2010 Calgary Civic Election issues ?

[Slava]

Originally Posted by First Lady

You guess? Have you read it?

That is a blog deriding the liberals in general. There is no discussion of fixed elections dates.

And even if there were, what would it matter? I have met you and you certainly didn't strike me as someone who was narrow minded and would think a woman can't form her own opinions without consulting her husband!

Well its deriding the Liberals policy announcement. Amongst the proposals (and lets be honest you didn't have to dig too deep as it was right there to see!) were fixed election dates. Yes, I read it when you posted it and commented in that same thread about the hilarity of the blog post.

Of course women can formulate their opinions independent of their husbands (as long as we allow it!). You could also freely admit that you agree with the Liberals now and again. Don't worry....you won't burst into flames!

[First Lady]

Originally Posted by Slava

Well its deriding the Liberals policy announcement. Amongst the proposals (and lets be honest you didn't have to dig too deep as it was right there to see!) were fixed election dates. Yes, I read it when you posted it and commented in that same thread about the hilarity of the blog post.

You will note, he crafted it as to not speak against the ones he does agree with.

Of course women can formulate their opinions independent of their husbands (as long as we allow it!). You could also freely admit that you agree with the Liberals now and again. Don't worry....you won't burst into flames!

Absolutely. No flames, but I have taken heat in the past about my (little) red stripe.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by First Lady

You will note, he crafted it as to not speak against the ones he does agree with.



Absolutely. No flames, but I have taken heat in the past about my (little) red stripe.

That red stripe could qualify you to be mayor though!

[frinkprof]

I thought this thread was about municipal issues, not provincial ones.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by frinkprof

I thought this thread was about municipal issues, not provincial ones.

1/2 the issues in the thread are provincial though....

[frinkprof]

Originally Posted by Slava

1/2 the issues in the thread are provincial though....

Yes. Insofar that municipalities are a creature of the province, regional issues are the domain of the regional partnerships set up by the province, and that cities rely on the province to chip in for some capital expenditures, anyway.

Surely provincial electoral reform and the merits of each provincial political party's proposals for that don't have anything to do with municipal issues though.

[jammies]

Originally Posted by Dan02

I don't disagree with a lot of your issues jammies, my only issue is the narrowmindedness of your position. You've determined what your minimum needs/wants/whatever is and now you want to force that upon everyone else.

Explain to me how wanting further expansion of the city to pay for itself is:

-narrow-minded
-forcing my needs/wants on everyone else

Use diagrams if you have to. Extra marks for neatness.

Thinking through the consequences of an arguably necessary course of action, and explaining how those consequences are manageable and reasonable is what I am after. As far as I can tell, vigourously defending an increasingly untenable and expensive status quo is yours.

[frinkprof]

Originally Posted by Slava

So when are you announcing for Ward 9 anyway?

Ward 4 apparently.

http://jane4ward4.blogspot.com/

http://twitter.com/Jane4Ward4

[Slava]

FL, which other like-minded aldermanic candidates have you been in touch with? I can't say that I'm against anything that you mentioned in the blog but don't live in ward 4...

[Slava]

Oh, and I forgot to mention congrats on putting your name forward and good luck!

[First Lady]

Originally Posted by Slava

FL, which other like-minded aldermanic candidates have you been in touch with? I can't say that I'm against anything that you mentioned in the blog but don't live in ward 4...

Richard Dur is one of them. He was Paul Hinman's campaign manager in Glenmore and will be running in Ward 14. He hasn't officially announced yet.

Communciation with candidates from the other wards is ongoing. It's still very early in the race, so information on this will be released when appropriate.

.... and thank you.

[Muta]

Tax neutral incentives in the inner-city need to be adpoted in order to have greater, and denser, amounts of people living closer to the core. The way it's set up now is that people pay more taxes, given property values, in the inner-city. This is ass backwards.

There's also an issue with low supply of housing in the inner city. Once the supply of properties goes up, property values come down (as do taxes), and people will move closer to downtown. Supply and demand. Developers should be highly, highly encouraged to build medium to highrise towers in the core and the surrounding perimeter. The City of Calgary would have a vested interest in this as well, as it works within the frame of Plan It, and reduced the long-term stress caused from the ever-expanding infrastructure in this city.

I do agree whole-heartedly that people have a right to live in a huge house on the perimeter of the city. Whether they should, is the question they everyone has to answer. I made the choice to pay more to live downtown, yes, but at the same time, I also incur faaaar less transportation costs (and associated costs), as things are more readily available to me (retail, LRT, buses, parks, etc.). I rarely drive my car anywhere, my carbon foorprint is tiny, and all my amenities are within walking distance. Including getting to work, and using the fantastic park system already in place (who needs a backyard when I have Prince's Island - for free??). And, I use existing infrastructure which has likely been paid for long ago. This is why I am an advocate of the new pedestrian bridges. It's an upgrade to inner city infrastructure with a minimal cost when you compare them to the massive, massive other infrastucture projects that are always being built just to support the outward expansion of this city.

The new mayor needs to adopt a platform of encouraging / supporting high-volume urban development in order to sustainably carry our city into the future (which is a green one, by the way, no matter how you look at it), and bring our city into the upper echelons of great metro areas with 1 million+ people. Once property prices inner-city are manageable again, people will migrate back downtown and infrastructure demand will be lessened. Existing infrastructure will be upgraded, and subsequently used more efficiently.

Imagine an even further expanded LRT network (multiple locations within downtown), and bike lanes on every road to encourage more bike traffic as opposed to car traffic. With less cars on the road, traffic goes down, bike usage goes up, people are able to move around more effectively, our polluting levels reduce, and the social benefits of human relations goes up as well (people living and commuting closer together means greater communication and social interaction between residents).

[algernon]

Where have the suburbanists gone? *ninja*

Any new planks, F L?

[kermitology]

Originally Posted by First Lady

And they certainly have the greatest benefit of the transit system.

I don't really agree here. I live in the East end of Inglewood, and the only transit service I can really get is the 1 and the 305. According to the development "rules" in Calgary, I should be no more than 100m from transit. I'm definitely more. The 305 is much further. Then the only other transit line available to me is the 302 if I walk most of the way through Inglewood.

If I worked anywhere else in the city other than downtown, I'd have a heck of a time getting there on transit.

[firebug]

How about revamping the taxi commission?

It seems that there are far too few taxi licenses available and the entrenched commission members have no incentive to create more.

~bug

[kermitology]

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

No. That's the huge gripe. If they did, the prices would be much higher and moving to the edge of the city wouldn't be so attractive. Right now the only negative is travel time. With our road happy city council, traffic really isn't that bad for a city of our footprint, so people will continue flooding to the edges. You hit a point however where there isn't enough tax revenue to support all of this infrastructure to low density areas, as the US is having happen now. http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/story?id=2131042&page=1

I don't think that's completely true.

The developers are responsible for building the infrastructure at first, but they generally only put in the bare minimum (ahem: 52 ST at 130 AVE) and then leave it to the city to maintain the damn thing or properly support it for the population that uses it.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by kermitology

I don't think that's completely true.

The developers are responsible for building the infrastructure at first, but they generally only put in the bare minimum (ahem: 52 ST at 130 AVE) and then leave it to the city to maintain the damn thing or properly support it for the population that uses it.

When you are throwing another 50,000 people on a storm water trunk line or a fresh water line, you don't just need the infrastructure in that neighbourhood built, you are affecting everything down/upstream of that.

Same with roads, a signalized intersection that was paid for by another development between a new development and downtown might have been sufficient prior to the new neighbourhood. Now because of those extra people an interchange is required. Who pays for it? Everyone, even those people that will never use it and had nothing to do with the increased traffic at that location.

Looking at the extent to which these projects should be paid for by levies on developers/different property tax models is a very important issue in my opinion. If the cost of multi-million dollar interchanges was built into the cost of your house, maybe something in an established neighbourhood would be more appealing.

[frinkprof]

Originally Posted by kermitology

I don't really agree here. I live in the East end of Inglewood, and the only transit service I can really get is the 1 and the 305. According to the development "rules" in Calgary, I should be no more than 100m from transit. I'm definitely more. The 305 is much further. Then the only other transit line available to me is the 302 if I walk most of the way through Inglewood.

If I worked anywhere else in the city other than downtown, I'd have a heck of a time getting there on transit.

I believe it is actually 400 m.

Originally Posted by firebug

How about revamping the taxi commission?

It seems that there are far too few taxi licenses available and the entrenched commission members have no incentive to create more.

~bug

Agree here. Trying to get a taxi in Calgary at any place other than the airport or downtown is ridiculous.

[Muta]

Originally Posted by frinkprof

I believe it is actually 400 m.

Agree here. Trying to get a taxi in Calgary at any place other than the airport or downtown is ridiculous.

I actually had two cabbies 'battling it out' for my services while I waited in Eau Claire last week. They were staring holes through my head, analyzing my every move and pulling in front of each other to get my attention. I haven't seen that kind of competition since I was in Toronto. I felt like such a princess, it was gleeful.

I just couldn't decide between the two, so I decided to walk instead. I broke the hearts, and wallets, of both cabbies.

[kermitology]

Originally Posted by frinkprof

I believe it is actually 400 m.

Agree here. Trying to get a taxi in Calgary at any place other than the airport or downtown is ridiculous.

Yeah, sorry.. foggy memory.