2013 Calgary Municipal Election Thread

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by Muta

I would actually argue that voter apathy only suggests more citizens declined to vote because they knew their candidate was going to win. Those that wanted to see change are usually the ones more motivated to get out and vote.

I would argue that had more people turned up to vote, Nenshi would have wiped the proverbial floor with his opponent's sweaty ballsacks (including Sandra Hunter's).

Yeah I think this is it.

If people were adamantly against Nenshi they would have turned out to vote. The more likely thing is majority of people were happy with Nenshi, knew he would win, and didn't bother to turn out to vote.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

Sometimes the 'anti-spending' types actually love spending like drunken sailors on law and order policies. A friend of mine who works in law enforcement actually hates Nenshi with a passion, because Nenshi's platform last election dared question the 'dumptruck full of money for police = always good policy' mentality and demanded of Rick Hansen that the police demonstrate the value in increased funding.

Also recall Dr. No only said 'yes' when it came to police budgets.

I am trying to find the the vote from 2011 on the Police budget to see who voted where and to see if the outcome would be changed but so far I havent found it.

[HockeyIlliterate]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

No, what happened in Detroit is called "Extreme White Flight" which will never happen in a Canadian city.

Are you disputing that Detroit continually increased taxes on a continually decreasing population and tax base?

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by HockeyIlliterate

Are you disputing that Detroit continually increased taxes on a continually decreasing population and tax base?

No, I'm saying their tax base fled the city because of white flight, not because of taxation policies as you claim. Like most major American cities, white people fled to the suburbs and that tax base wasn't replaced. It has little to nothing to do with taxation policies.

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by HockeyIlliterate

Are you disputing that Detroit continually increased taxes on a continually decreasing population and tax base?

No, he's trying to highlight that there were circumstances that were broad and at a more marco level that better explains the exodus from Detroit than simply it's taxation policies.

If oil punges to $10/bbl and Fort MacMurray turns into something resembling Detroit are you going to grandstand that the reason why is city council's decisions?

People leaving = lower revenue to fund fixed costs of providing services to territory. Detroit could have left taxes alone or even cut them and bled to death in that scenario too. Not all decisions in life or even in business are made based on one element of marginal cost.

[Table 5]

Fotze, I don't really disagree with anything you said. The extremism does get annoying on both sides. I guess I just have a pet-peeve with people who are always against things, but never for anything. It's easy to play defense, but its much harder to put yourself on the line and stand up for something. I want fiscal responsibility, not fiscal atrophy. I want a "fiscal hawk" to have ideas. How will you increase revenue while not raising taxes? How will you make things more streamlined? Too often its about general platitudes and vague grandstanding.

One of the reasons I was drawn to Nenshi is not only because he has ideas that align with mine, but also because they are based in details, research and a defined policy, and not emotions (even if sometimes it gets emotional). I think Nenshi and his team have done a really solid job of being transparent and trying to communicate the WHY and HOW in their actions. I mean look how a key advisor to the Mayor is on this forum giving answers to every question and giving you insight. Could you ever see Bronco or McIver or Lord ever doing something like that?

[19Yzerman19]

I don't know that I buy this as a win for Wenzel. I mean, Nenshi essentially made the developers, and sprawl vs. community development, the central issue of this whole election process. He did so pretty emphatically, really; there wasn't a lot of equivocation as to what he's for and who he's against on that point. Yet he was elected with about 75% of the vote. That seems to me to be a mandate in favour of his policy views on this particular issue.

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by Table 5

One of the reasons I was drawn to Nenshi is not only because he has ideas that align with mine, but also because they are based in details, research and a defined policy, and not emotions (even if sometimes it gets emotional). I think Nenshi and his team have done a really solid job of being transparent and trying to communicate the WHY and HOW in their actions. I mean look how a key advisor to the Mayor is on this forum giving answers to every question and giving you insight. Could you ever see Bronco or McIver or Lord ever doing something like that?

This. It's one thing Sun readers don't understand about our current mayor - he doesn't create emotionally-charged platform objectives, it's what the city needs to tackle based on working with citizens and city planners.

Sun readers would love to have you think that Nenshi is going to build a huge mosque in downtown Calgary and implement Sharia law on the masses. They'd love to drop that golden nugget if they could.

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by 19Yzerman19

I don't know that I buy this as a win for Wenzel. I mean, Nenshi essentially made the developers, and sprawl vs. community development, the central issue of this whole election process. He did so pretty emphatically, really; there wasn't a lot of equivocation as to what he's for and who he's against on that point. Yet he was elected with about 75% of the vote. That seems to me to be a mandate in favour of his policy views on this particular issue.

I think most Calgarians know sprawl is an issue, but its a lot foggier to say how to manage it. The topic has simply just come out of the woodwork. This is why the sprawl issue worked well for Nenshi; most Calgarians know that their tax dollars are impacted by sprawl and its relieving to hear a candidate bring it to the forefront. Nenshi played all the right cards on this one IMO.

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by 19Yzerman19

I don't know that I buy this as a win for Wenzel. I mean, Nenshi essentially made the developers, and sprawl vs. community development, the central issue of this whole election process. He did so pretty emphatically, really; there wasn't a lot of equivocation as to what he's for and who he's against on that point. Yet he was elected with about 75% of the vote. That seems to me to be a mandate in favour of his policy views on this particular issue.

Cal Wenzel and his cronies knew they couldn't defeat Nenshi for the mayor's seat, so their strategy was to elect enough developer-friendly candidates to form a majority on council without Nenshi's support. It would appear as if they were successful in that goal, unfortunately.

[Barnet Flame]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

Nenshi is going to build a huge mosque in downtown Calgary and implement Sharia law on the masses..

Looks like I picked the wrong time to book my ski trip.

[Bertuzzied]

Well I hope this is the last time I vote for Mayor Nenshi. He needs to go into provincial politics and save our province. Redford and Smith are some pretty crappy politicians.

[HockeyIlliterate]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

No, I'm saying their tax base fled the city because of white flight, not because of taxation policies as you claim. Like most major American cities, white people fled to the suburbs and that tax base wasn't replaced. It has little to nothing to do with taxation policies.

Although Detroit's tax base was initially reduced because of white flight, Detroit failed to make corresponding reductions in their taxation levels, which prompted a further reduction in the tax base.

I don't think that the initial cause giving rise to the reduction in the tax base is what is instructive to other cities; rather, I think the lesson is that taxation levels must be appropriate to the tax base and the level of government services to be provided.

In that respect, I find the whole argument of "an additional X% isn't THAT much more money, so let's just pay it and get on with our life" rather weak, because the issue isn't simply what X% is, but rather whether X% is sustainable, supportable, in line with the services to be provided actually cost, and reasonably equivalent to what the increase in cost for other goods and services are (as well as equal to what the increase in incomes to pay the X% is).

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

If oil punges to $10/bbl and Fort MacMurray turns into something resembling Detroit are you going to grandstand that the reason why is city council's decisions?

I suppose that it would depend on how long oil was at $10/bbl and what actions the Fort MacMurray city council did in response to the price reduction.

[19Yzerman19]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Cal Wenzel and his cronies knew they couldn't defeat Nenshi for the mayor's seat, so their strategy was to elect enough developer-friendly candidates to form a majority on council without Nenshi's support. It would appear as if they were successful in that goal, unfortunately.

I get this. I just think he started banging the drum early enough that if this slate of councillors do end up operating in a clearly pro-developer manner, it will be pretty easy for the Mayor to flog the crap out of them publically on twitter, etc., and be on the right side of the issue with Calgarians. I guess what I'm saying is that your Wenzel would really prefer to advance their agenda quietly and without the bright light of public scrutiny shining down on every action taken to that purpose, and that's not what's going to happen in this environment.

Given that, you'd think a Wenzel acolyte councillor would be motivated to give the impression of not being completely in the pocket of developers for fear of being repeatedly painted with that brush and potentially ousted next go-round.

Maybe that's super naive, I don't know.

[Tinordi]

Originally Posted by HockeyIlliterate

Although Detroit's tax base was initially reduced because of white flight, Detroit failed to make corresponding reductions in their taxation levels, which prompted a further reduction in the tax base.

I don't think that the initial cause giving rise to the reduction in the tax base is what is instructive to other cities; rather, I think the lesson is that taxation levels must be appropriate to the tax base and the level of government services to be provided.

In that respect, I find the whole argument of "an additional X% isn't THAT much more money, so let's just pay it and get on with our life" rather weak, because the issue isn't simply what X% is, but rather whether X% is sustainable, supportable, in line with the services to be provided actually cost, and reasonably equivalent to what the increase in cost for other goods and services are (as well as equal to what the increase in incomes to pay the X% is).




I suppose that it would depend on how long oil was at $10/bbl and what actions the Fort MacMurray city council did in response to the price reduction.

This is a pretty simplistic and incorrect view of why Detroit fell into bankruptcy. There are pretty good arguments that the policies as promoted by Cal Wenzel and others are the direct issue with Detroit. I highly recommend this article:

http://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2...l#.UmbGS1Csh8E

Detroit, an American Autopsy

Our local governments are going broke. And I'm not just talking about the Harrisburgs, San Bernardinos and Detroits. I'm talking about basically all of them, the only possible exceptions being a handful of anomalies I'm simply not confident lumping in with the rest (NYC, DC and SF being the primary ones). The rest are clearly "all in" on the Suburban Experiment to one extent or another, fully committed to maintaining miles and miles of unproductive STROADs, sewer systems and water lines for an asteroid belt of strip malls, big boxes and sheetrock palaces surrounding a downtown dependent on direct subsidies and a sea of asphalt parking for a subsistence existence.

The process here is pretty clear. In the name of growth and efficiency, cities embrace the auto oriented pattern of development. This weakens the bonds of the traditional neighborhoods, changing the value paradigm from being one of neighborhood vitality to one of automobile mobility. Now the most valuable places are the ones with the most stuff, the biggest parking lot and the quickest in/out time. Let this approach simmer for a generation and the community, with the support of zoning codes, will segregate into pods based on income and level of affluence.

Now you have the recipe for full decline. As the second life cycle of the Suburban Experiment kicks in, more growth and a little debt is used to make ends meet. Declining neighborhoods are gradually written off as being places where "those people" live, and they just don't have the same ethics and values as the rest of us. (By the way, identifying "those people" transcends race as I see the same labeling of the disadvantaged here in my 99.5% Caucasian community.) This all makes it easier to divert precious resources to growing (read: affluent) neighborhoods and neglect the others.

As those declining neighborhoods continue to grow as a percentage of the community, we try heroic interventions. Perhaps we build a stadium or label something an entertainment district. Maybe we simply tear down buildings and pay someone a subsidy to come in and rebuild something less offensive. Either way, the decline continues because the vitality and natural mechanisms for maturing have been sucked out of the neighborhoods and what has replaced them on the periphery is not financially viable. The clock is ticking.

Eventually the affluent coalesce in a handful of neighborhoods. Where they are outside of the city limits, the collapse of the place may accelerate, but even when these wealthy neighborhoods are within, one type of corruption (mob or gang style) is simply replaced with another (crony). Police and fire cutbacks. Reductions in park budgets. Public buildings in decline. Streets that are in such disrepair they are essentially abandoned.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Cal Wenzel and his cronies knew they couldn't defeat Nenshi for the mayor's seat, so their strategy was to elect enough developer-friendly candidates to form a majority on council without Nenshi's support. It would appear as if they were successful in that goal, unfortunately.

I really question how developer friendly these candidates can be given that there is a lot of light on the issue. It would be pretty tough for anyone to vote for a decrease in the acerage amounts that developers pay the city because of how big the issue became.

By making it an issue it effectively neuters the ability of council to increase it. It isn't like Broncos days where this happened in dark corners. One thing I appreciate about Nenshi is that he publicises and tries to explain complex issues

I am not really concerned though ideas like density based tolls would be a non-starter although they would be non-starters amoung any alderman who wanted to be re-elected.

[Bigtime]

I don't think we'll ever see a motion on the floor to reduce the current acreage fees, just a question of that remaining $4300 amount getting taken care of or not.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

I don't think we'll ever see a motion on the floor to reduce the current acreage fees, just a question of that remaining $4300 amount getting taken care of or not.

Its questionable if it would have gotten taken care of even if the slate was entirely defeated as the full amount didn't get passed last time. Maybe the developer slate will startmaking the inner city pay for its costs. The capital costs of water treatment for infills is not being recovered either.

[Jimmy Stang]

CBC is reporting that a Ward 1 re-count will happen tomorrow morning. No surprise, obviously. Regardless of who you support, that's a margin close enough to double-check.

[Bigtime]

Really hoping Harper pulls it off!