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The unofficial results are in and we have seen a mix of change and returning of the old guard happening. It’s a whole new ball game now; an entirly new dynamic. Here’s the list of who the fifteeen around the table will be:

Mayor – Naheed Nenshi
Ward 1 – Dale Hodges
Ward 2 – Gord Lowe
Ward 3 – Jim Stevenson
Ward 4 – Gael Macleod
Ward 5 – Ray Jones
Ward 6 – Richard Pootmans
Ward 7 – Druh Farrell
Ward 8 – John Mar
Ward 9 – Gian-Carlo Carra
Ward 10 – Andre Chabot
Ward 11 – Brian Pincott
Ward 12 – Shane Keating
Ward 13 – Diane Colley-Urquhart
Ward 14 – Peter Demong

The biggest question facing how this new council will work together is what kind of a chair will Naheed Nenshi be. Will he be a bullying mayor (not likely) or more laissez faire in his control of meetings? Or might he be more like Bronconnier and give alderman some leeway, but keep them on a short leash if they stray too far outside what is prescribed in the procedural bylaw. An alderman like Druh Farrell will live and die by the answer to this question. Nenshi could help focus her and turn her into one of the most productive aldermen on council. Diane Colley-Urquhart could be one to struggle if she doesn’t bring herself prepared to meetings with a plan on how to present her requests.

Of course the new faces on council will provide an interesting dynamic as well. How will Gian-Carlo Carra implement his vision? He’ll have to do the same as Colley-Urquhart and be prepared to have a plan too, otherwise he could find himself as the next Druh Farrell of council: someone with great ideas but struggling to get people to understand or enact them. It will all come down to clear communication with their colleagues for all three of these alderman. The same could be said of Shane Keating and Richard Pootmans as well. Both are strong aldermen, but could find themselves floundering if they don’t get into Nenshi’s good books or find a way to focus their asks into a clear, straightforward way. They could end up being at odds with the mayor and the majority of council and thereby getting themselves – and their voters – thoroughly frustrated if they don’t.

Gael Macleod is a bit of an unknown. I think she will probably fit well into this group and will be an effective alderman as Hawkesworth was before her. Look for her to do a lot of listening and learning in the early days before she proves to be one of this group’s steadiest members – provided she finds her niche.

Peter Demong is another big question mark. With McIver and Connelly gone he provides councils most conservative voice. Whether he ends up as the strong fiscal hawk on council or a “right wing nut job”-  as he has been painted by some – will entirely be up to him. I expect he will buddy up to Jim Stevenson and Dale Hodges to look for some wingman support. If he gets this, and stays consistent in his messaging, he could prove to be a very effective voice on council just as McIver was for 9 years. I hope it goes this way as the alternative is becoming a laughing stock, dragging Calgary down with him. And no one wins in that scenario.

Provided Nenshi (as mayor) and Brian Pincott (as the “elder statesman”) find a mutual respect for one another and each others talents, Pincott could prove to be council’s best member. If Nenshi figures out how to keep his campaign followers engaged, Pincott could be one of the biggest beneficiaries by following the new mayor’s example and engaging his constituents in a way he hasn’t up until now. If Pincott was more transparent and had a bit more of a following like Nenshi, he could do some amazing things that would surprise even the most steadfast ideologue. This will take a lot of work on Pincott’s part and a willingness from Nenshi to help him. Pride will need to be swallowed.

The same as Pincott holds true for John Mar. If Nenshi and Mar find common ground Mar could be a leader on council. If they don’t, he could very well become Nenshi’s biggest pain. Unfortunately this would rob Calgarians of much Mar has to offer. The exact same could be said of Chabot. Mar and Chabot have often been “swing votes”. It will be fascinating to watch what way they swing now.

The one thing that I think is probably a given is that – provided they agree on the budget – Gord Lowe could become a de facto “second in command”. I’m confident Nenshi will look to him for guidance and, for lack of a better term, fatherly advice. (Nenshi won’t need political advice. Not that he’d listen to it anyway.)

We won’t have to wait long to see whatever new dynamic emerges because being locked in a room together for organizational meetings in their first week together followed by the lengthy budget negotiating process will force them to get to know one another before we every really get a chance to know them ourselves.

PS – Did you see the 2007 Helene Larocque redux? Incumbent Linda Fox-Mellway took a beating and ended up placing forth in ward 14. Just like ward 3 in 2007, it looks like ward 14 REALLY wanted a change this time around.

Cross posted to CalgaryPolitics.com

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Tags: Andre Chabot, Brian Pincott, Calgary, Dale Hodges, Diane Colley-Urquhart, Druh Farrell, Gael Macleod, Gian-Carlo Carra, Gord Lowe, Jim Stevenson, Joe Connelly, John Mar, Naheed Nenshi, Peter Demong, Politics, Ray Jones, Ric McIver, Richard Pootmans, Shane Keating
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The world has changed a LOT in the last few years. Things are speeding up so fast many of us have difficulty keeping up. Stereotypically the ones complaining about this “speeding up of life” are members of older generations. This isn’t ageist – its just that those under the age of 35 have grown up with a high level of change and haven’t been around long enough to remember any form of  ”good old days” when the pace of life was different.

As my grandma once told me: each generation that has passed has experienced more change in their lifetime than the one immediately preceding them. Or you could just ask anyone who has had to ask a toddler to program their latest gadget; they’ll tell you. (My best friend’s daughter who is just two is already better than I am with Skype for example.)

While it has been my experience frame of mind, rather than age, is usually a much better indicator of willingness to work with – rather than against – the new challenges the world may give you, there is sadly no denying it can be a factor. So with that in mind, here is the list of the ages of Calgary City Council incumbents as of voting day 2010. Decide for yourself if their is an age pattern to the ones you agree with, and compare your philosophies with the ones about the same age as you.

Although, there are none under 40 so I can’t really compare myself on that basis. And I’m not sure how many of my blog readers will be able to either. (Perhaps that’s a naive assumption on my part however.) Either way, I still find it interesting to know the demographics of those who represent me and I thought you might too. So here they are:

Dave Bronconnier – 48

Dale Hodges – 69

Gord Lowe – 71

Jim Stevenson – 65

Bob Hawkesworth – 59

Ray Jones – 57

Joe Connelly – (Couldn’t find his age.)

Druh Farrell – 51

John Mar – 41

Joe Ceci – 53

Andre Chabot – 51

Brian Pincott – 49

Ric McIver – 51

Diane Colley-Urquhart – 61

Linda Fox-Mellway – (Couldn’t find her age.)

These ages are based off of numbers I pulled from the introductory articles of candidates in one of our two big newspapers during the 2007 election, so I can’t vouch that they are 100% accurate. Please forgive me if there is a mistake.

And yes, there is something to be said for having life experience too.

Tags: Andre Chabot, Bob Hawkesworth, Brian Pincott, Calgary, calgary city council, Dale Hodges, Dave Bronconnier, Diane Colley-Urquhart, Druh Farrell, Gord Lowe, Jim Stevenson, Joe Ceci, Joe Connelly, John Mar, Linda Fox-Mellway, Politics, Ray Jones, Ric McIver
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I have seen the City of Calgary screw up before but never in such a spectacular fashion.

Last week I heard about a new City art program that sounded pretty cool to me. In response to comments from Shaw Millennium Park users that the park was dull and didn’t provide the kind of urban energy you might expect in a skate park, the City decided to let the complainers do the fixing.

In a press release sent out on Friday, August 21 the City announced, “Shaw Millennium Park was built for and dedicated to Calgary’s youth who often tell us it’s drab and boring. We’re providing young urban artists a chance to work with an acclaimed professional artist to visually animate this space.” In short the City gave the users the paint and pointed them in the direction of a wall on the Landmark building to unveil their masterpieces.

More amazingly the local youth would be “under the guidance of internationally acclaimed urban artist The Kid Belo.” What a great idea and opportunity for Calgary’s kids!

What could go wrong, right? After all the press release continues on to say, “The urban artists will be visually identified as authorized to create this work” and “a peer review process will be facilitated by The City so that only the best work will be allowed to stay. The Kid Belo will work with the young artists to ensure all artwork is appropriate for the space.”

Apparently The City and The Kid Belo must have fell asleep at some point because Shaw Millennium Park was completely trashed in just two days. (See Michael Platt’s article in the Calgary Sun for all the details on what went wrong.)

As the press release says, “artwork will only be permitted in a certain area of the park.  Anything outside that area will be considered graffiti and vandalism.”

Well it looks like there is A LOT of vandalism then. Just take a look at the Sun picture from the interior of the men’s room! I wonder if any of the paint ended up on the correct wall?

The behaviour of the perpetrators is simply despicable. They were given an opportunity and they wasted it. And for what? To be seen as punk-asses by the rest of the city? Way to ruin it for everybody.

Not to mention the outcome of this project just gives “art” a bad name. The ramifications of which could be felt through public perception and funding for years to come.

Normally I would say a project like this is a fantastic idea. Calgary needs to look at ways of empowering citizens to improve our lot and make our home a better place. But where were the controls? Surely the City knew something like this COULD happen. They even said addressed it in the press release. So where was the supervision? Did they just leave the paint in the park for anyone to use? Clearly the perpetrators were not “visually identified as authorized to create this work”.

With so much going so spectacularly wrong the question becomes who’s at fault? (We already know who’s going to foot the bill. That’d be you and me. But I’d suggest the cleanup comes out of the budget of the offending department’s budget. You break it; you bought it.)

Do we blame the vandals entirely? Does The Kid Belo deserve some of the blame? Regardless I’d suggest the City is going to have to shoulder the responsibility on this one and admit the program clearly had a massive hole in it and was beyond poorly planned. Whoever was in charge of the program needs to step up, take the blame, and publicly apologize for allowing a beautiful iconic park to be so thoroughly destroyed.

Sadly, today much more than just a park was destroyed.

PS – In an unrelated note congratulations to Rachael Seupersad for her appointment yesterday as the City of Calgary’s Superintendent, Public Art. I hope her department isn’t in charge of this program, because if it is, she may have the shortest tenure for a City employee of all time.

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Tags: arts, Calgary, Calgary Sun, graffiti, John Mar, Michael Platt, Politics, Shaw Millennium Park, The Kid Belo
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Watching Calgary City Council debate the ward boundaries for the 2010 election last night was one of the funniest moments I think I've seen in that haloed chamber. I mean funny as in sad. Like a comedy of errors. A comedy of people so deep in trouble the only way out was to thoroughly embarrass themselves further.

It was a debacle for council to even keep straight what each motion was, whether it took eight or 10 votes to pass or reject it, and what the implications were for voting for or against that particular motion. At one point the mayor even apologized to members of the media awaiting their final decision for how convoluted the whole process was.

My favourite quote of the night could have been this one:

Mayor: "Is everyone clear on the question". Several aldermen: "No!"

But instead it is from this exchange between Alderman John Mar and Mayor Bronconnier:

Ald. Mar: "It's somewhat murky here." Mayor: "Murky began months ago."

Murky did indeed begin months ago when council decided they wanted to add one more direction to the returning officer's mandate (a mandate first approved in 1990): keep five wards on the east side of Deerfoot Trail. (Why they couldn't have thought of that six months earlier before they set her to work is beyond me.) Then things got really murky when council didn't wait for her to do her job and decided to start drawing their own boundaries. A process called gerrymandering. You can read all my thoughts on how we got to this point here, here, here, and here.

I live tweeted the whole thing and you can follow that via the #yyccc hashtag on Twitter starting at about 8pm last night.

What were the results? Everything was thrown out. Council admitted failure, apologized to the returning officer and passed only minor boundary changes from the current ones.

Here are the new boundaries for 2010:
As silly as it all seems, I'm happy council admitted the error of their ways and made the best decision they could have given the mess they created for themselves.

What are the next steps however? That is the big question. There is some thinking that these changes MAY put the City in violation of the Municipal Governance Act but I don't think it does. Taking a look at the council agenda attachment showing the deviation of population between each new ward, everything looks a-okay on that front too.

Either way, expect two major things to come out of this:

1. Expect a council policy to allow an outside group determine ward boundaries in the future, so council won't get their fingers in the pie and make a mess of things like this again. This is pretty much exactly what they have done for determining their salaries and I think it has worked well. Ald. Farrell tried to pass a motion to this effect last night but as several members of council didn't like her wording and 9:30pm was fast approaching, it was referred to administration to wordsmith and come back with a proposal in September.
2. The next major redistricting - which normally happens every nine years (2010 being the ninth year) - will probably happen in time for 2013 now. With more time available between now and then I fully expect council to explore the possibilities of increasing the number of aldermen to created a more fair balance of representation. And a more manageable workload. You can read my thoughts on this topic here.
   

Stay tuned. Hopefully the next steps will be more steady than the last ones.

Tags: calgary city council, Dave Bronconnier, John Mar, Twitter
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Watching Calgary City Council debate the ward boundaries for the 2010 election last night was one of the funniest moments I think I’ve seen in that hallowed chamber. I mean funny as in sad. Like a comedy of errors. A comedy of people so deep in trouble the only way out was to thoroughly embarrass themselves further.

It was a debacle for council to even keep straight what each motion was, whether it took eight or 10 votes to pass or reject it, and what the implications were for voting for or against that particular motion. At one point the mayor even apologized to members of the media awaiting their final decision for how convoluted the whole process was.

My favourite quote of the night could have been this one:

Mayor: “Is everyone clear on the question”. Several aldermen: “No!“

But instead it is from this exchange between Alderman John Mar and Mayor Bronconnier:

Ald. Mar: “It’s somewhat murky here.” Mayor: “Murky began months ago.”

Murky did indeed begin months ago when council decided they wanted to add one more direction to the returning officer’s mandate (a mandate first approved in 1990): keep five wards on the east side of Deerfoot Trail. (Why they couldn’t have thought of that six months earlier before they set her to work is beyond me.) Then things got really murky when council didn’t wait for her to do her job and decided to start drawing their own boundaries. A process called gerrymandering. You can read all my thoughts on how we got to this point here, here, here, and here.

I live tweeted the whole thing and you can follow that via the #yyccc hashtag on Twitter starting at about 8pm last night.

What were the results? Everything was thrown out. Council admitted failure, apologized to the returning officer and passed only minor boundary changes from the current ones.

Here are the new boundaries for 2010:
As silly as it all seems, I’m happy council admitted the error of their ways and made the best decision they could have given the mess they created for themselves.

What are the next steps however? That is the big question. There is some thinking that these changes MAY put the City in violation of the Municipal Governance Act but I don’t think it does. Taking a look at the council agenda attachment showing the deviation of population between each new ward, everything looks a-okay on that front too.

Either way, expect two major things to come out of this:

1. Expect a council policy to allow an outside group determine ward boundaries in the future, so council won’t get their fingers in the pie and make a mess of things like this again. This is pretty much exactly what they have done for determining their salaries and I think it has worked well. Ald. Farrell tried to pass a motion to this effect last night but as several members of council didn’t like her wording and 9:30pm was fast approaching, it was referred to administration to wordsmith and come back with a proposal in September.
2. The next major redistricting – which normally happens every nine years (2010 being the ninth year) – will probably happen in time for 2013 now. With more time available between now and then I fully expect council to explore the possibilities of increasing the number of aldermen to created a more fair balance of representation. And a more manageable workload. You can read my thoughts on this topic here.

Stay tuned. Hopefully the next steps will be more steady than the last ones.

Tags: Calgary, calgary city council, Dave Bronconnier, John Mar, Politics, Twitter
Posted in Alberta Business | | Comments Off