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Former mayor passes away

FUNERAL services were held March 22 for a former Terrace mayor and alderman. Vic Jolliffe, who was on Terrace municipal council either as an alderman or mayor at various periods from the 1960s to the 1980s, died in Bournemouth, England March 11. He was 80.
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FORMER MAYOR Vic Jolliffe

FUNERAL services were  held March 22 for a former Terrace mayor and alderman.

Vic Jolliffe, who was on Terrace municipal council either as an alderman or mayor at various periods from the 1960s to the 1980s, died in Bournemouth, England March 11. He was 80.

A plumber by profession, Jolliffe became politically active after moving to Terrace.

He first became an alderman in 1962, was re-elected in 1963 and in 1964 and ran successfully again in 1967.

Jolliffe was then mayor in 1970 and in 1971, returning as an alderman in 1977, in 1978 and again for two more years in 1981 and in 1982.

He continued to live in Terrace until the early 1990s after which he moved back to his birth country of England. Jolliffe returned occasionally for visits.

While in Terrace, Jolliffe established a reputation, both in politics and out of politics, as a person unafraid to speak his mind or tackle an issue he thought needed to be aired out.

“That was the thing about Vic. He saw issues that perhaps nobody else wanted to deal with. He was always poking around. He liked the fray. It was if it got too quiet, he got worried,” said Helmut Giesbrecht, a former Terrace mayor and alderman himself.

“I think he just wanted to keep people on their toes,” said Giesbrecht, who sat with Jolliffe on city councils in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Giesbrecht said Jolliffe told him that politicians too often adopted a bunker mentality – that it was them against the public.

“He also said that good friends come and go, but you accumulate enemies,” Giesbrecht continued.

Jack Talstra, another former mayor and alderman who also sat with Jolliffe on municipal councils in the late 1970s and early 1980s, said a municipal council needed one person like Jolliffe.

“He often presented a different view from the rest of council,” said Talstra. “He always had something to say. You could only really have one person like that. It is hard for a mayor if there were two or more.”

Jolliffe often had acrimonious relationships with other council members and other members of the community.

On one occasion, the mayor of the day refused at first to sign one of Jolliffe’s aldermanic pay cheques.

On another occasion, a spectator at a council meeting doused Jolliffe with a pitcher of water.

In addition to politics, Jolliffe accumulated many photos of the area and kept boxes and boxes of documents.

He was reported to have been working on a book of local issues which, it was said, would have kept many lawyers occupied.