As the project is being mapped out moving toward a launch date, it’s important to note that it will only be as successful as the usefulness of the data included in the catalogue. Poor design or minor mistakes can be overcome and corrected, but a lack of useful data almost certainly will lead to a failure of the pilot project. This more than anything will determine how many developers and academics make the choice to get involved and try to create something out of the information provided in the data catalogue. If there isn’t much data, or the data provided isn’t very useful, the project will crumble.

So in the interest of helping things get off on the right foot, I’ve put together a list of the data I would like to see included in the initial pilot catalogue this summer.

1. Community and Ward Boundaries
Most of the conversations I have had with people about open data revolve around being able to mashup City data, or data they have accumulated themselves, with mapping data of Calgary to be able to show a visual representation of their data set. Specifically what is required is information about areas of the City that programmers may want to segregate their data by. (For example, creating a map where neighbourhoods with the lowest income appear light yellow, those with the highest appear dark yellow.) In order to be able to do almost ANYTHING useful with any data the City might provide, programmers will NEED to have the GIS created data outlining the boundaries of neighbourhoods and wards. Without providing this information I’m confident the entire open data project will be nothing more than an interesting internal exercise for the City. This will be the tell-tale sign how serious they are taking transparency and accountability: if the City publishes the mapping data for neighbourhoods and wards they have given the pilot project a reasonable chance of success, if they don’t, then it’s fair to think they’re not taking it seriously.

The next three data sets I think are required because of the first two Laws of Open Government Data:

1. If it can’t be spidered or indexed, it doesn’t exist
2. If it isn’t available in open and machine readable format, it can’t engage
3. If a legal framework doesn’t allow it to be repurposed, it doesn’t empower

2. Community Statistics
The City of Calgary produces and posts on it’s website statistics for every community in Calgary. There is a ridiculous amount of interesting and immensely usable data contained in these reports that are updated every few years after a census is completed. However unfortunately you can’t do much with the documents because they are PDFs. You can read each one individually and that’s about it. Right now it is impossible to do comprehensive comparisons because the information is not open and machine readable (and therefore doesn’t engage as much as it could). To make this data available in CSV format would greatly increase its usefulness and potential. The City has made it available to the public for a reason. Making it available as part of an open data catalogue would go a long way to fulfilling that reason.

3. Transit Schedules and Stops
Wow do Calgarians like to complain about Calgary Transit schedules and the Calgary Transit website. For the most part I disagree on the former, but I too find the website’s trip planning functionality cumbersome. You know what though? I say if whiners like me want to complain, then let them try to make something better. There are hundreds of applications online and on smart phones that do what the City is trying to do, but better and cheaper. This might be the conservative side of me coming out, but I say it’s time the City got out of the way and let these small business people show us why they are so good at what they do. If the City were to make transit schedules and stops available I’m confident that within a month we will see current app providers add Calgary to their rosters, thereby giving Calgaraians dozens of new – and more than likely better – ways of planning their Calgary Transit trips. (And yes, if they wanted to, Transit could even eventually partner with ones they liked, shut down their site, and save some major money this way.) They’ve already done this with Google so let’s give the small guys a chance too.

4. Crime Statistics and Locations
Again, all this information is available online for free to the public, but it is behind a proprietary wall. The City of Calgary Police I’m confident spent a lot of money making their “Crimes Web Mapping Application” that they didn’t need to. There are many crime map providers out there that would be happy to do this job for them, if only they made the data available in a machine readable format. The other – and more important reason – this data should be made available in a machine readable format (instead of only via the map application where it can only be read and not used) is so it can be mashed up with other data sets. If someone were to, for example, mash it up with the community statistics or locations of services we might be able to see some patterns emerging and create an even more effective police presence where potential crimes might occur in the future. The police do this currently using anecdotal evidence and personal/personnel experience, but open data allows for all kinds of potential permutations to be created by others that the police may not have the time or money to undertake. We already allow for this kind of work to happen via the most successful public engagement initiative undertaken by police of all time: 911. If they trust us to report the crimes, they should trust us to do something useful with the data too.

5. Fire, Police, Recreation Centre, Community Centre and School Locations
This one is almost a no-brainer. This information is surprisingly hard to find, yet it is so basic. I can only imagine how much more useful it would have been to have this information when we were house hunting a few years ago. (I’d love to see this info and the crime data mashed up with the Canadian Real Estate Association’s MLS.) But I can’t imagine how many other fantastic mapping systems may be created if this data were available in a consistent format. Simply listing the name of the building, it’s street address and it’s longitude/latitude coordinates should be more than enough, and easily put together by anyone at the City in an afternoon.

6. Development Permit Locations and Contact Information
It baffles me that the City publishes crime data in a map but not development permit locations on a map. Any citizen can go down to City Hall and get a copy of the permit for any construction occurring in the City, but this information isn’t published online for some reason. I would have thought it would be a privacy concern of some kind, but that doesn’t make sense either considering the name and phone number of each permit applicant is published on a blue board out front of every location during a two-week window before construction begins. (I think it is also included in the newspaper advertisements during this window too.) This would be great information to have available in a useful format like CSV and KML instead of just a document file at the planning office and on a sandwich board on the street. As a community association president, this would certainly cut down on phone calls at the very least! And would be helpful in keeping track of all development going on in our neighbourhood.

It is important to note that ALL of these suggestions involve ONLY data that is already publicly available, but just in a format that limits the data’s usability and usefulness (such as PDF or proprietary software solutions). The good news about this is there will be many less hoops to jump through in order to get the data included in a pilot. I can think of many other data sets I’d like to see available, but let’s start with the low hanging fruit.

There is one data set that is not currently available to the public that I would like to see included in the initial data catalogue however that is not currently. It’s not really “data” per se, but I think it is something, which should be made available:

7. City of Calgary Contracts
I outline my rationale for this request in this blog post. It probably won’t be in the initial data catalogue, and that’s okay, but the conversation and process required to make this data available in the very near future should begin now. Otherwise it could be years before we see something so simple made available to citizens.

There is one other thing however that must be sorted out before a Pilot Project can go live: the terms of use. I’m sure the City of Calgary’s lawyers have been working overtime on this one, but I would like to suggest the City uses the same terms of use the City of Toronto and City of Edmonton are using. There’s are identical. (Seriously, click those links and read them side-by-side.) Clearly if it is good enough for BOTH of those cities, some major investigation has been done to arrive at that wording. At the very least it should be used as a starting point. We should build on the work of others rather than starting from scratch. I like these terms of reference for many reasons, not the least of which is the following section of the license which alleviates much of the concern I’ve heard from some aldermen:

The City now grants you a world-wide, royalty-free, non-exclusive licence to use, modify, and distribute the datasets in all current and future media and formats for any lawful purpose. You now acknowledge that this licence does not give you a copyright or other proprietary interest in the datasets. If you distribute or provide access to these datasets to any other person, whether in original or modified form, you agree to include a copy of, or this Uniform Resource Locator (URL) for, these Terms of Use and to ensure any such person agrees to, and is bound by, them but without introducing any further restrictions of any kind.

I’m confident if we can get each of these items included in the Pilot Project, the City has done everything in it’s power to ensure it’s success.

If any readers have suggestions for other data you would like to see, you’re welcome to put it in the comments below, but you should probably send it directly to the City. (I’m just an interested citizen with no direct connection to the pilot project.)

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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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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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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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This makes sense, because we can’t all be thinking big picture all the time. We must also plan for what it is we will do each and every day to ensure we are heading toward that goal.

This is the basics of any good strategy: Goal > Objectives > Tactics.

The goal and objectives for the future of Calgary are pretty much laid out in the dozens of planning documents the City has produced. Those documents range from the most recent round of visioning in Plan It, to the big picture 100-year vision laid out in Imagine Calgary.

But what we really need are tactics: How do we get from here, to there?

(It is almost redundant of us to ask candidates what their ‘vision’ is for City, when this has already been clearly spelled out by those that have came before us. In a way, asking about their vision is asking entirely the wrong question. Again, the question should be how do we achieve the objectives we as citizens previously agreed to?)

So to that end, I invite all candidates to articulate their tactics for how they will accomplish the objectives laid out in these documents – or even how they will achieve the objectives they themselves are laying out for the City. It’s great to have goals, but unless you can tell me how you actually plan to achieve them, you’re not going to get my vote.

At the same time, and probably more importantly, I invite all citizens to accept the responsibility to not be swayed by big picture promises and instead hold every candidate’s feet to the fire by asking the simplest of questions: How? How do you plan on doing that?

This is not complicated, but it needs to be done. Tell me how you plan to make any of these dreams become a reality and I can get behind you and help you make them real. If you just tell me what your dreams for the City are, all we can do is nod in general agreement. Tell me ‘how’ and you’ll get engagement. Don’t and we are only living off your charisma. Charisma is not enough to build a great City that works for us all. We are 1 million strong, and we want to help. So articulate to us how we can help you.

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After the Bill was given assent into law, I gave it a read hoping to provide readers of my blog some insight beyond what has been given in the main stream media. Sadly I can’t give you any. I still have no idea what it says.

It’s a complicated mess of ‘this part is cut’ and ‘this is what it’s replaced with’ and ‘this is something new’. I felt stupid just trying to figure out what is new, what is old, and what is gone, let alone what it all means. Why can’t legislation be written for normal people? Why can’t it show the whole law as it stands now, instead of just an summary of all the changes, which forces you to go find previous versions to do some kind of legal, time-travelling mash-up? No wonder so many people breaking laws say things like “I didn’t know it was illegal” if we make finding out what is legal and illegal so hard.

(My solution would be to just have a bill that shows the deleted parts as text with a strikethough and new text as bold. Or new in green and deleted in red. Whatever. There just has be a better way. But I digress, because this is not what this post is about.)

Apparently the legal minds at the City of Calgary are having the same sorts of difficulty as I am. Although obviously they got through Bill 9 in enough detail to realize there is a section which don’t make sense.

Yesterday the Mayor sent the following letter to the Minister in charge of municipalities:

2010 April 27

The Honourable Hector Goudreau
Minister of Municipal Affairs
Government of Alberta
Municipal Affairs
104, 10800-97 Avenue
Edmonton, AB T5K 2B6

Dear Minister Goudreau:

Re: Bill 9 – Local Authorities Election Statutes Amendment Act, 2010

I am writing you in respect of the above noted statute, which received Royal Assent on April 22, 2010, and is now in effect.

I understand that Bill 9 was intended to clarify certain issues raised by the amendments to the Local Authorities Election Act (RSA 2000, c. L-21) resulting from the Local Authorities Election (Finance and Contribution Disclosure) Amendment Act, 2009 (SA 2009, c.10; formerly Bill 203).

In particular, section 147.6 of the Local Authorities Election Act requires that:

(1) candidates for municipal office must file a declaration outlining the total amount of campaign contributions held by the candidate, including any surplus money from previous campaigns; and

(2) if the total amounts held by a candidate exceed $500, the candidate must pay the excess to the municipality.

Both of these requirements must be met within 3 months following the coming into force of the Local Authorities Election (Finance and Contribution Disclosure) Amendment Act, 2009. That statute came into force on February 3, 2010; accordingly, the above requirements must be met by May 3, 2010.

However, the Bill 9 amendments to the Local Authorities Election Act included the addition of the following section:

147.92(1) Sections 147.5,147.6,147.7(2) and (3) and 147.91(b) apply to campaign funds on or after December 1, 2011.

(2) Subsection (1) is deemed to have come into force on February 3, 2010.

Can you clarify that it was the intention of the Legislature in adding section 147.92 to delay the operation of section 147.6 until after the upcoming municipal elections taking place in October of this year? In other words, was it intended that a candidate would not be required to file his or her declaration and pay any surplus campaign funds pursuant to section 147.6 until December 1, 2011?

Furthermore, if the above was in fact intended, how is this to be reconciled with section 147.4(1} of the Local Authorities Election Act, as amended by Bill 9, which is a similar disclosure provision and which requires that candidates for municipal office file disclosure statements and pay any campaign surplus in excess of $500 to the municipality by March 1,2011?

In short, kindly clarify on what date candidates for municipal office are to file declarations or disclosure statements and pay any campaign surplus to the municipality.

I appreciate your assistance with clarifying this issue.

Sincerely,

Dave Bronconnier
MAYOR

I barely understand the question being asked here, but after several readings it seems to me the Province has multiple pieces of legislation, which are either contradictory, or mandating required time travel on the part of candidates. Either way; I agree, clarification is needed.

And I’m happy to see I’m not the only one who is confused.

One of the things that I value most about having a blog that is followed by as many people as this one is the number of comments or emails or tweets that I get about it telling me how the writer agrees with me, or how they disagree but see my point. It’s important to have both sides of this equation to maintain perspective, balance and a foot firmly planted in reality. (Never believe your own hype.) I try my best to break down the hyperbole – and sometimes hypocrisy – that often comes with our political landscape. To do this all one really has to do is take a step back, peel back the layers, and rationally examine the situation step-by-step. Almost always you will find Occam’s razor holds true.

Last week I wrote a blog post called ‘Council playing politics with the Pumphouse’. I received a lot of positive feedback about the post – more than usual – and so thought I must have hit the nail on the head. It was a few days later that I got an email from a friend who noticed my post was unusually pointed and didn’t have the same sort of level-headedness I usually try to apply to an issue. It was the lone dissenter. None-the-less I decided to take him up on his suggestion to go back to the Administration report and re-read it. Mistake number one: I didn’t read it to begin with. I inferred – albeit mostly correctly – from other people heavily involved what was in it. The nuances of the report however do paint a slightly different picture of what probably happened in the Committee meeting.

The most important thing I saw in the report is that despite my understanding that the Province pulling their funding not being the impetuous for the Pumphouse returning to Council for another $2 million, the largest paragraph in the entire report focused on this aspect. Upon reading that I can only think to myself, no wonder a couple of the aldermen had a lot of questions about this. If it’s given a great amount of weight in the report, it’s fair to think it’s going to get a great amount of attention during questioning.

The second thing that I noticed was that the report was anything but clear. You can probably sense my confusion in my original blog post about whether this ask was another $2 million or just the top up to the total $4 million that was previously approved. I can only imagine the aldermen were stuggling with the same issue. The report does not make this clear. Here is the very first sentence of the report:

Under CPS2006-45, 2006 September 18, Council approved the facility expansion project, in principle, based on the evaluation completed by the Calgary Arts Development Authority (CADA) on behalf of The City of the Calgary, subject to the conditions outlined in Attachment 4 and to submit a Request for Expenditure for the Pumphouse capital project to the Infrastructure Coordinating Committee totalling $2 million, to determine project and financing priority, in accordance with the approved 2007-08 Multi-Year Capital Budget process and since the Pumphouse Theatre is a heritage building, direct Administration to investigate other potential sources of funding.

Note that’s not the first paragraph; that’s the first SENTENCE.

Even in areas where the Pumphouse project has a clear advantage, the report doesn’t do a great job of outlining things. For example, every Administration report comes with a triple bottom line assessment. In this report the “Social” assessment is only twelve words: “The project will increase artistic incubator and rehearsal space capacity in Calgary.” That’s it? The Pumphouse is a catalyst for an entire industry’s basic training; every theatre artist has worked there as they started out! The Pumphouse has a waiting list for users twice as big as they have capacity to house. And the social impact of this vital cultural icon is summed up in twelve words? Again, no wonder the questioning skipped over this line of inquiry all together.

One other area that surprises me is the “Risks” section which says, “Pumphouse will be required to submit its project business plan… for Administration’s full due diligence review…” If I were an alderman the first question I’d have is: what are we waiting for? Why is the business plan not included as an attachment now? With a statement like this, I can certainly see how the committee would not want to approve anything until they had seen the business plan.

As a matter of fact the entire project description and funding breakdown is only one page long. When it is juxtaposed against the previous page saying Administration (not even Council, at that) will see a business plan later, this page looks woefully short for $2 million. There simply is not as much detail as there could have been – which opens the door for more questions. For example, it lists “Government of Canada” as a contributor. Aldermen had every right to be wary of how strong the fed’s commitment might be if the Province pulled out so easily. It’s the lack of detail here that is the issue. I’m told the Province pulled out easily because it was a one off commitment from a department. The GoC commitment isn’t going anywhere, because that money is being allocated through a granting program. One is a well-defined funding system, the other carries as much weight as a handshake from an MLA.

If the simplest explanation is usually the correct one, I should never have bought into the hype that Council is playing politics with this proposal. At the very least the title of my last post should have had a question mark on the end: “Council playing politics with the Pumphouse?”

So the question is what does this change in the content of my first post? The answer is ‘not much’. Everything I said still holds water, I just have a much better understanding as to why the recommendations “got a rough ride”.

I still hope as many supporters of the Pumphouse expansion project come out to the Council Meeting on Monday. The only difference is they do not need to be their to show their defiance at the evils of aldermen who are out of touch with the basics of their job, instead they should simply be there to illustrate how important the Pumphouse is to them.

Hopefully the crowd won’t make the same mistake I did.

And hopefully Administration, the Pumphouse Theatres, and Calgary Arts Development have been hard at work getting all the questions asked at committee answered so Council has all the information they need to approve the $2 million on Monday.

One of the more fun aspects of having a blog is the number of “tips” I get sent by readers and marketers. Usually there is very little newsworthy about them, other times they might be newsworthy but the tipster provides little in the way to back up their claim. In both cases I usually ignore the tip for those reasons. However this tip is different.

This past weekend I recieved a tip from two different sources that Diane Colley-Urquart, current alderman for ward 13, has been buying advertising space for a run at the mayor seat.

It strikes me this isn’t the kind of thing an overly enthusiastic volunteer would do without the candidate’s go ahead on a campaign, so I’m inclined to believe it to be a sign she’s in.

Neither tipster could provide evidence without outing themselves as a tipster and so I have none. But I know both of these folks and trust them, so I’ve decided to report it. Take if for what it is: completely unsubstantiated or verified by yours truly.

Personally I have my fingers crossed it’s true. We need more women running for council! It will be nice to see her make a run along side fellow aldermanic mayoral wannabes Joe Connelly and Ric McIver (still no official announcement from the latter).

Ald. Connelly has been saying for a little bit that he would make an announcement between now and May. An email sent out today has set the date for this announcement however: tomorrow. Expect him to be trying to scoop Ald. McIver by getting out of the Mayoralty gate first (even if only by a week).

Here’s the full text of the invitation. Be there or be… running for alderman (? I suppose).

Media and Guest Invitation for Announcement by

Alderman Joe Connelly, Ward Six
City of Calgary

Calgary, Alberta Alderman Joe Connelly, Ward Six, City of Calgary will be making an important announcement on Wednesday, April 14 in his Ward at the Strathcona Community Association.

Media and guests are invited to attend as follows:
Date:  Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Time: Meet and Greet 3:00 pm
Announcement 3:30 pm

Location: Strathcona Community Association
277 Strathcona Drive SW,  Calgary, AB
Phone number of the Community Association:  403.249.1138
Free parking available

For further details contact:

Joe Connelly  [deleted for privacy]
Corinne Wilkinson  [deleted for privacy]

This post has been cross-posted to CalgaryPolitics.com.

The Pumphouse Theatre is an amazing story that I invite you to read up on. It is one of those stories about saving Calgary’s heritage while at the same time making the city an even better place to live. The Pumphouse is owned by the City of Calgary and runs at capacity. There is a waiting list like you would not believe for community and professional theatre groups to gobble up even a week of free time in either of the Pumphouses two theatres. In short, it’s exactly what one would hope a performing arts space to be.

Because they have been at capacity for several years and the demand is so extraordinarily huge the decision was made a couple years back to expand the facility once again. The Pumphouse went through Calgary Arts Development’s Arts Spaces Initiative, was approved for funding, and placed high on the list of locations to receive financial support from the City of Calgary. Calgary City Council even awarded the project $2 million in 2008. Last week the final $2 million dollars required to make the expansion a reality went to the Community and Protective Services Standing Policy Committee of city council and, in the words of Pumphouse Theatre Executive Director Scott McTavish, “got a rough ride”.

Basically what happened – and remember I wasn’t in attendance and I’m hearing this third hand from aldermen and interested parties that were there – is political grandstanding. It’s an election year and no alderman wants to be seen as “wasteful”. Cutting the arts is an easy way to take a stand because it is often not seen as a necessity.

The problem is this is not some pet project or some “would be cool to have” third party proposal. The Pumphouse Theatres are OWNED by the City of Calgary. To not approve funding to the facility that has been recommended by all the powers that be in the City of Calgary is nothing short of being an absentee landlord. The project has been identified as achievable by Administration (after a stringent multi-year approval process they are recommending the expansion go ahead) and necessary (again, the building has a waiting list long enough it could operate two facilities and still be full).

So if a project is both acheivable AND nessecary why not fund it? They are looking for $2 million. Just a couple months ago, Cantos was approved for $25 million for a building that is in it’s very early stages of design. That is a new construction and that conversation took 10 minutes and ended with applause from council. $2 million for the Pumphouse however took an hour and forty-five minutes and was not approved.

The problem here is that the City owns the building and has NEVER, in 38 years, put a single dollar into it. And now that they are asking for $2 million to make up for the Province reneaging on a $5 million commitment, they are balking. $2 million over 38 years sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me.

And here’s the kicker: the $2 million isn’t even from the property tax base. It’s going to cost the City zero dollars to give the Pumphouse $2 million. The money is coming from the Province through the Municipal Sustainability Initiative. One of the hoops you have to jump through for funding from that project is that not only does the City need to approve your project, bus so does the province. Which they have already done in this case. All of this means that if Council does not give the $2 million to the Pumphouse then guess what happens? The City has to give the money back to the Province!

That’s right. In the process of looking like they are being tough on wasteful spending, City Council is… losing $2 million and leaving another $2 million in limbo. Sigh.

The Pumphouse Theatre board and staff are more than a little confused by all this. (After all they are facility operators and not used to the often non-sensical world of politics.) So they have sent out a call to everyone affected by this recent committee decision to help them bring some common sense to Council. Below is their message.

As you may or may not know our upcoming expansion project Pumphouse 2012 received a rough ride from Community and Protective Services this past Wednesday April 8, 2010. We are working with our partners at Calgary Arts Development and City of Calgary Administration in an effort to save Pumphouse 2012 from cancellation when it comes up for reconsideration at the April 26, 2010 council meeting.

We urgently need your support and the support of your volunteers and patrons in a two-stage lobby effort. Stage 1 will involve a letter, phone, fax and e-mail campaign to select members of council including the aldermen who we want to reconsider their position on the issue: Alderman Joe Connelly, Alderman Rick McIver, Alderman Diane Colley-Urquhart, Alderman Andre Chabot, and Alderman Jim Stevenson. We also need to sway the Aldermen who have an unknown position including: Alderman Dale Hodges, Alderman Gord Lowe, Alderman Ray Jones, and Alderman Linda Fox-Mellway.

The Pumphouse is working on a draft letter of support, which we will make available to you ASAP along with contact information for you to forward to your constituents.

Stage 2 will involve a public presence at the council meeting. Our goal is to fill the council chambers with 200-300 people on April 26, 2010 at 9:30 am.

For those of you with productions remaining in the month of April we request that you include a pre-show chat preceding each of your presentations to solicit your patrons for support for the continued health and vibrancy of not only The Pumphouse, but also the diverse theatrical community in general who benefit from the existence of The Pumphouse Theatre.

Some points to include in your message are the following:

1. The city of Calgary owns the building. If there is weak support from the owner the federal government and other donors are less likely to give.
2. The building is aging; some parts are 38 years old and some 100 years old. This project is not only about an expansion to help foster the theatre community, but also about maintaining the existing building to ensure that the Pumphouse will remain an affordable venue for both community theatre and emerging professional companies.
3. If the project fails to go ahead there is a risk that the Pumphouse will cease to remain affordable due to increases in fees to cover maintenance costs. We will cease to be accessible in the event of any infrastructure failure because The Pumphouse will be forced to close its doors until such time as the city chooses to effect repairs.
4. If the city decides to support the project, all of The Pumphouse children’s theatre programs would be in house and there would be no need to rent additional facilities. We would also be able to expand programs and capacity so more children would benefit from our affordable programming.
5. If the city supports the project the expansion translates into jobs. The Pumphouse will hire more staff to assist the growing client base and children’s programming

An important question to ask is: why did the Pumphouse get a “rough ride” from Council? From what I hear one of the big sticking points with several questioners at the committee meeting was that after the Province reneged on their portion of the funding, Council did not want to commit to the project until they knew the Feds were committed. On the surface this looks like a good idea, but I have to ask: how in the world will the Feds commit to a project when the owner (the City) won’t do it first? Why not, simply add a caveat to the funding: you can have this $2 million only if the Feds come on board too. Wouldn’t that solve the issue? (I’m asking this question seriously. If it would not solve the issue, please let me know why so we can come up with a better solution. But as it stands now, this sure seems like a no brainer answer.)