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: 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.
Metro column: Nenshi there to extinguish the flames
It is the one time of year when everything is on the front burner. At any given time the money allotted to any program or department could be cut entirely, increased wildly, or anything in between.
During this week the Council Chamber is often a mad house filled with very stressed people – including many average citizens checking in on the proceedings – worried about what could happen to the funding for their pet issue.
Heck, in 2009, council actually accidentally cut all funding for garbage collection for about 12 hours until the mistake was pointed out. It can all be very confusing and nerve-wracking living so near the edge.
However for some reason this time around has felt a little… different. The vibe in the Council Chamber this past week has been more relaxed than in previous years. Not to mention, dare I say, it’s been more cordial, too?
In my recent visits to council I think this new friendlier council owes a lot to the unorthodox style of Mayor Nenshi. Normally you would expect the chair of a multi-billion dollar organization to be stern, overtly efficient, matter of fact, and entirely ‘by the book’.
Not so with Nenshi. He thanked ever speaker during the public submissions proceeding in surprisingly specific ways, and made everyone actually feel welcomed. This is hard to do when you consider how imposing a visit to a council meeting can be for a regular Calgarian.
A lot of this probably comes from Nenshi’s personality. He’s not the bossy-type you normally expect a mayor to be.
He’s constantly joking and keeping things light-hearted. Even when disagreeing with other council members or the public he’s kept this up. (My favourite exchange that illustrates this point was when a presenter asked why the City is building a fire hall in an area where only a few hundred people live. Nenshi’s somewhat glib answer? “Because there might be a fire.”)
Certainly there have been disagreements this budget week just as there always have been, but they’ve taken on a very different tone: more of an ‘agree to disagree/we’re all in this together’ manner. Ald. Lowe and the mayor have had their differences of opinion on several issues.
Ald. Mar and Ald. Farrell have appeared at odds with other council members at times too. Ald. Chabot appears to be trying to inherit Ric McIver’s title of resident fiscal hawk by asking questions no one else thought to ask. (Sometimes they are important questions, other times there is a reason no one else asked them.) Regardless, it appears everyone will come of out this with a healthy amount of respect for one another still intact.
How long that will last is up for debate, but for now, it looks like our council really is working well together and making progress in doing so. And this is something we haven’t seen as much of in past sessions.
Original: http://www.metronews.ca/calgary/local/article/709055–nenshi-there-to-extinguish-the-flames
Metro column: Budget dance a sad song
Time to end the same ol’ budget song and dance. It’s budget time at city hall once again. Or more accurately, it’s budget adjustment time.
Reading the news you can be forgiven for having a sense of déjà vu. “Didn’t we just do this last year?” Yes. Yes we did. However administration must figure out how to actually achieve the previously approved budget on an annual basis because of new priorities passed by council since the budget was approved.
While we were all wrapped up in election fever, the city’s workers were hard at work finding the places they could cut to make all the math work.
It’s the same song year after year. No matter the size or actual impact it’s a given the transit union will complain about any cut to transit, the police union will do the same, and advocates of a particular disadvantaged group will decry cuts to that sector as well. Why wouldn’t they? It’s practically the only input they get.
The 2010 edition of the budget shows an offer of savings via a myriad of efficiency improvements and still allows an increase for police and transit peace officers, better snow removal, two new fire stations, more money for 911 service, and $2 million to the Library.
Mayor Nenshi has been to this dance before however. He knows that simply rubber stamping the 6.7 per cent increase is never a simple as it sounds — nor should it be — so he asked the administration to prepare a second report showing where they might additionally cut to knock that number even lower.
Not only is this politically shrewd — it’s always great to say “we cut that to save you from that big scary cut over there” — but it also is just plain useful to know what else could be dumped if we really needed or wanted to.
Ald. Chabot is certainly in favour of deeper cuts, but as he says “I don’t think the intestinal fortitude is there to get it below 5.5 per cent.”
I tend to agree. But is this really the best system for budget deliberation?
After all bureaucrats are not the best ones to ask to reduce bureaucracy. And are rookie aldermen with all of one month experience really that much more skilled at knowing the impact of a $1.4-million reduction versus $1.5 million than any other person plucked off the street?
This dance may finally be coming to an end. The city is examining ways to offer more meaningful engagement with citizens for the next budget cycle.
Our annual budget dance has to end.
This song really is terrible.
Original: http://www.metronews.ca/calgary/local/article/696491–budget-dance-a-sad-song
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