[timun]

Originally Posted by RobWard11

Hello all, as my name indicates, I am Rob Ward. I am running in Ward 11.

I was told about this thread by a friend and thought I would post just to give a little info on myself and what is being said.

In the last comment, I was labelled as "cookie-cutter copy of Bertram, DeFraine, and Jamieson". I just want to explain how I am actually quite different from the others.

Hahaha, I appreciate the effort to elaborate. I certainly did not expect any of the candidates to respond directly to my post on a Calgary Flames fan forum. I'm going to chop your post up a little to respond more directly to your points.

<(accurate, IMO) summaries of Bertram, DeFraine and Jamieson campaigns>

So you're thinking, "great Rob, but how are YOU different?"

I base everything on feedback, data, and facts from people. For example, I talk about finding efficiencies with the city. Why do I say this? Because I have sat down and talked with numerous employees, managers, and department heads at the city. The common thing I hear back is, "we know there is waste, I have ideas on how to improve, but nobody listens or wants to hear about it." THAT is what I want to help change. I want to champion these ideas and innovative thinkers to improve our city and deliver our core services better.

I am not running a campaign of brainless "lower taxes for all!" catchlines. That is overly simple and used by people that don't actually know the inner workings of the city, budgets, and service lines and are simply looking for a job and will say whatever it takes to get elected.

[...]

I talk about fiscal responsibility because the employees themselves have told me there is room for improvement. I am sure you yourself have seen examples of wasted money at City Hall. Many departments are currently run on a "spend it or lose it" budget mentality. This needs to change. I want to reward innovative thinkers who come up with ways to save money and do things more efficiently.

I appreciate the nuance in your position that "a brainless 'lower taxes for all!' policy" is nonsense. That said, I somewhat lumped you in with Bertram/DeFraine/Jamieson with respect to this because you speak of "doing things more efficiently", which is something the likes of Bertram/DeFraine/Jamieson use as an empty platitude. I can tell from your response you don't mean it to be an empty platitude, but frankly in my own dealings with the City—mostly with Corporate Properties, CPS and CFD—I already see a lot of the sort of "efficiency-finding" that you speak about. And the "use it or lose it" budgeting is still the way of doing things at most departments, but I don't see it being plowed into unnecessary junk to pad out the end of fiscal year numbers. In fact, dealing with Corporate Properties there's a never-ending list of deferred maintenance and capital improvements to be made to buildings all over the place, and it's all worthwhile spending.

Yes, City Council does need change. This thread title proves that the argumentative, divisive, clique-filled council we currently have needs to improve. I am about working together collaboratively to get things done on time, on budget, and without the distractions of arguing, cliques, and division within Council.

I talk about YOU the resident a lot, because that is who I would be working for, YOU. We have seen it so much in Council, members working for the interests of parties, special interest groups, unions, or other political candidates. People have said they are sick of Council working for the needs of others and not the residents. That is why I am not aligning with outside groups and that is why I put emphasis on working for YOU, the resident.

[...]

Lastly, yes, it is time to end the divisiveness and cliques at City Hall. I have watched many Council meetings over the last two years and it can be downright embarrassing to see the grandstanding and arguing amongst members of Council. Growing up my dad always said, "sometimes you have to work with people you don't get along with or you don't agree with. It doesn't matter, you have a job to do, get it done."

As a constituent I don't care if my councillor gets along with the others as long as they support the policies I think are worthwhile. I read your statements here and I think in retrospect you're coming at the issue of "ending the divisiveness" from a perspective that I don't really consider as much of an issue. I look at it like this: there is a definite divide between urbanist and populist/suburbanist councillors. They don't get along. And I'm fine with that. I'm GLAD they don't get along, because the populist/suburbanist councillors—Farkas, Chu, etc.—are idiots. I don't support a lot of the policy positions the likes of Druh Farrell and Naheed Nenshi have taken over the years, but I do appreciate that they actually don't get along with the likes of Chu, Farkas, Magliocca and so on. Farkas in particular is a useless self-aggrandizing ####-disturber, who purposefully causes disaccord on council for his own political gains.

I think what you mean by "time to end divisiveness at City Hall" is that you won't be a Farkas. Which is great; Farkas sucks. But, I don't want a councillor who is afraid of being a Nenshi, who will call the likes of Farkas out on their bull####.