Quote:
Originally Posted by llama64
Most academics are - and I worry it won't translate well with 90% of the voting population.
Nenshi is smart. Too smart for politics in my opinion. He should be working as a consultant/advisory/critic for the City of Calgary - not as a political icon.
But... so far he's by far the best choice as far as I can tell. Hehr hasn't released much info so far but he's likely middle of the road. The rest of the pack are also rans with the exception of MacIver who epitomizes Calgary in the last century rather then the Calgary of today.
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That's the danger with academics. But actually listening to Nenshi he doesn't seem to fall into the trap of other academics who make a run at politics. He seems to have the ability to boil down, let's say, less sexy yet very important topics like governance into a clear and and very understandable terms. His acadamic background as a lecturer is clearly serving him well in being able to effectively communicate verbally.
In my mind he is exactly the kind of leader Calgary needs right now. Calgary's going through a transition where it needs to start managing itself in totally different ways as it deals with very different issues at different scales than it did as a city of 500,000. Nenshi understands this fact, and more importantly understands
what needs to be done the change how things are done. The current procurement policy allegations are just a symptom of a larger problem of really outdated ways of doing things. Calgary has been suffering from the fact that many of the people in charge aren't truly effective governors or managers for an organization like the City.
I've met and like Hehr, but watching him in the first few days of his campaign, even his basic understanding of Civic issues seemed to be lacking. Small example, but he doesn't actually understand what TOD stands for. He was calling it Transportation-Orientated Development. Anyone that followed processes like Plan It or has a basic understanding of urban planning knows that it's Transit-Oriented Development. Sounds minor, but it doesn't inspire a huge amount of confidence.
McIver on the otherhand often shows up to Council without a true understanding of the issue. You see him asking ridiculous questions to administration to simply understand what's going on, rather than have prepared himself in advance. As a result he ends up making these ridiculous and hasty stands against different issues going through council. I cringe at the thought of him attempting to manage such a large and complex organization.