Quote:
Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
My father-in-law used to be high up in the city administration, and a councillor he had tremendous respect for was Dale Hodges. He said Hodges worked 10-12 hours a day fielding any and all requests from his constituents and helping them get whatever they needed done with the City. Easy to see how a guy like that served 10 terms and never made any enemies (besides the Hell's Angels).
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I've known Dale well and done some work with him over the past twenty years. I would agree, Dale pretty much lived at the City Hall. He was competent, knowledgeable and had a good memory. I personally witnessed him pulling a 10-yr old report from a huge stacked pile of reports on the floor in his office just to prove a point. I would also agree that he was able to maintain the most politically-independent status among all of his alderman-contemporaries during his service. No developer, consultant, civil servant or community activist could ever claim having Dale in their pocket. He would always support the motions he liked and oppose the ones he didn't regardless of the lobbying efforts of supporters and/or opponents.
Having said that, being on Council that long made him (and, probably, would make anyone) arrogant, dismissive and non-collaborative. He'd made a personal judgement on an issue and would simply stick to that judgement in voting on a matter. He was known to be quite vicious and crafty in blocking something when he didn't like it. In his last term, councillors just stopped seeking his support on important matters and did not care to support motions relevant to his ward.
Rick Bell's article on Nenshi's shortcomings is bang on. He was never a Dale Hodges-type politician though. Dale could care less if he was popular or not. It seems that popularity means everything for Nenshi. He is still popular and I would not be surprised if Nenshi gets re-elected easily.