Bronconnier will not run again; so who will?
So Dave Bronconnier has just announced he will be stepping down from the mayor’s chair and handing over his oversized mayoral necklace (does that thing have an actual name?) come October 2010. He will not be running for re-election.
While it is possible we could spend some time reflecting on our 35th mayor’s tenure – after all he’s been mayor of Calgary since 2001, having been elected three times, and before that was alderman of ward 6 for nine years as well – the real fun lays in what this means for the candidates that have been mulling about the starting line of the mayoral race for the past year or so.
Bronco’s announcement today almost guarentees Joe Connolly and Ric McIver will run for mayor, but who else? Will Alnoor Kassam now return for another kick at the can? Could we see Diane Colley-Urqhart or Druh Farrell step up in the coming months?
Personally, my guess is you’ll see one one Brian Pincott, who is currently ward 11 alderman, or frequent civic commenter Naheed Nenshi step up and take a serious run.
Either way, things just got interesting. Tie on your sneakers, because the race is about to begin.
On your marks, get set, GO!
Plan It, round 2: The most important decision facing Calgarians
Next week is a BIG week in Calgary. As Naheed Nenshi correctly states in his Calgary Herald op-ed today, “On Monday, Calgary city council makes a decision bigger and more important than all the other decisions it has made since being elected . . . combined.”
Plan It – the document that lays out how Calgary will grow for the next several decades – is coming back to council for a second reading.
Plan It has been the hard work of many years of public engagement, determined to define how Calgarians want to manage their city’s growth. In short it is all about the kind of city we want Calgary to be and how we will ensure it becomes that.
In June, after the final public hearings, council made about 100 suggested amendments to the proposed Plan It document and gave it first reading.
The city’s administration (the author of the document) went back to their desks and poured over the amendments to determine which were good ideas and strengthened the document, and which were poor ideas and weakened the document or contradicted other pieces of legislation. The results have been released here. But I’ll break it down for you a bit.
A summary of Administration’s recommendations are as follows:
That Council:
1. Receive for information Attachments 1 and 2, which summarize Administration’s response to key issues brought forward by Council in the proposed amendments to the MDP and CTP.2. MDP Amendments:
a) Adopt Administration’s Recommended Amendments to the MDP (Bylaw 40M2009) as proposed in Attachment 3.
b) Receive for information Attachment 4, which lists suggested amendments to the MDP that are not recommended by Administration.
c) Receive for information Attachment 5, which contains red-lined pages for the entire MDP (based on amendments proposed in Attachment 3).
d) Amend Bylaw 24P2009 by deleting Section 4 in its entirety and substituting with “This Bylaw is effective February 1, 2010”.
e) Renumber and format the sections in the MDP (Bylaw 24P2009) required to account for the inclusion of all Council-approved amendments.
f) Give second and third reading to the proposed Bylaw 24P2009, as amended.3. CTP Amendments:
a) Adopt Administration’s Recommended Amendments to the CTP by Resolution, as proposed in Attachment 6.
b) Receive for information Attachment 7, which lists suggested amendments to the CTP that are not recommended by Administration.
c) Receive for information Attachment 8, which contains red-lined pages for the entire CTP (based on amendments proposed in Attachment 6).
d) Renumber and format the sections in the CTP required to account for the inclusion of all Council-approved amendments.4. Direct Administration to report to LPT no later than January 2010 with the terms of reference for a MDP/CTP Sustainment Committee, implementation program and an ongoing monitoring framework.
Okay. Now what about the attachments? What’s in those? Answer: a whole lot of reading that we all have to do. Here’s a summary about what attachement includes (all links are PDFs):
1. MDP Key Issues Summary
2. CTP Key Issues Summary
3. Administration Recommended Amendments to the MDP
4. List of Council-proposed MDP Amendments Not Recommended by Administration
5. Red-line Amendments of the MDP (as per Attachment 3)
6. Administration Recommended Amendments to the CTP
7. List of Council-proposed CTP Amendments Not Recommended by Administration
8. Red-line Amendments of the CTP (as per Attachment 6)
I encourage you to click on the links above and learn more about what Administration recommends including and not including. These are what will frame the discussion on Monday at Council. A discussion that WILL change the future of Calgary forever. If ever there were a time to know what your council is doing, this is it.
And we all have a lot of reading to do between now and then.
I’ll provide my comments here and to the Aldermen once I have read the documents. Please do the same.
The one thing that excites me is the 4th recommendation – the creation of a Plan It “Sustainment Committee”. The idea behind the goal of this group was laid out in my comments to council during the June public hearing. At the time I said to council, “It will have to be a living document… Personally I’m more concerned with the City’s track record of follow through on ambitious plans.” This was also the theme of the questions I was asked by Ald. McIver following my presentation. I then followed up with some more detail in a two part blog post on Alberta Venture’s Think Alberta blog the next day where I said:
The good news – or bad news as the case may be – is that the success of Plan It will fall directly on the shoulders of the City of Calgary and how the plan is implemented. Calgary City Council has done a very good job over the years looking down the road and helping set a vision for the city’s future in motion. Plan after policy after plan have been enacted, but clearly the citizens of Calgary feel unaffected for the most part by these plans and policies…
I’m glad the City is taking this seriously and I think a sustainment committee will be a great addition. After all, it is almost exactly the kind of “Citizen Response Team” my group at the first CivicCamp in April suggested was needed.
Administration has echoed mine and Ald. McIver’s concerns by stating:
Two of the issues raised by Council and stakeholders that apply to both the MDP and CTP are ongoing stakeholder engagement, and plans for implementation and monitoring.
The Draft Implementation Framework included with CPC Report M-2009-012 provided high-level actions The City will need to undertake in order to enable achievement of the Plan It Calgary goals and objectives. Some of these actions are already underway, and Administration is currently developing more detailed implementation plans. These plans will be complemented by an ongoing monitoring framework that will provide useful data to aid in growth and investment decisions. Both the implementation plans and ongoing monitoring framework will be brought forward to the Land Use Planning and Transportation (LPT) Standing Policy Committee no later than January, 2010.
Administration recognizes the critical role that external stakeholders will play in achieving the goals and objectives of Plan It Calgary. In order to facilitate effective communication between The City and stakeholders, Administration proposes the creation of a MDP/CTP Sustainment Committee. This committee would require a broader stakeholder group than the Advisory Committee for Plan It Calgary. Terms of reference for this committee will be developed in consultation with stakeholders, and will be submitted to LPT along with the implementation plans and monitoring framework by January, 2010.
That’s all for now, but I’m excited by the direction this is all heading. Time to go do some reading…
Someone can’t do basic math
On August 13 Naheed Nenshi wrote a column for the Calgary Herald titled “Labels confuse our political understanding” in response to a comment Wildrose Alliance leadership candidate Danielle Smith made. Smith herself responded in print on August 16. (Shane over at Calgary Rants has his take on the exchange.) While this conversation is a good – and interesting – one that I normally would be happy to enter into I wanted to instead comment on something that grew out of the ensuing conversation that occurred on Twitter.
Jeremy at PolitiCalgary beat me to the punch a little bit by publishing the text of the Twitter conversation (although he is missing a few of the comments in the exchange). I agree with him that it was a bizarre conversation between Naheed Nenshi defending his position and someone only identifying themselves as “Alberta Conservative” arguing the need for political labels. I entered the fray at this point. I shouldn’t have but I did, because I feel political labels (not to be confused with party labels) add a layer of annoyance to the political process that hinders a lot of citizens’ ability to discuss the issues on their individual merit. Especially at the municipal level where there are no parties. I immediately tried to exit the conversation as it went in a bizarre direction I wasn’t interested in following. But I digress.
At one point in the conversation, long after the original debate had been abandoned in favour of speculation about conservative and liberal slates for the upcoming 2010 Calgary municipal election, Alberta Conservative mentioned, “@Nenshi If Calgary adopts civic parties like @RicMcIver may do your chances would be very slim in 2010.” Naheed then replied with “@ABConservative PGIB [Progressive Group for Independent Business] ran a slate for years and elected no one, BCC [Better Calgary Campaign, of which Nenshi is part of] had all but 2 endorsed candidates win last time (inc. Mciver – I’m a fan)”.
Now, and this is what this blog post is ACTUALLY all about, Craig Chandler, who is a part of the PGIB entered the conversation with this tweet:
@nenshi PGIB ran a slate once and in that slate Ric McIver was elected. We have endorsed since and all have won every time! Do your Homework
I couldn’t bite my tongue at this comment. Having just finished some reading on the 2007 election a few days earlier I saw this interjection for what it was: a lie. This kind of political hyperbole is something I just can’t stand. If you are going to make a comment as direct and challenging as that, the least it should be is accurate. In my opinion it is comments like this that make people outside politics have such distaste for people inside politics. It is what Stephen Colbert would call “truthiness”. If you say something that sounds true, with enough emphasis and determination, it doesn’t matter if it is true or not because people will begin to believe it. I’m not about to let that happen. So I interjected with:
How does “every time” equate to 2 for 7 in ’07? RT @ChandlerRadio: @nenshi We have endorsed since and all have won every time! Do your Homework
.@ChandlerRadio And here’s MY “homework”. In the future, please know your own record before throwing it in someone’s face http://bit.ly/qekg
I know I shouldn’t be surprised that it is Craig Chandler who undertook such a tactic (he doesn’t have a great track record with staying on people’s good sides). But this is the kind of thing we need LESS of not MORE of.
A surprising number of people have been trying to encourage me to run in the 2010 election. I’ve been saying the whole way along I’m not convinced I want to run. But if the rumours are true and Chandler is eyeing up an aldermanic seat, I’m half-ways convinced to run against him. Wherever he may run. If anything just to make sure this kind of rhetoric stays as far away from our council chamber as possible. No, make that three quarters convinced to run. (As you can tell, I really don’t like this kind of commentary.)
Our council has been bitterly divided on too many issues these past three years. False comments like this from from an alderman would be the exact opposite of the kind of camaraderie and cooperation we need to help Calgary fix the issues we are facing. Let’s pray that doesn’t happen because the results could be disastrous.
By the way, in case you are wondering, Chandler hasn’t replied to my “homework” yet. It was sent four days ago. I’ll provide an update if he does.
Subscribe
-
Like Minded
