Last month, Monday Magazine's Russ Francis reported members of the Victoria Civic Electors - the New Democrat's capital city municipal wing - will soon be presented with two different "visions of the future." The first would see the revitalization of the civic electors by "recruiting a new executive to track down enough good candidates so that the New Democrats will control the council." The second, on the other hand, would "dissolve the current organization and establish a committed and experienced investigative team" as part of a possible effort to "create a new organization to elect a majority of 'progressive individuals' to the city council" - an option favoured by the party's former mayoral candidate Ben Isitt.

Speaking on Public Eye Radio this weekend, Mr. Isitt said, "I think it's good that the VCE leadership is looking ahead. My personal view, for some time, has been that Victoria needs a broader civic party. I think there may be a role for the NDP-Green divide in provincial-federal politics - although that is debatable in the long-term. But I think, locally, we just don't benefit by having those divisions. And I think there can be really advantages in having New Democrats, Greens, independents and people from across the political spectrum working together in one common organization."

Continued Mr. Isitt, "I think the Greens have been on the cutting edge of policy development. And New Democrats can learn a lot from that. And, municipally, we have this opportunity to combine the experience and the strong, I think, social movement base of the NDP with these innovative policies of the Greens. The whole provincial and federal debates can be left at the door. Those aren't really necessary if our objective is to ensure there's sound representation in Victoria and the other municipalities and that we have a vision for where we're taking this city and region, I think this proposal can help us accomplish that."

That being said though, Mr. Isitt said there's a "lot of things" the civic electors could do to revitlize themselves. "But I think, given the political alignments in the city, I think the other option is better just to avoid the duplication of various campaigns. You could count six different campaigns of the broadly-defined left in the last election between school board and council. And I think that duplication can be counter-productive."

And what about his personal political future? Is Mr. Isitt going to make another run for mayor? "Mayor, council I'm going to have to decide that," he responded. "I have a daughter now. So I've got a lot of priorities beyond politics - work and my family. But it's fairly certain that I will want to seek elected office in the future - and definitely, right now, I'm looking towards November 2008. But, again, in the last two elections I've kind of run by default in the absence of a strong advocate for environmental and social values. So I'm open to supporting others. Perhaps there's a recent retiree who's just moved to our city who's just a very strong community leader and has strong views. And I'm be happy to support someone like that."