Now what?

With this year's municipal elections history, the question becomes: what should our new-old council do first?

Answering that question is complicated by the reality our mayor and councillors are elected individually and independently. We don't have political parties at the local level, either traditional or uniquely municipal parties.

While that can be positive -- councillors don't have to toe a party line, so they can better reflect their constituents -- it can also be negative. Candidates don't run on a shared platform they can implement, or a be held to account for, and the lack of party organizations make it more difficult to get out the vote on election day.

North Preston's Miranda Cain tells Metro's Zane Woodford the key issue in her District 2 is "lack of recreation." Rod Brunt's main concern, reports Haley Ryan, is cycling safety on Halifax's "shark-infested" streets. "Our issues," Musquodoboit Harbour's Kim Young tells reporter Yvette d'Entremont, "are just basically the oppression of rural development."

And so it has gone as Metro reporters fanned out across the Halifax Regional Municipality's 200 urban and rural communities scattered over a land mass the size of Prince Edward Island to ask a sampling of the region's 400,000 residents what they see as the most important issues our politicians should focus on in the lead-up to the October 15 municipal election.

Could the answer to the pressing-to-pundits question -- why hasn't Stephen McNeil called the much-anticipated-by-pundits fall provincial general election? -- be... "Halifax Needham."

Last week, the NDP's Lisa Roberts, a former journalist and community activist, convincingly won that north-end Halifax riding with 51 per cent of votes in a byelection. McNeil's chosen standard-bearer, Rod Wilson, the executive director of the high-profile North End Community Health Centre, garnered a dismal 33.6 per cent.

There are, of course, historical explanations.

The NDP have held this seat for the last 18 years.

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So this is embarrassing. For whom?

Well, it should be shame-making for everyone involved.

Back in April, Dalhousie University's Board of Governors approved a three per cent across-the-board tuition fee hike -- even higher for students in engineering, pharmacy and agriculture -- and squeezed faculty budgets to achieve its goal of a balanced budget.