Metro column: Focusing on the individual, not the party
I’m not a big fan of party politics. I could care less which party is in charge. I care more about who the people in government are and what kinds of decisions they make. [Note: This last sentence was cut from the printed version, but I thought it was important so I added it back in for my blog.]
With three leadership races going on at the provincial level there is an immense possibility for new leadership, some names are even being touted as leader for more than one party.
To that end I posted a poll on my blog to find out which individuals would make Albertans proud to have as premier; regardless of party affiliation. I invited readers to pick one of the recently rumoured candidates or to pick several — after all I doubt there is just one and one alone we’d be happy with and I suspect there might be one in more than one party.
I would never tout the results of my unscientific poll as looking anything like the possible outcome of an election, but there were some interesting outcomes which could indicate some emerging trends and give some food for thought.
First, the parties with established leaders in Brian Mason and Danielle Smith didn’t outpace as many of the potential candidates of other parties as I thought they would. This should indicate to the Progressive Conservatives and Alberta Party that at this point their eventual leaders are not as far behind in public consciousness as one might think.
The news is not as good for the Liberal party however. Of the rumoured candidates for its leadership, none of them made much of a blip. Kent Hehr did okay. It’s clear he would be the only current Liberal with a chance of righting their ship. Of course rumours also say he’s being wooed by the Alberta Party and the poll tells me he’d probably have more success there.
My informal poll also shows that the two front runners for the Progressive Conservative leadership are Doug Griffiths and Alison Redford. Their support is solid enough I would be shocked if either don’t run.
The numbers also illustrate many PC hopefuls such as Doug Horner and Jim Dinning would run in the middle of the pack and not make much of an impact in a general election. (Don’t forget this is what they said about Ed Stelmach too though.) However the vote for rumoured candidates Gene Zwozdesky, Gary Mar, Jonathan Denis and Ken Hughes was so abysmal I’m confident in saying unless they have a big game changer in their playbook that no one else has they should save themselves the time and embarrassment.
The big surprise in the poll however was a name I had heard rumoured six months ago but not lately, which I included on a whim. Chima Nkemdirim, someone I thought would have polled near the bottom instead was right at the top. Nkemdirim is Mayor Naheed Nenshi’s chief of staff. If he were to run, I’m confident he’d make a big splash with broad based support from all areas of the political spectrum.
Calgary original: http://www.metronews.ca/calgary/local/article/769602–focusing-on-the-individual-not-the-party
Edmonton original: http://www.metronews.ca/edmonton/local/article/769602–focusing-on-the-individual-not-the-party
2010 Year-End Blog Review
Filed under: Alberta, Arts, Calgary, Politics, Technology
On this exact day (January 3) of last year I wanted to take a look back at the previous year as viewed through the eyes of my blog. At the time I said 2009 “was a good year for me personally and I think this blog shows some of the highlights that come to my mind when I reminisce about the last year of the decade.” As good as 2009 was for me, I feel safe in saying that 2010 surpassed it in almost every way. From the election, to starting a new column for Metro, to finishing up a good run with Lunchbox Theatre, to the birth of my daughter (not to mention the whole pregnancy) I couldn’t have asked for anything better. It was probably the best year of my life – if I can declare such a thing.
So I decided to do what I did a year ago and instead of selecting my favourite posts of 2010, why not not just let readers “select” the top posts of 2010 by highlighting the most popular posts on this blog during the year, and then give some background as to where the post came from?
Last year I included the top 15 posts. This year I thought I’d shorten up the list on an even… 13. So without further ado, the most popular djkelly.ca Blog posts of 2010:
13. What CivicCamp is doing for the 2010 Calgary Municipal Election
May 18, 2010
In this blog post I revealed CivicCamp’s plans – and it turns out mine – for the 2010 municipal election. I think it was the night before that the “Governance Cabin” met at Eau Claire Market to finalize the plan. I actually posted details on the CivicCamp blog and then wrote this post to give more info into the rationale for the plan and to give my own personal opinion (which I didn’t think was appropriate on the CivicCamp site). Shortly after this I actually stepped away from the Cabin while I considered running for alderman — a rule the members came up with the ensure CivicCamp stayed non-partisan and that eventually affected Paul Hughes, our new mayor Naheed Nenshi, and volunteer extraordinaire Cheri Macaulay, all cabin members who stepped away to work on campaigns instead. After I decided not to run I returned to help execute some of the plans laid out in this post.
12. What data should be included in the City of Calgary’s Open Data Pilot Project
June 15, 2010
I actually meant to write this post months earlier, but I eventually did it in mid-June. My hope was it would help the City determine what data sets people might be looking for. The eventual catalogue release however only included mapping data. So while numbers 1 and 5 were included in public catalogue, we’re still waiting for numbers 2, 3, 4 and 6 to make the mapping data actually useful. Until then, don’t expect the catalogue to be all that heavily used. (Number 7 isn’t really “open data” but my hope is our new mayor may actually try to make it happen. It’s not something administration can do unilaterally.)
11. What most needs doing?
August 3, 2010
It took me a long time to make my decision not to run for alderman. It was hard because so many people had signed up to help run a campaign. In the end I had to ask myself “what most needs doing?” and I outline my answer in this post. At the time I said, “I believe I don’t need to be on council to help improve Calgary in a meaningful way,” and “meaningful public engagement may be something [alderman] want to do, but it rarely is something they have time to do at the level I believe we need.” My goals were to “raise the level of discourse around the election” and “[have] people who believe in the kind of public engagement I believe in helping create more people who want to, and know how to, become engaged.” I think I help achieve this so successfully in 2010 that the day after the election I remember breaking down in tears because I was so proud of Calgarians and the role I was able to play. (It could have been the lack of sleep however.)
10. How open data came to be in Calgary
March 22, 2010
This post sat unfinished on my work computer desktop for months. When it first passed committee I decided to write up all the steps that were taken to make the open data policy a reality. On the occasion of it finally passing council I finished the post and put it up as documentation of the process – mainly so I wouldn’t forget, but so that others could see how easy (or hard) it is to get a policy from scratch approved.
9. Calgary, meet your new council
October 19, 2010
It was a pleasant surprise to see a post election blog post make it on to this list. Although it was only written the day after the election. While everyone else was focussed on who won and how they did it, I thought I’d take the opportunity to be the first to ponder how this new group might work together. Some of the predictions are coming true already, others might still – or not – time will tell.
8. 18 to 34 Year Olds, Social Media and the Calgary Election
August 17, 2010
This is probably the most frustrating piece I wrote this year. Often I find myself writing things in the hope that once I do, and expose the rationale behind something, the issue will be put to bed and not brought up again. I wrote this piece in response to political pundits (specifically political scientists who had no idea what they were talking about) about the myth of social media being only about young people and thus it wouldn’t have any impact on the election. Balderdash I cried! And even after I wrote it I had to scream the same thing over and over and over. Those poli sci profs sure like their narratives. Even when they have no basis in reality. And even when they’ve been proven wrong by an election. Then all they do is twist things around a little to show how they were right all along. Cheeky buggers. Duane Bratt still owes me that beer he promised on Global Television on election night.
7. Nuit Blanche Calgary update
June 16, 2010
This post might be artificially inflated on this list because it was emailed out to everyone who signed up at http://bit.ly/nuitblanchecalgary indicating they were interested. So it got about 100 extra visitors because of that. The post is a long overdue update on where things are at in the planning for a Nuit Blanche in Calgary. Something I’m long over due to do again… I’m excited at how the plans are shaping up. As I was then too.
6. Fun with Maps: Top 3 Calgary mayoral candidate vote share
October 28, 2010
David Johns deserves all the credit for this post. He made three great maps of how the three leading mayoral candidates did on election day. A post that obviously got lots of interest. Visual is better.
5. Comparing Budget 2010 to Budget 2009
February 9, 2010
In a year of municipal posts it’s nice to see a provincial one make it on to the list — let alone be written! This is a short post where I outline a nice easy way to compare the 2009 and 2010 ministry plans using Acrobat. It’s nice when the Alberta Government makes it this easy.
4. Loving or hating Calgary’s new bridge is not as easy as it sounds
July 29, 2009
In an odd twist this “oldie” was actually written in 2009. As a matter of fact, it was the 11th most popular post on my blog that year. Obviously in an election year as contentious as this one was it should be surprising that a post about a contentious issue would make it on this list, but I am surprised it is so high. I guess there are more people curious about why they are supposed to be so mad about that darn bridge than I thought.
3. If you want me to run for Alderman…
June 25, 2010
This post was probably the only one I’ve ever written that I passed by other people before putting up. It also received about twice as many unique visitors as #4. It’s probably the most important post I’ve ever written as I contemplated running for alderman. And people paid attention too: the post had the longest visit time of any I’ve written on this blog. The premise of the post was simple, I’ll do it if you are willing to help me win. Politics shouldn’t be about ego. I didn’t see why someone would announce they are running and then try to find people to help. That seems entirely backwards to me. In the end almost 100 people signed up to help me run a campaign, but I decided against it. See #11 on this list for why.
2. Calgary Municipal Election: 2010 will be a year of new faces
March 21, 2010
The top two posts on this list got more unique visits than anything else I’ve ever written. They both received about four times as many visitors as #3 on this list. (Which itself had twice as many as #4, so that’s saying something.) I’m not sure why this post got so many visits but it probably has something to do with how early in the year I wrote it. I don’t recommend making predictions seven months in advance, but this time it looks like it paid off and I was right: we did see “more turnover in one go round than many of us can remember,” with six new faces on council.
1. Who’s running for Calgary City Council in 2010?
April 3, 2010
Yes people were curious about who was running for council. From April until July I kept this blog post updated with the names of who had declared they were running for council. (Once CalgaryDemocracy.ca was up and running I decided to retire the post. It had served its purpose.) The post proved so popular that I eventually had to pin it to the main menu of my website. And even after I stopped updating it – and said I was stopping updating it – I still had people sending me tips and trying to get the list updated. If that didn’t prove Calgarians cared about the election I don’t know what would. (Aside from the voter turnout on the day of. Which also proved that.) It is the most popular post in my blog’s history.
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: Plenty to be proud of
The 2010 Municipal Election is over and all Calgarians should be very proud.
Yes, it’s true we elected the first Muslim mayor in a major Canadian city and are getting national media attention because of it.
But let’s face it — no one really cared during the election. It was only brought up once by a media outlet, and they were immediately rebuked by the public for trying to make Naheed Nenshi’s religion an issue worthy of discussion. It’s not.
There are many things, however, that are.
The most exciting thing to happen on election day was that 53 per cent of Calgarians showed up to the polls. In a Canadian municipal election, that is a huge number.
To help put it in perspective, only one-third of Calgarians voted in 2007, and just six short years ago an abysmal, hang-your-head-in-shame, 18 per cent bothered to visit a poll.
Some more perspective: More people voted for Naheed Nenshi this year than voted for all candidates combined in 2004.
Even if we ignore who the votes went to this time around, we know more Calgarians cast their ballot this year than in the two previous elections combined.
To have such a big turnaround in such a short period is remarkable.
What is even more remarkable is how we did it. In a world where politics is often boiled down to yes versus no, left versus right, this guy versus that guy, Calgary held an election where the basis of the electorate’s engagement was not polarization. It was about who had the best ideas.
A lot has been said about Nenshi and his “Better Ideas,” but every other candidate deserves an equal amount of credit in this regard.
Barb Higgins and Ric McIver put forward solid platforms — although a little late. They talked about the things that should be done in Calgary, in what order, and why or why not their ideas were more valid than those of others.
Sadly, this is not normal.
In short, they engaged Calgarians, in Nenshi’s words, in “adult conversations.” This was not a campaign of sound bites; it was a campaign of thoughtfulness.
And we saw Calgarians respond to that in record numbers. This should be the chief lesson we take from this election. We’re smarter than you give us credit for. When you give us options, we’re happy to participate.
This is the next challenge, however: How does a mayor who engaged voters in a way unlike any have done before continue under this expectation?
Fortunately we can look to Barack Obama to see how not to do it. Nenshi can’t stop tweeting; he can’t stop sending out emails to followers. He has to keep up the level of discourse we have come to expect from him.
If he doesn’t, he’ll fail. The problem is, the hardest part of the job is staying externally focussed. There are lots of internal city issues facing him, from the budget shortfall to the airport tunnel to just about anything else you can think of.
Nenshi isn’t a magician. He’s not the solution to all of our problems.
But if he can keep involving Calgarians in the decision making process, we’ll slowly start to see Calgary become that “beacon on the hill” the national media think we are.
Not because Nenshi is Muslim, but because he allows us all to participate in Calgary.
Original: http://www.metronews.ca/calgary/local/article/669911–plenty-to-be-proud-of
What’s Next? Nenshi’s First 100 Days: Part 1, The First Official Meetings
With the election firmly in the books – and plenty of analysis still to come – I wanted to be the first to take a look forward at what’s next for our new mayor.
Some of the early important dates are already known.
October 25 at 7pm will be the swearing in of the new council. It is at that point the torch officially passes from Mayor Broconnier to Mayor Nenshi.
The next day at 9:30am the “Organizational Business Meeting” begins. This is where the new council learns all the ins and the outs. They’ll get a tour of the premises, get their keys to the washrooms, and pick their offices and council chamber seats. This is also when they will have discussions about the structure of their office staff and who gets first dibs at the staff of the retiring or defeated aldermen. (With the experience this individuals have, expect several of them to stay in the Office of the Aldermen, just with new bosses.) This is also the meeting where council will determine who will sit on what committees and boards they need to populate. Expect lots of backroom talk and positioning as each tries to ensure they get onto a committee they believe their skills will be most useful on – or at least the cushiest gigs.
The first public meeting will be the Standing Policy Committee (SPC) on Community & Protective Services on November 2 at 9:30am in the Engineering Traditions Room. The next day at the same time and the same place will be the SPC on Finance & Corporate Services, while on the Thursday the Intergovernmental Affairs Committee will be at 9:30am and the Gas, Power & Telecommunications Committee will meet at 1pm.
The following week, on Monday, November 8 will be the public’s first chance to see our council seated for the first time all together. This will be their first Council Meeting. It will also be their first combined public hearing. Talk about starting off in the deep end; there is no swimming lesson here. The agenda for this meeting will be released on Thursday, November 4. Assuming this meeting goes long, the overflow will be at 1pm the next day. The rest of the committee meetings will have their first meeting between November 9 and 18.
The week of November 22-25 will be an interesting one as it is the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association convention in Edmonton. There are no meetings scheduled and because it is so close you can probably expect the majority of council to attend. It might be tough for the newbies however as they will still be getting their feet under them and can’t really afford the time out of the office. But it will be rewarding for them if they go. I expect some will stay and some will go depending on how ready they feel for the next week, which is when things are really going to get crazy.
November 28 to December 3 is the week Calgarians have been waiting for – and dreading – for 3 years. It is when the Business Plan and Budget Adjustment Debates happen. How council will spend our money – and what the property tax increase will be – will be set at these meetings. Expect LOTS of backroom dealings between aldermen and department/business unit heads between now and these days. This is when we will see the mayor and his aldermen show there stripes.
Then there are a couple weeks of regular meetings before 3 weeks of holidays – the first moment the new mayor will be able to catch his breath.
I expect all of this plus the month of January to determine Mayor Nenshi’s next three years. Basically, he has 100 days to win or lose much of Calgary’s support.
In coming posts in this series I will examine the early days meetings, some actions Nenshi can take to increase his likelihood of success, what might be changing at the City of Calgary as a result of this election, and what to do with the “Purple Army”.
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