Quote:
Originally Posted by btimbit
I'm willing to cut this council some slack just because we knew ahead of time that this was going to be a very tough stretch for the city. Not a coincidence a lot of the former council left when they did
|
Yeah, the previous councillors who didn't run for re-election saw the writing on the wall: they knew this council was in for a rough ride and they got out while the going was good.
I also voted for Gondek not because I really want to vote
for her, but because she was the least objectionable candidate. I did the same with Nenshi vs. Smith in the previous election, and while I was deeply disappointed with Nenshi's last term I'm still confident a Smith mayorship would have been a disaster.
I wouldn't say I'm underwhelmed by Gondek, but I didn't have particularly high hopes anyway. I'm just... "whelmed". I don't give a lot of the complaints about her performance so far a lot of credence:
- The "climate emergency" declaration is just empty "virtue signalling", and I don't really have a problem with it. It's not really fundamentally shifting City policy, they were already trying to take a lead on environmental "friendliness" beforehand anyway. So what if the City "declares a climate emergency"? They're trying to buy themselves some "green" cred and shed the backwoods O&G roughneck hillbilly image that Calgary has.
- The "event centre" deal collapsing was entirely on CSEC as far as I'm concerned. I don't really know precisely why CSEC took on the immense risk of all the cost overruns, other than I suspect they were tired of what they saw as meddlesome CoC/CMLC management. If left completely up to CSEC there's no doubt in my mind the final product was going to be a complete piece of #### anyway; I was shocked and appalled at how crappy the design as presented in the DP application was.
- "Doing something" about the theft of catalytic converters, homeless tent city by the DI, the C-Train having become the meth-head express, the freedumb marches on the weekends, etc. is not something the mayor alone has the power to do. Every other city in developed countries on the planet is facing these issues, and not a single one has solved them. Most of these are the culmination of years and years and years of pleas for drug treatment programs and reformed social safety net policies going almost completely ignored. The freedumb marches are a greater overall societal problem that our council, any council, is not in a position to simply "deal with". If Gondek really had the power to dictate police action against these protestors then they would be right about how we live under a "dictatorship". But, being that she doesn't, they get to protest their twisted little hearts out.
- The 3.87% property tax increase is a relatively modest one, and doesn't even keep up with inflation and growth. As I've written on this forum before, there are a great many spoiled brats in our electorate who expect everything for nothing. They expect better service levels, and get apoplectic when they're given the bill for it. As I've also said before: any of the candidates in the last election who promised to cut taxes and keep service levels constant was either a liar or an idiot, or both. People also conveniently forget that part of the property tax increase was a backdoor increase from the provincial government.
I will say she needs better communications staff, and the $100,000 pledge to fight Quebec's religious "neutrality" law was
incredibly stupid.