If nothing else, Judy Zaichkowsky can lay to rest the belief that having a last name starting with Z would have any negative effect on her political aspirations.

“That’s an old wives’ tale,” she told the Courier Monday.

article continues below

The numbers suggest she’s right, as the political rookie staked out a second-place finish among the 19 nominees seeking a school trustee position in the Oct. 14 byelection.

A professor of marketing at the Beedie School of Business, Zaichkowsky finished 4,000 votes behind incumbent and fellow Green Party member Janet Fraser. Political neophyte Estrellita Gonzalez, also of the Greens, ended the evening in third place.

“I think there’s a growing comfort with voting Green,” Fraser told the Courier Monday. “We saw that in the provincial election and I think that in the city people are looking for change; that might be change from the current government, it might be change from the two established parties, but they are looking for something better.”

Though new to politics, Zaichkowsky is not new to education, nor Vancouver. She attended elementary and high school in Vancouver and graduated from UBC with a bachelor’s degree in home economics. She then taught at both Eric Hamber and Templeton secondary schools and currently lives on the city’s West Side.

Outside of the Greens sweep of the top three, the remaining trustees include Vision Vancouver’s Joy Alexander, Allan Wong and Ken Clement, NPA members Lisa Dominato and Fraser Ballantyne and OneCity candidate Carrie Bercic.

These are unofficial results of the school board byelection. Official results will be declared Oct. 18.

The 17,800 voters who endorsed Bercic helped the East Van resident make Vancouver political history by electing the first OneCity candidate in the party’s brief three years of existence.

Bercic made a point of emphasizing a “people first” mantra on the election trail, driving home that the OneCity campaign was volunteer driven and that the party wasn’t propped up by corporations or developers.

“We’re really about people with heart and I think that’s what spoke to most people,” Bercic said. “We were a people-run campaign. We’re run by volunteers. People took ownership with that.”

Bercic’s new political mandate will be her first, though she’s had plenty of prep time. Bercic says she attended every VSB board and committee meeting since 2014 despite the fact that her two kids had already graduated from Vancouver public schools.

“The fact that my children were out of public education didn’t change my commitment to advocating for public education,” Bercic said. “For me, I’ve been involved in different forms of social activism for most of my adult life. It’s about more than just my children and it always has been.”

The first order of business after candidates are sworn in on Oct. 30 will be to select a chair. That role entails a one-year term and will carry through until next year’s general election. Zaichkowsky said she will nominate Fraser, while Bercic didn’t have a chair person preference when reached by the Courier.

Fraser said she’d accept that nomination and listed a number of attributes the incoming board chair should possess: a commitment to collaboration, ability to handle stress and different personality types and fostering a respectful environment for all.

From there, and on this point all three interview subjects agreed, the focus turns to hiring more teachers and a superintendent. Fraser said she expects the new superintendent be on the job at some point between late December and early February.

jkurucz@vancourier.com

@JohnKurucz