With the election now behind her, newly elected Mission Mayor Pam Alexis can look ahead to the work and planning that awaits.
But who is Pam Alexis, and what kind of mayor will she be?
“I’m a community builder and have been since I moved here,” she told the Mission Record.
Alexis has lived in the community for more than 22 years and became involved almost immediately.
When the Clarke Theatre first opened, Alexis was hired to work there, running the front of the house.
“Because there were so many people that came down to the theatre to check it out, I met everybody in the community that was somebody, because I was just in the right place at the right time.”
She also worked at Mission Community Services and has a long history as an ESL teacher.
That marked the beginning of her community involvement, and Alexis soon began to help at a number of non-profit organizations. She also began creating events, most of them in the cultural sector, for the community to enjoy.
Her first step into politics was when she ran and won a seat on the Mission school board in 2005.
“I learned the role of governance and the importance of process and decision-making.”
Alexis said it was difficult. In her first term as a school trustee, from 2005-2008, the district closed four schools.
Alexis then made the switch from school trustee to councillor, earning the highest number of votes in the 2014 municipal election
Then she decided to run for the highest seat on council, the mayor’s chair.
“I realized that there was an appetite for change in the community and I had spoken to many individuals and recognized there was an opportunity to inspire and to lead in perhaps a different way.”
Preparation for the campaign started on June 1, 2018. Alexis called on the same team that helped her win a council seat four years earlier.
Planning, choosing colours for the campaign and organizing a social media plan: Everything was thought out before the official campaign began.
One of her biggest hurdles was to prepare mentally for the new challenge.
“I’m a team player and to separate myself from the team, to become mayor, that was tricky.”
The planning paid off as public reaction to her campaign was positive. Alexis said the freshness and colours were impactful and captured people’s imagination.
“We had some real turning points in the campaign and I think the T-shirt was most effective.”
She had more than 60 volunteers sign up immediately and they all received shirts to wear, promoting Alexis.
“Towards the end, we were all out on the streets, campaigning wildly, a la James Atebe (a former mayor of Mission).”
Alexis said another turning point was when she first saw the correlation between hand delivering post cards and how many hits the website received.
“There was one day when we had 500 new visits in a single day. Those kinds of statistics were really important moving forward.”
Her Facebook Live video was also a success, attracting almost 4,000 viewers.
“Moving forward I’d like to include something like that in interacting with that sector who is on Facebook and social media.”
When the results of the election were revealed, many people were surprised not that Alexis won, but by such a large margin. One person who wasn’t surprised was Alexis herself.
She said she was expecting to win, because her team spent a lot of time looking at numbers and they knew there was that kind of appetite for change.
Alexis now has to prepare to lead a new council, made up of two incumbents and four newcomers, but what kind of leader will she be?
“I like to bring out the best in people. I like to lead in a positive way. I’m perhaps not going to be in your face, but I’m going to be more collaborative and trying to resolve issues with just dialogue and respectful dialogue. And I’m going to insist on that. My style is probably non-confrontational, but to try and find some solution in a non-aggressive way.”
Alexis said there were many surprises in the election for council seats.
“I wasn’t sure about the impact of Facebook as opposed to community involvement… I believe the community was looking at having a diverse group.”
She was also surprised at the number of people who ran for council without having some community involvement.
“It was the first time since I lived here that I didn’t know who all the candidates were. There was about a third that I had never met, which I found very interesting.”
Alexis said it appears voters are no longer looking at experience; rather, they are looking for vision.
An official ceremony is set for Nov. 1 at 1 p.m. in the Clarke Theatre, and then the new council gets to work.
“The first order of business is to create a team and get to know each other,” she said, adding they need to discover everyone’s strengths and what issues they are passionate about to put together a list of strategic objectives they want to accomplish in next four years.
“The budget is going to be a massive learning exercise for the new council members because there are some big decisions to make. Basically we’re going to have to figure out what the priorities are, and everything can’t be a priority.”
She said the learning curve will be steep and quick.
Other issues that will need to be dealt with include building community, traffic-calming issues, the waterfront, many applications for multi-family homes and examining the length of time it takes to get things through city hall, to name a few.
Alexis and her team will be ready.
‘I’m humbled by all the support. You have selected a passionate council and I think it reflects on the caring community that we are. People really want people that care.”