Calgary City Council saves face by embarrassing themselves: ward boundaries solved!
Watching Calgary City Council debate the ward boundaries for the 2010 election last night was one of the funniest moments I think I’ve seen in that hallowed chamber. I mean funny as in sad. Like a comedy of errors. A comedy of people so deep in trouble the only way out was to thoroughly embarrass themselves further.
It was a debacle for council to even keep straight what each motion was, whether it took eight or 10 votes to pass or reject it, and what the implications were for voting for or against that particular motion. At one point the mayor even apologized to members of the media awaiting their final decision for how convoluted the whole process was.
My favourite quote of the night could have been this one:
Mayor: “Is everyone clear on the question”. Several aldermen: “No!“
But instead it is from this exchange between Alderman John Mar and Mayor Bronconnier:
Ald. Mar: “It’s somewhat murky here.” Mayor: “Murky began months ago.”
Murky did indeed begin months ago when council decided they wanted to add one more direction to the returning officer’s mandate (a mandate first approved in 1990): keep five wards on the east side of Deerfoot Trail. (Why they couldn’t have thought of that six months earlier before they set her to work is beyond me.) Then things got really murky when council didn’t wait for her to do her job and decided to start drawing their own boundaries. A process called gerrymandering. You can read all my thoughts on how we got to this point here, here, here, and here.
I live tweeted the whole thing and you can follow that via the #yyccc hashtag on Twitter starting at about 8pm last night.
What were the results? Everything was thrown out. Council admitted failure, apologized to the returning officer and passed only minor boundary changes from the current ones.
Here are the new boundaries for 2010:
As silly as it all seems, I’m happy council admitted the error of their ways and made the best decision they could have given the mess they created for themselves.
What are the next steps however? That is the big question. There is some thinking that these changes MAY put the City in violation of the Municipal Governance Act but I don’t think it does. Taking a look at the council agenda attachment showing the deviation of population between each new ward, everything looks a-okay on that front too.
Either way, expect two major things to come out of this:
- Expect a council policy to allow an outside group determine ward boundaries in the future, so council won’t get their fingers in the pie and make a mess of things like this again. This is pretty much exactly what they have done for determining their salaries and I think it has worked well. Ald. Farrell tried to pass a motion to this effect last night but as several members of council didn’t like her wording and 9:30pm was fast approaching, it was referred to administration to wordsmith and come back with a proposal in September.
- The next major redistricting – which normally happens every nine years (2010 being the ninth year) – will probably happen in time for 2013 now. With more time available between now and then I fully expect council to explore the possibilities of increasing the number of aldermen to created a more fair balance of representation. And a more manageable workload. You can read my thoughts on this topic here.
Stay tuned. Hopefully the next steps will be more steady than the last ones.
Where’s the mayor?
This afternoon Prime Minister Stephen Harper joined Premier Ed Stelmach, federal Environment Minister Jim Prentice and Mayor Dave… what?… what’s that? Bronconnier wasn’t at the Calgary ring road funding announcement? But it’s the Calgary ring road. All three levels of government are putting up the cash for it. Where the heck is the mayor? Deputy mayor? Or an alderman of any kind? I don’t see any of these folks in the ‘platform party’ photos.
Maybe we sent this sleepy/bored Roads worker instead to represent the City instead.
BTW, is this really one of the best photos you have of the event? Aside from the City worker it looks like the two speakers are about to fall asleep too. Maybe Bronco knew this and decided he had better things to do than nod off in a SE Calgary hanger.
Rumour mill now slowly turning at Eau Claire
While we are on the topic of unsubstantiated rumours I might as well give all you fine looking readers out there another one.
I assume you’d like that because yesterday was a banner day for our little blog here – most visits since inception! Hot damn. That might be because I was asking everyone to vote for the djkelly.ca Blog at the 2007 Canadian Blog Awards (something I feel kinda dirty about doing) or because I finally directed all my Facebook friends to the blog for the first time. But I’m going to ignore that post and instead pretend we had so many visitors because you liked the post on the rumours about the Bow’s public space.
But don’t get too used to me feeding your regular gossip fix. I’m no Us Weekly (heck I’m no Star magazine either, so that’s not saying much about me). So here’s the poop:
Talking yesterday about the National Portrait Gallery got me thinking about the $500,000 Calgary city council approved for a “bid” to land the gallery. But I wouldn’t think you would just approve a half million dollars without having some idea as to where you’d put the darn thing.
So here’s the rumour: Mr. Mayor himself is eyeing the Eau Claire Market land for the National Portrait Gallery. This wouldn’t be too tough actually because the Market itself is slated for demolition and redevelopment. (Presumably to make way for another failed project.) Certainly this site would be prime real estate for a project of this kind. The Eau Claire area is a bit of a crown jewel – sitting right on the river in the heart of downtown – and as such any redevelopment to this area should be something we would be extremely proud of and would want to show off to visitors. If an art gallery were to be put in this place the architecture would have to be grand.
A little bit of info on the Eau Clair site for you: The market itself was sold in May 2004 to Harvard Developments and Synergy Properties who each own/are investors in several other Calgary shopping spots. In July 2007 they announced the new “market” would be a different kind of shopping centre with high rise condos as part of the project. The important thing to note in this is that the City has included a clause in their agreement that they must approve drawings for any redevelopment, meaning they’ll have their eye on the grander vision of the area.
Perhaps this is why I’m also hearing the rumour that Dave Bronconnier really has his heart set on an Opera House for this site. Although, why Calgary needs an opera house is beyond me. Certainly we don’t have the demand for opera to warrant an entire design specific building in the heart of downtown for this exclusive use, so the building would have to be multi-use. And we already have that in the Jubilee.
I don’t plan on calling the Mayor to ask him if the rumours are true. Unsubstantiated rumours are so much more fun. I doubt he’d take my calls anyway. But if you must know if its true perhaps the aldermen that read this blog could shed some light – or send Bronco a text asking. Or maybe the alderman that should read this blog could ask.
Did Bronco suddenly go insane while I was tying my shoes?
I guess I blinked or something because $1.3 billion was just spent by the City of Calgary in one day. And at the very first council meeting! And with four alderman who have only had their jobs for three weeks!
Well, it seems that while I was in the bathroom Bronconnier quickly fulfilled the lion’s share of his campaign promises. Wowie-zowie, talk about fast. All I knew was that he wanted to extend the LRT to the west and build three new recreation centres. Well, that’s about as much as the alderman know too apparently. Even after the pile of money was carted off to Calgary Transit in wheelbarrows that’s still about as much as anyone seems to know.
I can’t help but think we’re a little short on the details here. How does something that just three weeks ago that was merely a campaign promise turn into sound legislation so quickly? (Hell, the federal Liberals promised to scrap the GST in 1993 before being voted in and we’re still waiting for that promise to be fulfilled.)
Should that large an amount of money be spent with so little public input? Where will the rec centres go exactly? Seriously, shouldn’t we actually at least talk about the possibility of the West LRT going to Mount Royal and the Currie Barracks (with their soon to be ridiculously – by Calgary standards – high density)? I didn’t even have enough time to walk to city hall let alone talk to my alderman about the options before the mayor signed a giant novelty cheque.
Maybe its just me, but I’m starting to think Bronconnier might be certifiably insane. And the aldermen are just frightened schoolgirls when he ‘gets that crazy look in his eyes’. I like Bronco, don’t get me wrong. I think a little bit of crazy is a good thing. But it seems like very little due diligence was done here. And for something Bronco himself calls “a tipping point in city history” none-the-less. I have to agree with Naheed Nenshi on this one: WTF Mr. Mayor?
PS – Can anybody tell me if there is enough money left over in this infrastructure funding to fix the pothole in the alley out back of my place? If you pay for the dirt and can lend me a shovel I’m happy to do it myself. No? No more money? Okay, umm… thanks anyway.
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