2010 grade: C
2009 grade: C-
Lorelei Nicoll is super-nice, means well and doesn’t break anything. So this is a solid C, a respectable if unremarkable grade.
We could do a hell of a lot worse than Nicoll. She usually ends up on the right side of the issues and appears to have empathy for folks. But she’s reactive rather than proactive, more provoked than provoking and neither much inciting nor insightful. The course of events is running Nicoll, rather than the other way around.
Cole Harbour is an indistinct kind of place, and they’ve elected an indistinct kind of councillor. But there’s still time for Nicoll to rise to the occasion and do right by her constituents.
I’d like to see Nicoll champion some cause (say, getting a neighbourhood bus shuttling folks between the Portland Hills terminal, Colby Village, Forest Hills, Cole Harbour Place and Main Street), knock some bureaucrats around and play power politics with councillors to get the deal done.
It doesn’t help that she left the recent budget hearings for a photo op (see Darren Fisher).
How to improve: Get passionate. Get mean.