MAYOR LEAVES CITY WITH 'FEEL-GOOD' LEGACY

Ah, Mayor Larry. The city of Vancouver is going to miss the irascible
but fun-loving cop-turned-coroner-turned-mayor-turned-senator. Can
anyone in Canada match his varied prospectus? This side of Paul
Hellyer, that is.

The mark of a good mayor is not just the number of dull but important
bylaws and zoning amendments passed under his or her watch. It's
really whether the city feels good about itself. That does not mean a
bevy of bread and circuses and big developments, but a sense that
serious social issues are being tackled, too.

Citizens don't like it when festering social sores are left
unattended, as the plight of the drug-ravaged Downtown Eastside was
during a succession of NPA-dominated city councils. Their unhappiness
was a major reason why Vancouver voters rose up and tossed out the
NPA in 2002, electing rookie Larry Campbell as mayor and a host of
other COPE candidates to council, school board and the park board.

There is little doubt, during Mr. Campbell's three-year term, that
Vancouver began to develop a "feel good" sense of itself that had
been missing for some time. Good mayors do that.

Mr. Campbell was not perfect on every issue, particularly police
misconduct. His tongue sometimes got the better of him. He allowed
himself to get bugged by things a little too easily.

But the city liked having him as mayor, and things happened. No one
suggests any more that Vancouver is a "no fun" city, or that the
perils of the poor are ignored.

In an interview this week, just before heading home with what seemed
to be the same flu bug that felled his hoped-for successor Jim Green,
Mr. Campbell looked back on his three years as mayor. As always, he
was not shy with his views.

Those who complain that nothing has changed on the Downtown Eastside
don't know what they're talking about, the mayor said.

"It absolutely has changed. . . . We brought in enforcement and we
brought in a safe injection site.

"Last year, when I went down to the Carnegie Centre [at the corner of
Main Street and Hastings Street]," Mr. Campbell said, "at least six
women came up to me and thanked us for changing the Downtown Eastside
so they could leave their rooms and go to the Carnegie. That's a fact."

He added: "Is it perfect? It isn't even close to perfect. But in
comparison to where it was when I took over from the NPA, with a
squat going on at Woodward's on one end and the Carnegie Centre
inundated with drug dealers at the other end, it's way different."

Amid repeated lashings out at NPA mayoral candidate Sam Sullivan, the
mayor also took a shot at acerbic COPE councillor Tim Louis.

"When you have a poisoned atmosphere with someone like that in the
middle of your caucus, it's very difficult," he said. "Life's too
short to hang out with Councillor Louis."

Regarding his occasional outbursts at critics and (gasp) the media,
Mr. Campbell said: "I have no regrets. I'm not a punching bag for any
organization. I've always considered the media as friends. But when
they get stupid, I get stupid.

"Is it how I would like to be? No, but that's the way I am."

On why he didn't try to change his confrontational nature: "Because
I'm 57 years old and I'm too old to change. If I was so awful, how
come I was over 70 per cent in the polls?

"People wanted honesty, and, you know what, that's what I do."

Will we still have Larry Campbell to kick around, with his main
platform far away in the soporific Senate chambers of Ottawa? Apparently, yes.

"You just hang on, amigo," he told this reporter. "You haven't heard
the last of me by a long shot."