This Council is in Session!

On Monday, November 8th the first council meeting will begin at 9:30am. This council is moving fast. It is time to pay attention!

As the Better Calgary Campaign has not yet met and formally mobilized, we want to quickly share a few things you can do right now. The first step: read the agenda for the council meeting at http://agendaminutes.calgary.ca/sirepub/mtgviewer.aspx?meetid=71&doctype=AGENDA .

Key items on the agenda:

• City Manager's report: Southeast LRT Green Trip Proposal
• Notice of Motion: Fish Creek, Lacombe LRT Station Area TOD plan (Alderman Colley-Urquhart)
• Notice of Motion: Airport Trail Underpass (Alderman Stevenson)
• Notice of Motion: 2011 Budget Projections (Mayor Nenshi)

Follow the above link to the agenda for more details on each of the key items.

The second step: Let your alderman know what you want before the meeting starts.

The third step: Attend the meeting or part of the meeting or watch it online at http://www.calgary.ca/cws/councilwebcast_new.html and follow and participate in the #yyccc hashtag on Twitter.

It could be dull at times, so invite friends to join you! Also, check out www.civiccamp.org for their Blue Monday plan for the council meeting.

Op-Ed in today's Herald

Today's Herald op-ed starts to set out the results of much of the BCC's work over the last several months, into a bit of a manifesto. The piece is not available on-line (strangely, op-eds on the letters page never are), but the major points include:

UPDATE: the full test is indeed posted on the Herald's website.

Ending urban sprawl. The growth patterns we see in Calgary are not natural evolution; it’s because of the choices we have made that 80% of Calgary neighbourhoods lost population in 2005, a year of incredible growth. We have chosen to subsidize new homes on the outskirts of the city, while making it difficult to redevelop inner-city and existing suburban neighbourhoods. We need to ask ourselves why bureaucrats measure the height difference between a “deck” and a “patio” for home renovators while we pay almost full freight for the infrastructure needed in new areas.
Renewing our focus on public transit. Everyone who has studied the issue comes to the same conclusion: new roads create traffic, they don’t remove congestion. Transit, on the other hand, is the answer to so many of the issues that big cities face: congestion, pollution, social isolation. We have to work hard to make it the best possible choice, not the choice for those who have no other choice.
Fighting urban poverty and homelessness. While big cities have inequities in income almost by definition, homelessness is not inevitable. How is it that Calgary, with its sometimes-brutal winters, has far more homeless people per capita than Vancouver?
Building vibrant, missed communities. Arts and culture really matter – even if people never go to the ballet, they want to live in a city with a ballet. Even more important is the backgammon-and-bocce stuff I discussed at the beginning. Cities need an urban vibe, attractive and attracting public spaces, and neighbourhoods that are welcoming, safe, and mixed.

We'll post the full article in the next couple of days, after the Herald's exclusive expires.

Happy trails, Hidy and Howdy...

While we are a little bit sad about the departure of Hidy and Howdy from our entranceways, it's probably time. After all, the majority of people living in Calgary now were not here during the 88 Olympics.

However, the shocking part of this story comes back to our usual theme: Council has lost all perspective on money. Somehow, it will take a year to design and create new signs (even though there is a beautiful new one on the TransCanada that could presumably be copied). So, we are spending $75,000 on temporary signs for one year -- just so delegates to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities conference next month will see nice new signs. We're spending the money -- six Craig Burrows courses worth -- so that the mayor of Toronto, if he looks up from his Blackberry out the window of his cab, may see a sign that he will never remember for a split-second. Stop the madness and reject this one on Monday, Council.

Good, on balance

Some good news, some mixed, from today's Council meeting.

Starting with the good news, Council unanimously approved the recommendation from the Calgary Arts Development Authority that significant investments be made in our cultural infrastructure over the next several years -- $150MM over sever years, to be exact. This is a real sign that Council is finally over the "roads above all" infrastructure mentality.

In the "something is better than nothing" department, we'll finally have curbside recycling in Calgary. But not until 2009. And only for single-family homes, not apartments or condos. And we'll still have a parallel depot system (because why should we try to reduce costs)? And it ignores wet compost-ables, the most important part of the system. And it will be the only universal civic service that will have a separate user fee, despite all of Kate's good arguments against this. And Council acted in the most disgusting election-year grandstanding in passing it. But, we will have it, so that's something.

Big Monday

Huge Council agenda this week. Never let it be said these folks don't work hard. They'll be deciding on the 6th Avenue closure for construction of the Bow (just get it done and quit dithering), the newest plan for the Rivers, née East Village (hey,didn't we approve that last year, and the year before that, and 1995, and ...? See dithering, above, and ask yourself why the district now juts out to include the Bow, also above), and, of course, curbside recycling. Alderpeople Jones and Larocque, the swing votes on this one, were on the Calgary Eyeopener this morning, and gave pretty strong signals that they would support the current half-a-loaf plan after asking some good questions. See our take on this, below.

Land-use Bylaws and grumpiness

Naheed's op-ed did appear in today's Calgary Herald. It's not behind the subscriber-only firewall this time, so the link should take you right there. What do you think? is the bylaw too restrictive? How do we balance the need to control development with allowing creativity and innovation?

Text of Op-Ed on curbside recycling

Here is the text of the op-ed on curbside recycling, which had a great deal of response. What do you think? Do you favour curbside recycling? What about user fees?

Here is Kate's piece in full:

Curbside recycling is just like the smoking bylaw all over again. Everyone else has already done it, we know it's the right thing and we want to do it, but we're nervous. Maybe not yet, and maybe we should change the rules several times for no overall gain.

On the main principles, the vast majority agrees: banning smoking is good for our health; recycling is good for the environment.

On the smoking bylaw, council responded to the fears of a few people by delaying (and delaying, and delaying) the implementation as if that would somehow soften the imaginary blow to businesses.

Now that the ban is in place, the sky has not fallen, bars are busier than ever, and everyone agrees it was the right thing to do.

Now curbside recycling is also facing a debate on timing, and discussion on funding muddies the whole scheme.

In the early 1990s, Calgary chose community recycling depots (CRD) as a more complete and cost-effective solution over curbside recycling. CRD works very well when people use it. It has a lower environmental impact, since there are no special vehicle trips -- people tend to drop off the recyclables when they are going to the store anyway.

Compostables are conveniently contained in people's very own backyard composter. No extra emissions from curbside pickup and no need to fund a regional composting facility.

Unfortunately, people don't use it. After 15 years of the CRD system, Calgary's waste diversion rate is only 15 per cent. If you compare that with Edmonton's rate of 60 per cent, a curbside system starts to look worthwhile.

Since Edmonton began curbside recycling in 1988, Calgary has done little except demonstrate that Calgarians are too busy to bother participating in the depot system.

So, all in favour, but how do we fund it? Strangely, user fees are proposed. Public outcry about the cost of the program ensues. Council responds by reducing the recycling services offered in the program. This isn't what we want.

Calgary wants the full program at a reasonable cost. The original proposal before council was a monthly user fee of $21 or $252 per household per year.

Compare that with the average cost per single family dwelling in Edmonton of $180. Council should be asking why the program would cost 40 per cent more in Calgary. How do private companies do the job for less right now? Why isn't council addressing these questions instead of blindly accepting the cost estimates of administration?

Instead of looking into the program costs, they redistribute them by proposing to fund garbage collection from property taxes and cutting back the recycling program by excluding organics. The actual cost of the program remains unchanged.

Then there's the spurious argument for user fees. Such fees are useful in two situations: either when not everyone receives a service, or to financially motivate a decrease in use.

For example, swimming pool fees mean those who don't swim don't pay as much as those who do, and metering water results in reduced consumption.

Neither reason applies to curbside recycling. Everyone needs waste and recycling services and get it regardless of how much they throw out or recycle. Keep the optical politics out of the real issue by funding the program through property taxes.

Other funding also needs to be investigated. Is the city eligible for funding under Alberta Environment's Resource Recovery Grant Program or Waste Management Assistance Program? Are public-private partnerships an effective way to reduce program costs? Should we implement bag fees for garbage and tax the behaviour we actually want to reduce?

It's time to remind our aldermen that their job is to find out what Calgarians want and ensure cost-effective implementation.

Calgary wants curbside recycling. Council needs to lead city employees to find innovative ways to reduce costs to the taxpayer.

Kate Easton takes her recyclables to the depot on her bike and returns home with a pannier full of groceries. Even other Better Calgary Campaign volunteers think she's a bit crazy. More info at www.bettercalgary.ca

Op-Ed in today's Herald

BCC member, Kate Easton, writes on recycling in today's Calgary Herald.

The article doesn't seem to be on the Herald's main webpage, but w'll post the full text on this blog in the next day or so (after the Herald's exclusive expires).

Burrows, in context

Here is the text of an op-ed appearing in the Calgary Herald on March 14. It places Craig Burrows's $12,000 misadventure in the context of how Council has forgotten the value of money.

Ald. Craig Burrows is right. We should be investing in our municipal politicians. Unfortunately, while his principles are in the right place, he's wrong about nearly everything else relating to his $12,000 corporate governance course.

The Better Calgary Campaign, a volunteer group with whom I work, has long advocated the need to bring better people into municipal politics, and to give those who choose to serve the tools they need to do a good job.

To be blunt, being an alderman should never be the best job an incumbent will ever have, and that incumbent should have the skills to focus on issues that really matter. That's why I was supportive of the latest aldermanic pay hikes, and of increasing the office budget so that aldermen could each have two assistants.

However, the case of Burrows and the Institute of Corporate Directors course steps well over the line for a number of reasons.

First, the process stank. Council is not equipped to deal with requests of this nature, and there does not appear to be a process in place. The decision to pay for this course was made by the audit committee, and not really made public until a month after the fact.

Some aldermen, worried about public backlash, voted to rescind the payment -- but only after the course had started. The money has not been refunded.

Second, the course itself is of questionable value for Burrows's job. It's really meant for directors of publicly traded companies, which have very different requirements for directors than does the city.

There is a version offered by the same people for non-profit directors, but this only costs $2,500. Burrows did not sign up. The city had already invited governance experts for a free seminar for aldermen last year. Burrows did not attend.

We are left to imagine that Burrows wanted to take this particular course, with classmates who are captains of industry, in an election year, for one of two reasons: either he feels he will be re-elected no matter what this fall, so this will be a good investment for taxpayers, or this course will help him in his post- aldermanic career. Neither reflects well on Burrows.

The most important reason this was troubling, however, was the amount of money involved. It's almost as though Burrows has forgotten what $12,000 means to the average Calgarian. Since Burrows has an undergraduate degree and would have some advanced credit, $12,000 would have gotten him an entire applied degree in non- profit management at Mount Royal College. Or, it means that my parents' property taxes for the last five years have paid for nothing but Burrows's course.

Burrows, while probably the worst offender, is far from unique in this regard. The entire council seems guilty of losing perspective on how much money they are spending -- easy to do when you regularly deal with numbers in the millions.

On the one hand, they spend what they think of as small amounts with abandon. In an election year, the mayor sent out a glossy report to all Calgarians with some 13 pictures of himself cutting ribbons, looking like a leader.

The cost to taxpayers? A mere $70,000, or five years' worth of rent for one of my students. Or, perhaps more to the point, $70,000 is more than all of the mayor's opponents in the last election spent on their campaigns. Combined.

On the other hand, when it comes to big amounts, council has the annoying habit of reducing everything to an individual household.

Want the streets plowed? It'll cost you $45. Recycling? That's $13 per month, please. While some may argue that this trend increases transparency and accountability, I say it's a way to duck questions of true leadership.

There are some things that a civic government just does -- plowing, maintaining parks, providing police, fire and ambulance, and so on. Paying for these services is part of our duty as citizens.

Reducing everything to the lowest common denominator leads to thinking that services are only for the individual, not the community -- I don't have kids, give me a rebate on the portion of my taxes that paid for the playground.

Seen in this context, Burrows's $12,000 misadventure becomes a symptom of a larger, more complex problem: how can we get a council that is capable of thinking big thoughts and making big changes, but still rooted in the real lives of real people?

Naheed Nenshi, instructor of nonprofit studies at Mount Royal College's Bissett School of Business, volunteers with the Better Calgary Campaign. More info at: www.bettercalgary.ca