2013 Calgary Municipal Election Thread

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by getbak

Fear will keep the local communities in line.

You've clearly never gone to a community association meeting.

The lower the stakes, the higher the emotional involvement.

[CaptainYooh]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

Municipal politics are local by definition. If you had one big group to vote for I'm pretty sure you'd end up with party lists, which I wouldn't want at all.

Well, here's one example of the back side of this coin: Druh Farrell was elected by 11,909 voters in her ward (over 10,657 votes for runner-up candidate). This is approximately 1% of the Calgary population. Yet, the amount of influence Druh Farrell exerts on Calgary's appearance, planning policy and economic development JUST through her being a perennial member of Calgary Planning Commission is enormous. I don't want to speculate if she'd be re-elected in a no-ward system; but if she were, that would be a better confirmation of her political and planning aspirations regarding Calgary; and if she weren't, well...

[SebC]

Originally Posted by Freeway

Who all's running for mayor this time around? Nenshi and several outsiders?

http://calgarydemocracy.ca/levels/ca...s/2013/ballots

[Flamenspiel]

Lots of back and forth talk about taxes and the fact that they are beginning to approach tax levels in other municipalities.

If taxes was your main concern, which candidates are supporting lower taxes? Secondly what has Nenshi done to keep taxes low, if anything?

[SebC]

Originally Posted by Flamenspiel

Lots of back and forth talk about taxes and the fact that they are beginning to approach tax levels in other municipalities.

If taxes was your main concern, which candidates are supporting lower taxes? Secondly what has Nenshi done to keep taxes low, if anything?

Our current city council increased developer levies, which means that the portion of the infrastructure that is paid for with taxes is decreased. In the long run, this also incentivises a more sustainable city form, which should further decrease taxes (or avoid an increase). Nenshi (and Farrell, I think) voted against the deal with developers, but they did so because it did not go far enough to shift the costs of development towards the developers and away from the general taxpayer.

I'm not going to name names, but if you're primarily concerned about taxes the best question to ask your candidates is whether or not they'll vote to increase developer levies (by at least $7K/house average) when the current fee structure expires. If they won't say yes, then it doesn't matter what else they say about taxes, because they're putting the developers' interests ahead of yours.

[Jedi Ninja]

Originally Posted by mykalberta

Compared to the other big city in this province I can tell you that we pay at least 11% less in property taxes for two similarly located condos in either City with the Calgary condo assessed at 8% lower property value.

IMO anyone who thinks property taxes are too high in Calgary dont know what high property taxes are.

$100 a month on an averaged priced condo is peanuts, and thats even taking in my biased opinion that condos that takes up air (for the most part) are taxed at the same rate as a house that takes up land.

The property taxes only look good because Calgary offloads much more into user fees than other cities, taking almost as much in transit and waste fees and levies as it does in residential property taxes... these are buried in the "Sales of goods and services" in the graph below.

Here is yet another city comparison.



http://www.calgary.ca/CA/fs/Pages/Pl...-Revenues.aspx

[Bunk]

Interestingly, especially to this board, TJ Galiardi is out there supporting Gian-Carlo Carra in ward 9. I heard he door knocked at his house, and TJ said he thought he was awesome and if he could come out and door knock with him. Carra told me "he thought he was being punked", but TJ is seriously a fan.

TJ Galiardi ‏@TJGaliardi2h
@gccarra good example of GC taking old, meaningless rules and fixing them to make our communities better!

[mykalberta]

Some guy named Katz has his signs up all over the place in Riverbend, if its based on number of signs; Carra is going to get ousted.

I wont vote for Katz simply because he lives in Tuscany and looks to be a helicopter candidate but he for suredly has signage

[mykalberta]

Originally Posted by Jedi Ninja

The property taxes only look good because Calgary offloads much more into user fees than other cities, taking almost as much in transit and waste fees and levies as it does in residential property taxes... these are buried in the "Sales of goods and services" in the graph below.

Here is yet another city comparison.



http://www.calgary.ca/CA/fs/Pages/Pl...-Revenues.aspx

Saskatoon isnt a true comparison. I have paid property tax in both of Albertas major Cities an on a comparable condo price/size/location Edmonton's taxes are at least 10% higher than Calgarys. ETS doesnt charge any less than Calgary transit and the fees on the Epcor bills are no different than the fees on the Enmax bills.

MLS is a great way to look up the property tax on properties in different cities and people can compare it for them selves. I dont think on average $100 per person per month is unreasonable for fire/police/garbage/and all other city services. If you choose to purchase a luxury property then you will pay more taxes but you should also be able to afford the extra taxes that go along with it. I am not advocating higher taxes, but to say Calgary's taxation is too high is laughable.

To compare Saskatoon to Calgary is laughable. Its like comparing Calgary to New York.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by mykalberta

Some guy named Katz has his signs up all over the place in Riverbend, if its based on number of signs; Carra is going to get ousted.

I wont vote for Katz simply because he lives in Tuscany and looks to be a helicopter candidate but he for suredly has signage

Ward 9 is a weird one. It has the inner-city communities like Renfrew, Bridgeland, and Inglewood, where Carra has strong support; but it also has Dover, Ogden, and Riverbend, where Carra did poorly last time.

After the last election, the city released the poll-by-poll vote counts, and Carra easily won the neighbourhoods where he's strong, and was destroyed in the neighbourhoods where he's weak. In the end, he won by less than 500 votes and only 31% of the vote. This time around, there's only 3 candidates (so far), so if there's a strong anti-Carra campaign, he could get ousted.

[Rathji]

During the last election, Carra hopped onto the 302 and rode it downtown, shaking hands etc. When he was done his thing, I called him over to sit by me and talked to him the rest of the way downtown.

I was impressed by quite a few things he said, and convinced my mom, who lived in Ogden at the time, to vote for him. She was kind of concerned though, as she had received no campaign literature of any type from him. Hearing those numbers, I suspect maybe he didn't campaign that hard in those areas.

If that is correct, and he does the same again, you could be right.

[getbak]

Yeah, I think in 2010 the three front-runners were each from a different part of the Ward and probably focused their efforts on the area they were from, which led to the geographic split that happened.

I believe Carra is focusing more on the parts of the Ward where he didn't do as well last time around. I live in Renfrew and haven't received anything from him yet, although, a few of the neighbours have Carra signs on their lawns. I haven't seen or heard anything from the other two candidates yet. Of course, the campaign doesn't actually officially start for another two weeks.

[Bigtime]

So retiring Ward 1 Alderman Hodges has "anointed" his choice to replace him, Ward Sutherland.

Could this give Ward the name recognition he needs against Chris Harper, or can the endorsement work against him?

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

So retiring Ward 1 Alderman Hodges has "anointed" his choice to replace him, Ward Sutherland.

Could this give Ward the name recognition he needs against Chris Harper, or can the endorsement work against him?

Sutherland should set his campaign slogan to "Ward One-therland". I got so confused when I saw the Herald article today about him. I thought "why is Dale Hodges endorsing Ward 1?" That's as neutral as one can get for their constituents!

[Resolute 14]

Hmm, nobody but Keating declared in Ward 12. I always think it is important to vote, but given there will be no race for mayor, if my councilor is acclaimed, then there really won't be any point this time around.

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

Hmm, nobody but Keating declared in Ward 12. I always think it is important to vote, but given there will be no race for mayor, if my councilor is acclaimed, then there really won't be any point this time around.

No one but Ray Jones running so far in Ward 5 for me either.

I'll go vote, but what a pointless exercise doing so. The Mayor vote is going to be a landslide, the Councillor vote won't even happen, because he'll be acclaimed, and I really don't care about the school trustees, and will likely decline a ballot for that.

(For school trustees, I have no idea why it's even an elected position to start with. But even beyond that, I have no clue who any of the candidates are, and their websites don't convince me one way or the other - really they all say the same things. I'm not going to vote for someone based on how their name looks on the ballot)

[c.t.ner]

Originally Posted by mykalberta

Some guy named Katz has his signs up all over the place in Riverbend, if its based on number of signs; Carra is going to get ousted.

I wont vote for Katz simply because he lives in Tuscany and looks to be a helicopter candidate but he for suredly has signage

I guess the question becomes are the signs on public land or private property?

Carra is a pretty decent guy and a strong councillor, but he can rub people really wrong. I'm not in the city, co I don't have boots on the ground, but my feeling would be that Carra is pretty safe in regards to his seat. 2010 was different because there was no incumbent and Carra had to build a name for himself with a smaller warchest. Now he's a sitting incumbent he'll have more resources to focus on the ares where he did weaker, plus he'll have a strong name recognition.

[CaptainYooh]

Originally Posted by c.t.ner

...Carra is a <...> a strong councillor, ...

That was not my impression of him so far. He does not articulate his thoughts and his mind well and frequently gets lost in speaking on a motion. Sometimes, he argues with himself while speaking on a specific motion. That is, he could start speaking in support of a motion and then change his mind in the middle of speaking for it to against it. More, he doesn't get the respect of other aldermen yet. I've seen their eyes rolling when Carra spoke on various occasions. In fact, they even make disparaging comments, openly - during public hearings, about him mumbling forever and not speaking to the point of the motion or item being discussed. They rarely, if ever, make comments of this nature about politically strong aldermen (Stevenson, Jones, Farrell, Hodges, Low).

On a positive note, I agree that Carra seems like a nice and personable guy. He is a proponent of inner city density intensification, which I like and support.

[JonDuke]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

So retiring Ward 1 Alderman Hodges has "anointed" his choice to replace him, Ward Sutherland.

Could this give Ward the name recognition he needs against Chris Harper, or can the endorsement work against him?

Here's the actual article for anyone interested:
http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/ca...449/story.html

Ward is an awesome family man who's also been a very active volunteer in the community. He has a great business accumen and, with his experience, will do a great job if elected to council.

[Addick]

Originally Posted by JonDuke

Ward is an awesome family man

I'm genuinely curious, how does being a good family man make him a good candidate to be an elected official/politician?