Metro column: 2010′s Top Newsmakers, The Sequel
Last week I began my list of newsmakers and the top city hall political mistakes of 2010. As the year comes to a close, we reflect back on the year that was by finishing the countdown. (Visit metronews.ca to see part one.) [Or here.]
No. 2 on the list also doesn’t belong to a politician. To call Tracy McTaggart an “embattled auditor” does not do justice to what the former city financial double-checker had to endure throughout 2010. Not only did the City of Calgary have big questions needing investigating by her department — such as the Louise Station land deal, missing funds, projects going over budget and the Calatrava bridge, along with other sole-sourced projects — but her department kept getting further and further behind in the projects they were assigned last year. Eventually an external review found she didn’t even meet the bare minimum of auditing standards, and she was fired.
But the reason McTaggart is the not-so-proud owner of the second-biggest city hall mistake of 2010 is the one little sentence she uttered to the audit committee on May 20, when she said she could “pretty much guarantee there is some procurement fraud going on.” The problem was she had no proof — a big no-no in the land of auditing — and so began rolling the ball down a path leading to her dismissal and tarring.
And No. 1 on the list of 2010 city hall mistakes: Barb Higgins’ Thursday, Oct. 14. As good as the week the police chief criticized Naheed Nenshi was for him, this one day was as bad for Higgins. It started with the now-infamous Mike McCourt Citytv interview, during which Higgins responded poorly to overly harsh questions from the cantankerous interviewer, and then, after walking off camera, she gave a verbal lashing to volunteers who asked her questions about her arts policy on air. Her bad day continued with another two poor interviews courtesy of some tough questions at X92.9 and a caller to AM770 inquiring as to why she would not do a televised debate with Nenshi and Ric McIver. The headlines just two days before the election were suddenly about Higgins not being tough enough to be mayor and having a short fuse. This gave many Calgarians enough reason to vote another way. One day undid weeks of hard work and led to a thirdplace finish.
Aside from the odd new councillor’s, the only campaign that can really claim to have gone off as planned was that of Naheed Nenshi. Mayor Nenshi is the undisputed newsmaker of 2010 for Calgary City Hall. His “politics in full sentences” was the right campaign at the right time for Calgary. They took advantage of the opportunities presented to them and they rode a wave of momentum to victory. His election made national and international headlines and, unlike past years, hundreds showed up to see him sworn in. However, more impressive has to be how Nenshi is governing since taking over. In stark contrast to our expectations of politicians, Nenshi is proving to be an Everyman so far, and is actually accomplishing what he said he would do during the campaign.
2010 was perhaps the most exciting year in Calgary city hall political history, with lots of newsmakers and lots of mistakes. As I toast the new year this weekend, my wish will be for 2011 to be a little less dramatic. Cheers to that!
Metro column: 2010 was a puzzle of political folly – Part 1 of 2
With the arrival of the Christmas and holiday break we’re given a chance to reflect on the past year to see how we got to where we are.
As 2010 comes to a close, today and next Friday I present some of the great things we witnessed this year at City Hall. I’ll also countdown my choices for biggest political mistakes in the past twelve months.
Mayor Dave Bronconnier started the craziness that would be 2010 when, on February 23 he announced he would not be seeking a fourth term as mayor. After a pretty stable nine year reign, things were about to change. Some thought for better, some feared for worse.
Bronconnier is a top city newsmaker for his nine years of service as mayor, and for starting the ball rolling on what would be one of the most unpredictable years in Calgary city hall history.
Once Bronconnier made his announcement, Ric McIver, the nine year alderman who became so good at opposing Bronconnier he earned the nickname Dr. No, immediately became the front runner in the race to replace him.
Even before Bronconnier’s declaration McIver was rumoured to have decided to take a chance at the mayor’s seat. He spent almost all of 2010 saying “I have no announcement to make today” when asked if he was going to run. It would take him until April 22 to make it official.
McIver’s journey is big news this year because the mayor’s chair was his to lose. And lose it he did. His campaign was solid and steady, never wavering. Until it was too late.
His coronation was a forgone conclusion as late as three months before the election, but his team’s stubbornness to react to what all Calgarians were noticing — the rise of Naheed Nenshi in the polls — was his eventual undoing. This ranks at number four on my list of city hall mistakes for 2010.
The third biggest city hall political mistake for 2010 has to be the event that bolstered the Nenshi campaign and vaulted him into contention. On September 23 police Chief Rick Hanson responded to questions from Nenshi directed at leading candidate Ric McIver hitting him for not asking tougher questions when approving the 2011 Calgary Police budget. Hanson tread where few civil servants dare by calling the math behind Nenshi’s questions “irresponsible.”
Calgarians and the media immediately took notice of what had been a Nenshi release getting little traction until then, saying “ya, why didn’t McIver ask tougher questions?” Suddenly Nenshi and the spars with McIver and Hanson were the headlines for an entire week at a critical time during the campaign. Nenshi could now legitimately claim he was part of a three way race.
Pick up the Boxing Day paper or check out metronews.ca/calgary for part 2 of DJ Kelly’s political newsmakers and mistakes of 2010.
Original: http://www.metronews.ca/calgary/local/article/728213–2010-was-a-puzzle-of-political-folly
Metro column: Campaigns all about timing
The following column was published in both Metro Calgary and Metro Edmonton.
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The calendar hasn’t even flipped to 2011 yet but the provincial parties are already busy lining up their election plans for an anticipated spring 2012 vote. And the tried-and-true methods for engineering election wins will again be unfurled.
Sure those strategies have worked for many years, but 2012 is going to be an election unlike any Alberta has seen before. Not only do we have a real choice for the first time in 20 years, but how you campaign has changed a lot in the last 40 years. Heck, it’s changed in the last two years.
The much-ballyhooed, game-changing Barack Obama electoral campaign of 2008 could not be replicated in 2012.
It’s about the right campaign at the right time. It’s something the Progressive Conservatives should be very concerned about.
Over the past 40 years they’ve gotten very, very good at campaigning. So good, in fact, it might be impossible to convince them that the strategies they’ve used in the past will be nowhere near enough to win the next election in familiar landslide fashion. It can even be argued that if the Wildrose Alliance figures out the new realities of 2012 first, the PCs probably won’t even win.
So what will be different come the drop of the writ this time? With each passing month, the electorate becomes more informed and more connected.
Whether it be Facebook and Twitter, or a TV that lets you surf the Internet —or even just a younger generation coming of age weaned on Wikipedia-style accessibility to information — this is a different public than the parties pandered to last time around. Whoever uses these new tools to allow voters to share information the best will have an upper hand.
These tools also point towards an election being fought on a local level, similar to the way it was done a century ago. With bloggers playing an increasingly important role in provincial political punditry and citizens with the ability to share who they’re voting for and why, the story doesn’t always need to be about the leader.
It can, and often will, be about the local candidate. Expect to see summer barbecues, community events and neighbourhood councils be the real battleground in 2012 as candidates get a lot more direct comparative time.
This should theoretically be a boon for the PCs, who have a relatively weak leader, and bad news for the Wildrose Alliance, who in Danielle Smith have a strong one.
But the Wildrose should not be blinded by tradition and may be much better poised to take advantage of these new realities.
The premier’s chair awaits the party who does just that.
Edmonton original: http://www.metronews.ca/edmonton/local/article/722440–campaigns-all-about-timing
Calgary original: http://www.metronews.ca/calgary/local/article/722440–campaigns-all-about-timing
CBC Radio column: Must-have tech toys for Christmas
In this alberta@noon column on CBC Radio One with guest host Holly Preston I talk about some of the hot (and not so hot) tech gadget-type gifts for this holiday season. Items include Android phones, Apple TV, Google TV, Boxee Box, Roxu XDS, MacBook Air, HP Envy 14, iPad, Xbox Kinect, Amazon Kindle 3 and Indigo’s Kobo.
Original: http://www.cbc.ca/albertaatnoon/columnists/techguy/2010/12/15/must-have-tech-toys-for-christmas/
Metro column: Political snowball effect: presenting a case study
It’s the age old political conundrum, no politician wants to be seen as beholden to anyone – especially a big company – but they still need to pay the bills that come from running an election campaign.
When accepting donations, it’s a delicate balance that each elected official pays an awful of attention to — just in case anything even looks like it could be unseemly-esque.
To that end, politicos usually do everything they can to build a public wall between the donors and the candidate to ensure everything passes the “smell test.”
Placing a big corporate logo at the top of an invitation to a fundraiser and listing that company as a “sponsor” is pretty much the exact opposite of building that wall.
Unfortunately this is exactly what rookie Alderman Peter Demong did this week.
To make matters worse, the company in question operates a private landfill in Demong’s Ward 14 and currently has an application before the city to extend their lease.
While Demong doesn’t have any direct say in the future of the dump, he and his office will naturally act as middle man, fielding resident concerns.
To not only accept a donation from the company, but to prominently display its logo on an official notice causes some residents to question whether their alderman can remain neutral.
Compounding the speculation, when the Calgary Herald asked Demong about the sponsorship, he indicated he was “too busy to comment.” Something no resident ever wants to hear from someone representing them.
Furthering the problem is that Demong’s assistant was not too busy to comment. He was ready to step around Demong’s authority and comment on his behalf to the press, creating a bigger news story and leading pundits to wonder who’s actually running Ward 14.
It’s one mistake after another, compounding something potentially innocent — a plain-jane donation — into something more than it needed to be.
All of this could have been avoided if the donation had just been the purchase of a table instead of a “title sponsorship” and the name hadn not appear edanywhere except the election financial statements.
To be clear, I’m not suggesting any impropriety.
After having briefly met Demong and seeing his behaviour during council’s first month, he certainly appears to be an upstanding representative.
Let’s hope he can fix the appearance of wrongdoing in this case to ensure none of the goodwill our new council is slowly rebuilding is undone, and that all in council learn from this boneheaded example.
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