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Good news everyone! New Westminster is having another election! This time it’s a by-election to elect a new school trustee after MaryAnn Mortensen resigned back in March! In case you can’t tell, I’m excited! I’m putting in more exclamation marks to make you excited too! OH BOY SCHOOL TRUSTEE BY-ELECTION HOW CAN YOU NOT BE PUMPED UP??!?!?!!!

Anyhow.

It’s my job to come up with satirical questions for any and all candidates that we get for any and all elections in New Westminster. I’ve had a hard time coming up with any good questions (my wife came up with the first one), so this time around I’m actually going to ask a mix of satirical and serious questions for Mary Lalji and Dee Beattie. It’s up to you, my loyal reader, to figure out which is which. Satirical and serious, not Mary and Dee. Although you will have to figure out which is Mary and which is Dee when you vote, you can’t just go “eh I don’t care”.

1. New Westminster Secondary School is going to be rebuilt one way or another within the next decade. One of the challenges with the site is the Douglas Road Cemetery under the existing high school. When the current NWSS is bulldozed, this will undoubtedly anger the spirits and unleash them on New Westminster. My question for the candidates is this: name three people who will join you as Ghostbusters to save our city.
2. Concussions and other repeated head blows in football and rugby have been shown to be the cause of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (or CTE), leading to player suicides, memory loss, depression, and dementia. The NFL has been sued by ex-players because of this link. High school students are more likely to suffer concussions, and seven died in the US in 2015 from concussion-related injuries. What will you do to ensure the safety of NWSS students playing football, rugby, and other heavy contact sports?
3. Parents in the West End of New West are asking for some sort of solution for getting their children to Fraser River Middle School. This is a two part question:
   1. How boring is the name “Fraser River Middle School” on a range of watching paint dry to school trustee by-election?
   2. Do you support Queensborough parents of NWSS students in telling West End parents to fuck off?
4. What will you do to ensure parents continue to be punished for daring to have children who get sick?
5. After NWSS, what do you feel are the priorities for capital projects in SD40?
6. What restaurant would you like to see in the Anvil Centre?

You can send your answers to me at brad.cavanagh@gmail.com. Thanks in advance!

Update: They answered! Here are Dee Beattie’s answers and here are Mary Lalji’s answers. Thanks to both of you for responding!