm not really that interested in a political life, but I really am quite passionate about schools in Vancouver," she said. "This is what I know. This is what I care about."
Vision Vancouver's nomination meeting for council, parks board and school board is Sept. 20.
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