I work for Mayor Nenshi, ask me anything!

[getbak]

Originally Posted by MelBridgeman

It's not a process problem it's a personal problem, the real solution comes in October

Except, of course, it won't because likely every incumbent who runs will be re-elected, like they always are.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Regorium

I am still not agreeing that it's a scandal. Bring on a meeting chair, or maybe Evan Woolley can do it. Maybe changing the "core duties of a Mayor" that allows someone like Nenshi to play to his strengths and hiring a full time meeting chair would increase effectiveness of all future councils regardless of whether Nenshi is the mayor or not.

To me, that would be like bringing in a budget consultant for 170k a year to allow a mayor who wasn't good at money stuff to play to his strengths.

Maybe I'm weird, but if a candidate doesn't have the temperament to run efficient and effective meetings, then yeah, I'd say that person is a poor candidate for mayor. Because I consider the ability to see different sides of an issue and facilitate practical compromises without getting personal as a core skill for high political office. I don't want a bullish hot-head running my city, province, or country.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

To me, that would be like bringing in a budget consultant for 170k a year to allow a mayor who wasn't good at money stuff to play to his strengths.

Maybe I'm weird, but if a candidate doesn't have the temperament to run efficient and effective meetings, then yeah, I'd say that person is a poor candidate for mayor. Because I consider the ability to see different sides of an issue and facilitate practical compromises without getting personal as a core skill for high political office. I don't want a bullish hot-head running my city, province, or country.

The amount of priority you place on meeting facilitation vs budget preparation would factor in to how you would consider candidate skill sets. To me the mayor sets a vision and drives toward it having mayor as just facilitator actually hinders the mayors ability to implement that vision.

If the mayor is just a tie breaking vote on committees and council and council just votes on things brought forth by the administration than running those meetings becomes pretty important. If you want a mayor to drive a vision of the city forward while managing a budget and finding efficiencies then meeting facilitation is probably low down the list.

You could probably define 10 or skills/attributes you want in a mayor and your top choice might be good at 6, okay at 2, and poor at 2. The public needs to decide which ones matter and to me meeting facilitation isn't one of them.

I would disagree that meeting facilitation and obtaining practical compromise are the same skill set.

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by GGG

The amount of priority you place on meeting facilitation vs budget preparation would factor in to how you would consider candidate skill sets. To me the mayor sets a vision and drives toward it having mayor as just facilitator actually hinders the mayors ability to implement that vision.

If the mayor is just a tie breaking vote on committees and council and council just votes on things brought forth by the administration than running those meetings becomes pretty important. If you want a mayor to drive a vision of the city forward while managing a budget and finding efficiencies then meeting facilitation is probably low down the list.

You could probably define 10 or skills/attributes you want in a mayor and your top choice might be good at 6, okay at 2, and poor at 2. The public needs to decide which ones matter and to me meeting facilitation isn't one of them.

I would disagree that meeting facilitation and obtaining practical compromise are the same skill set.

Agree completely. I was actually completely surprised that meeting facilitation is supposed to be one of the mayor's duties. It makes much more sense to me to have an administrator do that, instead of a council member, especially the mayor.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Complaints about spending money to make council more efficient interspersed with complaints about not spending enough money on grass upkeep.

That's about as Calgary as this thread could get.

Funny thing is if they go ahead with the hire that would be so Calgary city hall.

[Kjesse]

Maybe if you still worked for him he would not have made this huge mistake.

The very reason I liked Nenshi to start with was he was an outsider with new ideas. He ground my gears over time because of his tendencies to be a bully with his press conferences and chamber comments which were often condescending.

So now he's selling lunch to 20 people for 5 grand each? He's officially part of the entitled. Selling access to eat with the Mayor. Awful.

That's purple power alright. http://globalnews.ca/news/3557499/qu...ve-fundraiser/

Chabot is not the answer but its time Nenshi moves on. I'm tired of his antics. He has to go. He may run for the Alberta Party in whatever riding he likes but for now, he's running for Mayor and its time to go.

For those of you who defend this awful decision: Name one entity or person who would pay 5K to eat lunch with Nenshi before he became Mayor at Nenshi's request?

Disgusting. Might even make me prefer Chabot.

[Frank MetaMusil]

The last 100k he needs for the legal bills.

[CaptainCrunch]

This sounds a lot like the pay for access events for the Federal Liberals and for the Provincial NDP that sparked changes to the rules in Ottawa and an ethic investigation and apology and a promise never to do it again in Edmonton.

Pay for access is to me pretty odorous and it leads to questions of influence.

I voted for Nenshi the first time and he didn't get much done, I didn't vote for a mayor in the second run, and Nenshi turned out to be a bully and a loud mouth.

I do think its time that he moves on, he's a divisive factor in city council, and he doesn't seem to have control over a lot.

[Knut]

Is there going to be a reasonable alternative this election?

[Weitz]

But he interacted with 10,000 Calgarians for free on the weekend!!

[darockwilder]

Sounds like he backed away from this situation.

http://www.660news.com/2017/06/26/ne...ls-fundraiser/

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Hes

Is there going to be a reasonable alternative this election?

Probably not, though his approval ratings have dropped quite a bit, nobody runs against a standing mayor, they wait until he moves to provincial politics and then they pounce like vultures.

[Muta]

Just out of curiosity, why isn't Nenshi allowed to fundraise like this? There's a campaign coming up, don't they need funds to run for mayor? How is this any different than political donations anywhere? If someone could shed some light, that'd be appreciated.

[Kjesse]

Originally Posted by Muta

Just out of curiosity, why isn't Nenshi allowed to fundraise like this? There's a campaign coming up, don't they need funds to run for mayor? How is this any different than political donations anywhere? If someone could shed some light, that'd be appreciated.

He is allowed. Its entirely legal. It just shows him to be a hypocrite based on his own past comments, and it shows that he sells access to his time.

If you were to charge $5000 per person for a 2 hour lunch, how many people would take you up on that offer? The answer is of course, none.

But what if you also happened to be a voting member of city counsel, in addition to being the mayor, and the company arranging the lunch was an architectural firm with a vested interest in your decisions, and they are doing you a favour by bringing 20 people together to get you 200K to campaign with? Most of whom would likely be in the real estate development community.

It stinks by any measure. And now Nenshi and his team have decided against proceeding with it, which speaks for itself.

Power corrupts. That's the lesson here. And in general I think Nenshi is a very ethical guy, and takes ethics seriously. But then he goes and asks for 5K for lunch with his purpleness. Amazing.

[killer_carlson]

Given his past comments, I can't believe Nenshi even tried to pull this in the first place.

[OMG!WTF!]

I'm more disturbed by the way he calls other people (Chabot and others) dumb for criticizing him. It's dumb if you can't see why this would offend people. It's dumb if you think it's ok to call your fellow counselors dumb. It's dumb when you cancel the event because you think other people are being unreasonable. A lot of dumb going around.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Uh, no. Putting together a fundraiser lunch in contravention of earlier positions, then cancelling it once that's pointed out to you, does not suggest it's "time to go". This is not a good reason for removing a competent mayor from office.

[Zarley]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Uh, no. Putting together a fundraiser lunch in contravention of earlier positions, then cancelling it once that's pointed out to you, does not suggest it's "time to go". This is not a good reason for removing a competent mayor from office.

It's yet another example of him failing to live up to his earlier promises. The list is getting fairly long.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by Zarley

It's yet another example of him failing to live up to his earlier promises. The list is getting fairly long.

While true, there isn't a politician in history who won't build up a list the longer they go.

But it is disappointing that Nenshi and his team didn't see this coming given the exact same complaints followed both Trudeau and Notley with the same result. You just can't sell the perception of special access. It doesn't work well.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by killer_carlson

Given his past comments, I can't believe Nenshi even tried to pull this in the first place.

It's almost as if mitigating the risk of a frivilous lawsuit succeeding by agreeing to a settlement created a financial vulnerability, resulting in an increased necessity for fundraising, giving donors potential influence over a political leader and thus detracting from the public interest.