Vancouver - One hundred and forty neighbourhood residents jammed into the Resources Room under Britannia Public Library Wednesday night to elect a new board to the famous Grandview-Woodlands Area Council, the East Side grassroots organization that spearheaded the wildly successful resistance to City and Provincial plans for a freeway through the community in the 1970s.

The mood in the room was a return to those heady days of high energy, new ideas, and strong convictions, as resistance to the present provincial government's plans for expansion of Highway One and widening of 12th Avenue galvanized around an ad hoc slate of progressive candidates promising to fight the Liberals, government to government.

With a recent BC Supreme Court decision removing the possibility of neighbourhood-initiated third party appeals of development permits at the Board of Variance, kicking out a critical leg of community democracy in the process, the new GWAC board members are ready to fill the void and re-invent community democracy, this time with the legitimacy and authority that comes from bringing out to the vote such a large number of concerned residents.

The fact the entire new board ran together on an ad hoc slate promises one of the most cohesive, cooperative, and effective boards the GWAC has ever produced. The fact so many residents came out to vote promises the GWAC will speak with legitimacy, authority and confidence to civic, provincial and national levels of government when it comes to issues that matter to residents of Grandview-Woodlands.

"It's going to be a lot of fun, we're going to draw a lot of attention," said new board member Kevin Potvin. "This is the new community democracy, and a lot of the new members are very expert with new communications technologies. We've shown by this election we are collectively able to mobilize a lot of people on very short notice, just through all the networks and communications we have between us. This new GWAC is going to be a very powerful, representative body that is going to have a lot to say on a whole raft of issues. We're all looking forward to getting right into it."

Those elected to the Board of GWAC Wednesday, October 11, are: Corin Browne, Dr. Mike Carr, Caitlin Dodd, Bing Jensen, Charles Montgomery, Jill Smith, Dexter Smith, Anne Sproull, Petronella Vander Valk, Ben West, Craig Ollenberger, and Kevin Potvin.