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Today Naheed Nenshi has announced he will be running for mayor. On Monday we can expect a similar announcement from Bob Hawkesworth. The big winner from these announcements? Ric McIver.

As recently as yesterday, things were not looking great for Mr. McIver’s chances of becoming Calgary’s next mayor. As each mayoral candidate announced (Joe Connelly, Jon Lord, Craig Burrows) observers could see small parts of McIver’s assumed lead chipping away. Once Kent Hehr announced, enough had been chipped away that we were looking at a very real two way fight between McIver and Hehr.

With Nenshi and Hawkesworth entering the race, it’s fair to assume Mr. Hehr is now the one experiencing the chipping away of potential voters from his target group. It’s my guess that when it all plays out, enough will have been chipped away to return Mr. McIver to a healthy leading position once again.

What are your thoughts?

Cross posted to calgarypolitics.com

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Tags: Bob Hawkesworth, Calgary, calgary city council, Craig Burrows, Joe Connelly, Jon Lord, Kent Hehr, Politics, Ric McIver
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The process of transparency and accountability is one we often talk about – certainly some of the mayoralty candidates have put it at the top of their list of election issues – but rarely take steps to do much about. Often the idea boils down to “people need to vote to hold politicians accountable” or “our politicians need to work harder to hold administration to task”. But both of these solutions are simple-minded and are just putting a band-aid on a gunshot wound.

The fraud allegations unfolding at the City of Calgary should be surprising to no one. Our band-aid is not working on this gunshot wound.

I applaud the City for investigating better regulations to the procurement process, but even that will not be enough to heal the wound. It’s just enough to stop the bleeding.

Have you, as an owner of the City of Calgary corporation, ever read a single contract the company you are co-owner of has tendered? I’m guessing no. If you wanted to read one, who would you call? I’m guessing you have no idea. If you got through to someone to ask them about a contract, what are the odds they would be willing to send you a copy? I’m guessing slim to none.

If you co-owned any other business, would you stand for that kind of treatment by your staff and their policies?

I’m a big proponent of Open Data because of situations exactly like this. If we have ease of access to information (transparency), staff and elected officials will be less likely to try to take advantage of the hiding in the shadows and avoid potential fraudulent activities (accountability). You need one to have the other however.

Here’s my proposed solution to avoid this sort of harmful – or perceived harmful – activity in the future: make all City of Calgary contracts available online. All of them.

Not only does this kind of transparency lead to better accountability on both the City’s and public’s sides of the equation, but I also believe it can lead to more cost efficient services and better value as well.

If you, as a contractor, are considering bidding on a project, and you can visit the City’s website and see what other previously successful vendors bid on similar projects, you now have an idea as to what your potential competition might bid and what has resonance with the City. Arming vendors with this kind of knowledge increases the likelihood they will attempt to add value to their bid on the new project either by offering the service more efficiently (read: cheaper) or by adding benefit to their bid that may be attractive to the City in ways they had not previously considered (delivery schedules, quality, etc).

I know it’s often comfortable living in the shadows because when no one can see what you’re doing you don’t have to constantly be on your toes. I get that. But the benefits to opening up the data and being more transparent does not have to be a negative experience. Accountability often has more positive outcomes for the person being held to account than negative. It’s time we stop worrying about the negative, embrace the positive, and be willing to let the public help build a better City through accountablity.

Let’s start simple. Please post the contracts online.

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Tags: Calgary, calgary city council, open data, Politics, procurement
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Last night we held the 2009/10 Annual General Meeting for my community – Winston Heights-Mountview. As a reader of this blog you may not know that I’ve just completed my first year as the president of our community association. I love our neighbourhood. I think it’s a great place to live. And while the majority of readers may not care about the ins and the outs of a neighbourhood you don’t live in; I wanted to post my report to the community here on my blog none-the-less because it is such a big part of my life. Heck, maybe you’ll even find something you want to ask more about and implement in your community.

Last year at the AGM, I was asked to layout the basics of what the board would be doing over the next year. We had a passionate group of volunteers and a solid vision and mission to build from.

The board set about improving the governance of the organisation this past year with a goal of helping create a community association where people can volunteer their time to work on projects that interested them. Far too often the moment a community member in any neighbourhood expresses an interest in helping organize a fun event, they shortly find themselves on a board doing work they never had an interest in to begin with.

To have an engaged community it is paramount to be able to interact with residents in the way they most want to. If you want to work on a specific idea, we have groups for you to work with. Please read more on the sheets on the wall, and feel free to sign up to work with any group you find interesting. We are only as good as the people working on these projects. If you want to sit on the board, we happily invite you to join us there too.

The first year of our plan has been filled with re-writing the bylaws you have been presented with, creating board policies, and terms of reference. All kinds of boring stuff to most people. But all this needs to be done to make us a flexible organization capable of doing all kinds of cool stuff.

I’m happy to report that we are ahead of schedule. If you picked up one of the fridge magnets at the Eco-Fair you will see we have more events going on this summer that anyone can probably remember.

Here is a snapshot of some of our more popular events over the past year:

One of the highlights of this year is all the work that has been done on the Centennial Garden. It is a great addition to our Community Hall and the perfect place to take wedding photos or photos of your family! If you have a green thumb and would like to help with the ongoing maintenance of the garden, please talk to Yvette.

As part of the new Garden, we have introduced a series of Gardening Education workshops, the next one this Thursday. If you don’t have a fridge magnet that lists our many events this summer, please get one from Darlene.

We celebrated the New Year with a fabulous Gala attended by about 120 people. Attendees loved the food and dance their way into the new year.

In April, we hosted a sellout rain barrel sale and ecofair. Thanks to Coca-cola, we could offer the barrels at a very attractive price and engage our community in some volunteer opportunities. Following this event we now have 200 volunteer hours in the bank to use on upcoming projects.

We continued to show great stewardship of our offleash area on the escarpment with the annual Scoopy Doo Day cleanup attracting 26 volunteers.

In May, we held our first Jane’s Walk that provided a window into our community’s colourful landscape and history. It was one of the most highly attended walks in the whole city. Following the walk, we held a Volunteer Tea to salute our hardworking volunteers.

Reports on what each board committee undertook this year are available in the May newsletter and the hand out you have been given today. I hope you have a chance to read it and see all that has been accomplished by our community volunteers.

In all, I’m very proud of the work of all our volunteers this past year and they all deserve a hearty thank you. Without our volunteers we would not be as great a community as we are.

2010/11 may well prove to be a watershed year for Winston Heights-Mountview.

The board plans on working much harder this year to build out our membership further and engage volunteers and residents in more events.

We plan on providing more opportunities to get more of you involved in more ways that you want to. In short, we’ll be doing more.

Coming up in July, we will once again be hosting a Stampede Barbeque. Tickets are $15 for members, and $20 for non-members. There will also be details in our next newsletter. Come on out, it is always a great event!

We strive to enhance the recreation opportunities in our community. For example, this winter, we brought back our skating rinks to the enjoyment of both children and adults. We have also embarked on a major project to upgrade the playground on 7th Street. Alex, Christine and their hard working committee have secured a unique playground structure for the location, and we anticipate the build will take place this fall. If you are interested in helping to build this great addition to our neighbourhood, talk to Christine.

On May 29, all community members are invited to join us for an opportunity to help shape our community’s future. The Civic Camp will run from 9-2:30, with lunch provided, and will guide community members through a process to identify your best ideas for our community and how we can help make your vision a reality. If you have ideas about what you want to see changed or improved in the neighbourhood, or want to get to know your neighbours better. Join us! The ideas coming from this event will propel us forward for the next year and beyond.

We hope that you love our community as much as we do, and see its potential, and will get involved in 2010 to help us achieve that potential. We can’t do it without you.

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Tags: Calgary
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I don’t know about you, but leading up to the 2007 Calgary municipal election I had a heck of a time finding information about candidates. Sure the big “main stream media” did a good job of covering the basics and they did a very good and detailed job of dissecting the mayoral race, but I couldn’t help but struggle in my own efforts to find out more about who was running and what they stood for. Simply a one line bio and the answer to “what’s in your CD player” was not enough for me to make an intelligent decision. I longed for more of the kind of detail I knew existed. The kind of stuff that was being put on a great 2007 election Wikipedia page (I’ve since learned was mainly updated by Grant Neufeld) and the coverage offered via the Enlightened Savage’s blog (since revealed to be Joey Oberhoffner). It was in model of these online election offerings that I first started my blog.

But more can be done and I don’t want anyone else to go through the same struggles I did. True, I’ve been lucky enough to convince the majority of bloggers with an interest in Calgary’s municipal government to get together to cross-post to CalgaryPolitics.com, but I still don’t think that’s enough to make the average potential voters’ decision making any easier.

That’s where CivicCamp comes in.

At CivicCamp I found others who felt the same way and were willing to get to work to reduce ignorance as a barrier to voting in the 2010 election. The CivicCamp Governance group (aka “Cabin”) were tasked with coming up with the 2010 election plan and have been meeting regularly for a couple of months. Today we’re ready to let you know what the plans are. (For full details please read my post on the CivicCamp website here.)

CivicCamp will “act as an honest broker” of election information. Nothing partisan, no endorsing of candidates or anything like that.

1. We’ve partnered with Grant Neufeld on a project of his called CalgaryDemocracy.ca. Just as CalgaryPolitics.com will gather all the news about candidates together, this new site will gather together all the basic information on candidates you could ever want. Websites, phone numbers, Twitter usernames, Facebook Pages… all of this for every candidate, for every race, will be listed here for your one stop shop for candidate information.
2. CivicCamp will undertake the most comprehensive candidate survey Calgary has ever seen. The key aspect being: we will not let our own bias determine the direction of the questions. Using the online tool Uservoice, every citizen is given the opportunity to ask a question and to vote on which questions others have suggested, that you would like candidates to answer. Yes, democracy can even be applied to the process of asking candidates questions. This will ensure the questions being asked really are what citizens are wanting answered. So go and see if you’re question is being asked. If it is, vote for it. If not, please add it. The top however many questions will be handed to candidates on nomination day when they file their paperwork. Visit civiccamp.uservoice.com to ask your questions and vote.
3. The biggest and most complex undertaking during any election is organizing an all candidates forum. CivicCamp has committed to organizing one all-candidate forum for each aldermanic race and one for the mayor’s race. This is a HUGE undertaking. I don’t know any other group that has tackled such a big task in past elections, but it has to be done. The questions from the Uservoice poll will form the basis of the questions for the candidates, and the crowd will be given a chance to fill in any local holes not addressed by those questions. It will be a pretty crazy couple of weeks between nomination and election day as CivicCamp hosts a forum almost every night. A call has gone (or is about to go) out to community associations asking for donations of hall space to host these events. If you have a space or if you would like to volunteer to help out with the forums, please contact the people listed here.
4. CivicCamp is also undertaking a poll of the Campers to find out what issues they think are most important. The results of that survey will be posted on their website for the public and all candidates to read.

This group is doing a lot of work. Details on everything they are undertaking can be found at here and a summarized version is available at civiccamp.org/2010election.

If you’re interested in getting more involved with CivicCamp and their election activities, the next Cabin meeting is Thursday, May 20 at 7pm at Eau Claire. Please feel free to show up and volunteer to help out.

It’s my hope that these projects will help voters find out more about the candidates, and more easily, than 2007 afforded. Getting basic information and finding out what the candidates think about issues should NOT be a barrier to voting. I’m proud of the CivicCamp volunteers for doing their best to tear down that barrier.

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Tags: Calgary, Politics
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In follow up to my last post where I asked 2010 municipal election candidates to tell us ‘how’ they will accomplish their objectives instead of just ‘what’ those objectives would be, I thought it was only fair that I take the first ‘kick at the can’ so to speak.

On Friday – almost ironically the same day I published my post – the Calgary Sun published an advertorial by Ald. Ric McIver. The theme of the piece was Ald. McIver’s vision for what he would do if elected mayor of Calgary. I can think of no better place to start off the ‘How?’ campaign, than with that piece.

Below is the article taken from Ric McIver’s campaign site. Text in bold are my comments.

CITY HALL MUST OPEN ITS EARS

Calgary Sun - May 5, 2010

By Ric McIver

As a candidate for mayor, I would like to suggest a new way forward.

I propose city government should boldly embrace our city’s growth, harnessing the vitality, commitment to progress and entrepreneurship of Calgarians in managing the challenges of a city that can and should become a model to other Canadian cities. [Here is Ald. McIver's stated goal. An excellent start. The rest of the missive lists the objectives to accomplish this goal.]

I believe we need a mayor who believes in his fellow citizens, who listens to and consults with them [How?], who knows they are the actual builders of this community.

I believe we need a mayor who sees leadership as a team effort to be shared with all members of the community. [Can't really ask 'how' on this one because it is listed as a quality of the mayor not something the mayor would actually do.]

And I believe we need a mayor who is prepared to re-examine the way city government does things, creating a free flow of information and ensuring citizen and employee participation play an integral role in defining and creating the future of our great city. [How would one go about doing this?]

Most of all, I believe Calgary needs a mayor who will do everything in his power to ensure working families share in the growth and prosperity of this city. [How? What is 'everything in his power'. As a side note, I understand sharing in 'prosperity' but how does one share in 'growth'? I digress...]

So I propose to you the vision of a flourishing, competitive, entrepreneurial city that welcomes working people, small and big business alike, while offering an affordable, high quality of life for all of its citizens [How?] — all of which can and will be realized within a framework of cost control, accountability and transparency. [More objectives, okay. But how will you be accountable? How will you be transparent?]

Calgary will be open for business. We will cut red tape and implement policies that will make Calgary the place to build businesses and homes. [How?]

We will look after the environment. [How? This line especially seems staggeringly in need of detail.]

When a company wants to move employees here, their families will know Calgary has a great arts, culture, sports and recreation scene. [I assume we are not talking about implanting chips in peoples heads when they land at the airport to beam messages directly to them. So if not that, then how?]

Where we fall short, we will work with the private sector to come up to standard. [How will you know when you've fallen short?]

We will work with our partners in the Alberta government to complete the ring road and, yes, that will include the southwest portion. [I don't need if we need to ask 'how' here. We know how the City works with the Province.]

We must have and we will have proper access to the airport. [Before I can ask 'how' I have to ask: define 'proper'?]

In the short term, we will review downtown parking policies that make for the most expensive and least convenient parking situation of almost any city in Canada. [This is a great tactic. Two thumbs up for listing one.]

In the longer term, we will work toward spreading out jobs so they are not just concentrated in three areas of the city. [I guess 'work toward' is vague enough it's hard to realistically ask 'how'.]

We need to look to a future where people aren’t going to the same, limited areas at the same time each day, causing congestion and frustration. [How?]

We will re-build trust in our relationship with the provincial government. [How?]

We will strive for a core transit strategy that will create a zone in the centre of Calgary where people will have a real choice about whether to leave their cars at home. [Another tactic. Excellent.]

We will bring together the development industry, sustainability groups, city council and the administration for thoughtful, realistic discussion on building the Calgary of the future. [Didn't we just do this with PlanIt?]

We will work with all parties interested, including the private sector, to support the 10-year plan to eliminate homelessness. [Define 'work with' and 'support'; then we can talk about How?]

A vibrant, competitive Calgary that flourishes, with quality services for all, with taxes that are fair must be our shared purpose. [How?]

Our promise that Calgary is the most welcoming place in all of Canada for ambitious, hardworking people should be more than just rhetoric. [Agreed. It should be more than just rhetoric. So: How? Because without that it's just rhetoric.]

We should not only expect, we must demand a city government that listens to and recognizes the role of its citizens in decision-making. [How will the City encourage/do this?]

This is by no means an exhaustive list of goals but these are goals that must be at the forefront of any candidate’s platform, and I promise you, they are at the top of mine. [There's more objectives still? How about a tactics listing? I hope there is one of those too.]

I will provide that needed leadership to see these goals through to reality. [How?]

That’s why I am asking for your support and for your vote to become Calgary’s next mayor.

So there you go. Now it’s your turn. And by your turn I mean 1) you, dear reader, should go and ask the same questions of other candidates, and 2) you, Ald. McIver, are welcome to provide some details once you have them ready. I’ll happily post them!

Note: The ‘No’ How post series should not be seen as an endorsement or condemnation of any candidate. They are meant only to encourage the peeling back of layers of rhetoric – purposeful or otherwise – in an attempt to have candidates publicly state how they plan to accomplish their goals should they be elected. No candidate is meant to be harmed in the writing of these posts.

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Tags: Calgary, calgary city council, Politics, Ric McIver
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