- Twice-Weekly Daily Nightly Buzz
- Posts
- The Single Most Comprehensive Guide to the Addison City Council Election on the Internet
The Single Most Comprehensive Guide to the Addison City Council Election on the Internet
Written — primarily — for a bunch of student politics nerds in Vancouver
Quyen S
April 30, 2025
So I’m voting the my town’s city council election today — Monday, as I write this newsletter. And I love doing research on my town’s candidates. I never like any of them but they usually are very funny to clown on. And it makes me feel like an upstanding citizen for participating in democracy :).
I’ll note that there is basically no coverage of any of these candidates on the internet — much less a real news article. So… this is best I can tell the most comprehensive guide to the 2025 Addison City Council candidates. Which is… sigh kinda sad. But let’s get cracking!
Addison City Council Candidates
This is like… actually one of the only elections that I’m pretty sure I’m voting the same as my mother. And we arrived there individually which is nice.
But anyways. There is one person running for mayor. I’m not looking into them because it’s not a yes/no vote — he’s just gonna get in automatically. Then there are four people running for three seats on council (our council seats are all at-large). I word vomit about them below.
Randy Smith
Dallas Morning News
Randy is the only candidate to have answered The Dallas Morning News’ questionnaire.
YOU CANT CAPITALIZE EVERYTHING. Literally every AMS presidential candidate — even the joke ones — wrote better websites than this.
This is answering a question about public safety. Like… cops public safety. I have no idea why bestie is clowning on apartments.
Also for context one of the key issues in our town is whether or not we should be building more apartments. The tl;dr is that proponents say that it will make it easier for people — especially younger people — to afford a place to live in our town. Opponents say that apartments change the character of the town and bring in the “wrong types” because they won’t care about the town in the same way a home owner would.
WAIT THIS IS CRAZY. Just… like… rich enough people will be able to afford homes???? He’s so proud of not wanting apartments.
AAAAAAA You aren’t answering the questionnnnnn
Randy’s YouTube!
Okay but I’m going through bestie’s Youtube (only 12 subs RIP). And he actually says something kinda based in this video. This is obviously only in reference to Addison City Council.
I've been to many city council meetings to where there's an issue that faces a particular area of town and residents come out to voice their concerns and their issues to speak in the council meetings. They speak for hours and then council votes against them and pulls out their pre-written speeches as to why they were going to vote against them. So they're obviously not listening to the people. I don't feel like that's the right way to do it
AAAAA HES DOING THE THING. “How would I improve engagement? Well I would engage more often and more better so that people get engaged”
THIS IS SO FUNNNYYYY. Literally 9 seconds of the 11 second video is the intro and outro. He only answers the question for 2 seconds.
Why does every candidate make a video sitting outside their pool or something (also he does spend 3 minutes ranting about all the “vagrants”)
He also has a video about how our council should have districts which… I’m pretty sure I don’t support. We just get so little engagement in our municipal politics that I’m not convinced there would be someone running in every district. And our town is not that big, so I don’t think we really benefit from districts at all. I am, however, not incredibly well-educated on the subject.
My Thoughts
Me no like. Me no think experienced.
Nancy Craig
I think I voted for bestie last time but that truly does not mean I like her, so let’s hit another research
My town’s website
Truly this is where most of her online presence is from. Or at least any serious records of her experience.
Nancy views the Town as a business, drawing parallels between the processes and procedures of a corporate environment and that of the Town.
Good. I’m glad we’re doing a business. This is great. Lovely even.
Campaign Finance Forms
YOUY HAVE TO REPORT INTEREST AS A CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION???? THat’s crazy. For only 41 cents too.
My Thoughts
Okay so this is the real problem. The people for which all I can find is just… not even a campaign website but their profile on another website. The good news is, I only have to choose who I like the least and I think Nancy is better than Randy so far.
Like I’m sure I disagree with a bunch of Nancy’s policies (though I don’t know many), but at least she has experience. Being an incumbent and all. And frankly, I’m probably gonna disagree with everyone’s policies.
Dan Liscio
Woof this is a rough one. I’m having a hard time finding stuff.
My Town’s Website
“Intriguing as it is diverse” is kinda like being woke. He also started working in a shoe store so like… idk.
Probably Someone Else
My Thoughts
I know so little about this man but he seems better than Randy. My mom spoke with him and seemed to think he was chill so that’s good I guess.
Marlin Willesen
Final one :)
Okay he has a website
I’ll tell you this for free, it’s not Addison proud because he’s a member of the queer community.
That being said, it’s a very thorough website — about the level of a student running for UBC Senate.
I used to be like you, Marlin.
Wow he has a stance that isn’t just “apartments and renters ruin the character of the neighbourhood”
Mmmmm I had wondered who was responsible for those…
He only has 15 Youtube subscribers :(
I think it’s cute that he’s posting concert videos
My Thoughts
Listen I don’t agree with him on everything, but he is very experienced and clearly cares more than any of the other candidates about engaging with the town. (AddisonProud, AddisonProud, AddisonProud). And he has actual policies that he communicated and wants to continue implementing. That’s like… Big.
Other News
AI is coming for journalists
I found this website while doing voting research (above).
For those of you who didn’t click onto that, it’s an AI article about a council meeting generated from the VOD. Like… I wish I could actually feel good and be excited about that. This type of thing is (in my mind) the real promise of generative models. Not generating self-insert fan fiction with the most kissable organization on campus, but making things like governance meetings or private tutoring more accessible to people.
Of course, that’s the promise but not the reality. For one, no one can trust that the model didn’t just make up random stuff to put in the article. It’s not actually creating information because it isn’t reliable. There’s no accountability. Plus, the model is just stealing from the labour of thousands of journalists to create a pale simulacrum of journalism. Not to mention all the power/water that’s being wasted on this.
And finally THIS WOULDNT HAVE BEEN NEEDED IF WE DIDNT LET ALL OUR COMMUNITY PAPERS DIE. I’m chill and calm. Don’t mind me. I just continue to be nostalgic for a time I didn’t really experience.
Say it with me everyone
I’m not going to crash the Ubyssey web dev sprints. I’m not going to crash the web dev sprints. I’m not gonna crash the web dev sprints.
Also just taking this chance to say I really really appreciate The Ubyssey’s website. I’ve spent the past couple days reading stories from a score of university newspapers and I earnestly believe that The Ubyssey has the best website out of all of them.
From the Web
Episode 1: AMS Elections (Since 1918 on SoundCloud). Let’s use the same intro for every Ubyssey audiovisual product ever. It’s so funny. Does anyone know if that song is standalone somewhere, or is it just used for that intro?
The group chats that changed America (Semafor). From Sam Low’s Mastodon. I think we should have a group chat for all the power players the AMS + the UBC campus as a whole. And I should definitely be on it because I have a very influential newsletter that 50 people receive (wait chat even though council doubled the number of signatures needed to run for an AMS position, I have enough here to run as a joke candidate — real names only now — next year).
The Ubyssey’s 2024/25 year in review (The Ubyssey on YouTube). Our joke candidate opinion piece gets mentioned not once but twice! Among frankly a bunch of way cooler stuff The Ubyssey has done throughout the year. I’m a big fan of Press the Issue and femme had a bunch of really powerful pieces. Not to mention ItDoesntWorkday of Sam Low fame.
From the Archive
It’s the editorial from the March 13, 1963
“Students will not go off half-cocked this weekend”
And the following from March 14, 1963
I feel inspired, but maybe that’s because I’d do literally anything The Ubyssey told me to do
Look at all this organizing they’re doing
I’m enjoying following this boycott. I’ll take clippings of the next couple days in the next issue of the Twice-Weekly Daily Nightly Buzz.
That’s All!
I had fun with this one. I did just fully use this as a document to take notes on who I was gonna vote for which is silly and quirky.
Anyways, finishing this email up in an ice cream shop of all places, so that’s fun. They had an absolutely heavenly wildberry lavender flavour which I promise I didn’t get just because “wildberry lavender” is gay as shit.
Until Sunday at 10:03 pm, buzz on, my busy bees!
Failing upwards (into the federal parliament) since 2025
Reply