Naheed Nenshi

It is a rare glimpse into some of the backroom politics going on in Calgary, ahead of October’s municipal election.

Global News has obtained a recording of a November meeting hosted by Cal Wenzel, founder of Shane Homes. In the video, Wenzel presents a plan to defeat select members of city council who are perceived to be anti-development.

Some in the housing industry have been clashing with the city over growth and who should be responsible for infrastructure.

In the video, Cal Wenzel tells the group, apparently made up of about 150 industry leaders, that while Mayor Nenshi is unbeatable, that may not be the case for other council members.

“Dimitri asked me the question a little earlier on, ‘Can anyone beat Nenshi?’ And I said ‘no, likely not’. I am not sure what he’s hoping for – I don’t think he can and I had in my notes here, ‘I don’t think he is beatable. But you know when I talked to [former mayor] Dave Bronconnier, Dave is sitting there saying, ‘it doesn’t matter if you’ve got the mayor on your side or not. You need eight votes. As long as you have eight votes you can control whatever happens.’

“So for whatever and however, we have to ensure that we end up with the eight votes.”

Wenzel runs through a list of councillors he approves of and says he is supporting with campaign donations including Ward 12 Councillor Shane Keating, Ward 13 Councillor Diane Colley-Urquhart, and Ward 14 Councillor Peter Demong. He also names those he does not support or is unsure of.

“One time where [Ward 6 councillor Richard] Pootmans was kind of guided as to maybe vote for us, when it comes up he forgot to ask any questions and forgot to vote the right way.”

Wenzel claims millions of dollars a year are at stake for developers.

“Unless we get somebody in there that is you know really going to be on our side, rather than the dark side you know, we are talking another four years after next October.”

So they have raised quite a bit of money and have a celebrity supporter.

Preston Manning’s name is also mentioned at one point in the tape. Wenzel talks about a big donation from members of his group to the right-wing think tank founded by the former opposition leader.

“…in order to bring Preston on board, 11 of us put up $100 thousand, so a million-one, so it’s not like we haven’t put up our money and we are going to be there to put up again, and we are also supporting candidates.”

I love the response by Cal Wenzel

Cal Wenzel has declined Global News’ repeated requests for comment until he sees the video.

Part of the problem may be the lack of campaign finance rules in Calgary.

While candidates pump out press releases and smile for news cameras, Fast Forward has been digging into campaign records from the 2004 civic election and investigating the way these campaigns are financed. Compared to other Canadian cities, Calgary has few campaign finance rules. Winnipeg, Toronto and Ottawa have rules on how much candidates can fundraise and when, but Calgary candidates fundraise and spend without limits anytime they want — and they can keep whatever’s left over for themselves tax-free.

Candidates aren’t required to report where many of their contributions come from, and their contribution statements are littered with errors. Many candidates don’t file their statements at all. “Basically, there are no rules,” says Naheed Nenshi, of city hall watchdog Better Calgary Campaign. “It’s the Wild West out here.”

How bad was it? (in 2004)

Of Bronconnier’s $673,498 war chest, more than $150,000 came from development, construction and real estate companies. If engineers and architects are added to the calculations, the number reaches almost a third of his total contributions. “That’s tradition,” Bronconnier says. “The development industry is interested in what happens at city hall…. Just like the oil and gas guys contribute to the provincial campaigns, because they’re interested in what happens.”

Most contributions from developers go to incumbents. Ward 10 Ald. Andre Chabot learned this first-hand in the 2004 election, which he lost. “I wasn’t ever viewed as a front-runner by some of these guys that typically will contribute to whomever they think has a chance of winning,” he says. After Chabot won the 2005 byelection, developers regarded him differently. “They’re all coming left, right and centre. I can’t even keep track of all of the contributions that are being given to my office.”

Remington Development Corporation donated to 10 of 13 incumbent aldermen in 2004, with sums ranging from $300 up to $2,500 for Ward 2 Ald. Gord Lowe. Remington donated to only one non-incumbent. President Randy Remington says his company uses “similar principles applicable to finding the best candidate for any job” when deciding which candidates to support. “Both businesses and individuals have a responsibility to the city in which we work and live to ensure the best leaders are in civic office,” Remington says.

All the current aldermen took donations from developers. “They are key partners in building the city, and so access to the political process is hugely important to them,” says Ward 8 Ald. Madeleine King, who got over $16,000 from those in the industry. “We need to recognize that and dignify it.” However, King says voters hold the most power. “I don’t feel they’re getting short shrift.”

In other Canadian cities, many of these donations from developers would be illegal for one reason: they’re too big. A contributor can’t give more than $2,500 to a mayoral candidate in Toronto, and no more than $750 to a councillor. In Winnipeg, the cap for mayoral contributions is $1,500, and $750 for councillors. Contributions are also capped in provincial and federal elections, but in Calgary there’s no such rule.

Some of Bronconnier’s developer donors aren’t based in Calgary, or even Alberta. Trinity Development Group, an Ottawa company currently building a big-box complex in northwest Calgary, donated $7,250 — almost 10 times the amount that would be legal in Ottawa. “There’s a real problem at the municipal level because there are so many people who… contribute to political campaigns who stand to get some kind of benefit out of political decisions being made,” says Danielle Smith, Alberta director for the Canadian Federation for Independent Business (CFIB). “It doesn’t look really good.”

Does growth pay for growth?

Apr 13th, 2013

by Jordon Cooper.

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Excellent article by Charles Hamilton in The StarPhoenix

It’s a question cities throughout Western Canada have been grappling with for decades: does new development pay for itself ? Does the city spend more money servicing new neighbourhoods than it collects from the developers who buy the lots and build houses?

A new report released by Saskatoon civic administrators that says not all costs of new suburban development are paid for by the service rates charged to developers is stirring up the debate.

“Most of the direct services – most of the capital costs to build a neighbourhood – are included in the overall developers’ fees, but there are a number things that are not covered like leisure centres and fire halls and other things,” said Randy Grauer, Saskatoon’s acting city manager.

Some cities, such as Calgary, have decided to dramatically increase development levies. Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi says it’s an attempt to recoup the real cost of growth.

Some planners in Saskatoon say the same model should be considered here as the city’s population continues to grow at a rapid pace.

“The city has been encouraging developers to go develop on the outskirts, and now we are paying for it because we cannot afford to maintain the infrastructure,” said Avi Akkerman, a professor of regional and urban planning at the University of Saskatchewan.

“Everything that is associated with it is unsustainable.”

Of course developers disagree

“The new areas are paying a large portion of the tax burden,” said local developer Ron Olson, a former president the Canadian Home Builders Association. “The new areas are subsidizing the older neighbourhoods.”

Olson said city planners have to be careful not to “drink the Kool-Aid on this densification.” Restricting development on the outer edges of the city will only force young families to move outside the city – to places like Warman and Martensville – where they can find more housing choices.

“Calgary is a prime example of what we are talking about. The mayor has decided that new growth and suburban growth is a bad thing, and that kind of policy is regressive. You will have a bunch of satellites around Calgary, and those satellites are because young people want to live in single family homes,” Olson said.

Actually I would challenge Ron Olson’s assertions about Calgary. I would suggest that the Calgary satellite communities have everything to do with house price than a desire to live in single family homes. The farther you are away from Calgary (or Saskatoon), the less access you have to amenities and then less you have to pay for housing.

Of course the other point is that it isn’t about housing, it is about the cities ability to pay for sprawling infrastructure. It’s weird but some still see libertarian values as something that needs to be met, even in the city.

This is what progress looks like

Mar 13th, 2013

by Jordon Cooper.

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A video by the Calgary Homeless Foundation about the progress being made at year 4 of their 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness. Great stuff.

Reining in Sprawl Won’t Be Easy; One of Canada’s Worst Offenders Shows Why

Mar 10th, 2013

by Jordon Cooper.

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Christopher Hume in the Toronto Star

City-building is never easy, and Alberta’s largest urban centre is a good example why. Despite the efforts of a growing number of people, sprawl in Calgary ranks amongst the worst in Canada.

According to some, fully 95 percent of population growth in this city of 1.2 million happens in the ’burbs, which already occupy vast swaths of land surrounding the downtown core. Calgary is one of those nose-to-the-grindstone cities that empty out at night after workers return home to the hinterland.

On the other hand, this is also the municipality that elected Naheed Nenshi its mayor, a politician as dedicated as any in Canada to urbanism. It is also the city that commissioned Spanish architect/engineer Santiago Calatrava to design a footbridge across the Bow River. The Peace Bridge caused outrage when it was announced; most critics were unable to get beyond the $25-million pricetag.

But Calatrava, whose Toronto work includes the Galleria at Brookfield Place and the Mimico Creek Bridge, is arguably the best bridge designer in the world. His projects garner an international audience regardless of where they’re located. Local anger notwithstanding, Calatrava’s beautiful bridge brought Calgary to the attention of many who’d never heard of it, let alone visited.

Today, of course, the colourful structure is one of the most popular in town. Calgarians cross it in droves; they stare, smile and take endless pictures. Wedding parties show up to have photographs taken. A year after it opened, it has become a hugely popular destination.

But as its champion, Calgary Councillor Druh Farrell, likes to say, the scars inflicted during the planning and construction of the project match the cross-bracing of the bridge.
“It was hell,” Farrell recalls. “I’d never want to go through that again.”

She was accompanied to the opening a year ago by four burly men, just in case. As Nenshi asked a planners’ conference this week, “Why do we make it so hard to do good stuff?”

He wasn’t talking about the bridge, but Garrison Woods, a neighbourhood built in recent years on a former military base in Calgary’s east end. With narrow streets, street-level shopping and apartments above, this looks — and functions — like an older part of town. It has a 19th-century scale and sense of connection.

A proud City of Calgary featured Garrison Woods on the cover of a recent planning document. The irony, Nenshi pointed out, is that the neighbourhood everyone loves broke “every single rule” in the planning book. Getting it done took more than a decade as the city fought its own requirements every step of the way.

At the same time, developers continue the discredited and ruinous “multiplication by subdivision” approach that has turned the outer reaches of Calgary into endless tracts of cookie-cutter housing.

It was no surprise, then, that Nenshi and Calgary’s biggest homebuilders group have just ended a nasty spat during which the mayor kicked the association off all city hall advisory committees and demanded an apology. Developers had accused Nenshi of imposing a suburban building freeze; something he, sadly, denied.

“Why do we persist in building stuff people don’t want and that doesn’t work?” Nenshi asked planners.

Saskatoon needs to answer that question as well.

Slow week in city politics

Feb 28th, 2013

by Jordon Cooper.

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If you are going to be mocked, you might as well be mocked by the best. Hilary blogs OurYXE’s podcast.

Jordon starts talking about Nenshi and how he’s not afraid to take a stand and defend his causes. In case you didn’t figure it out, I think Jordon really, really likes Naheed Nenshi. If you offered Jordon the choice between being Nenshi for a day or going to any in-camera meeting of the executive committee he would have a difficult decision

Nenshi: Calgary is being treated like a “farm team”

Feb 23rd, 2013

by Jordon Cooper.

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Proving that he can pick fights with all sorts of people, Mayor Nenshi wrote this in the Calgary Herald

Calgary has been accused of being a “bully” for trying to actually enforce our policies (based on the province’s own Water for Life strategy) for responsible water development.

The best example of this occurred in 2011 when the City was asked to provide water and water servicing for a large industrial development outside the city, in Rocky View County. This is precisely the kind of development the Plan envisions, but since the County has not signed onto the Plan, the City’s policy doesn’t allow for it.

But the province, without telling anyone, decided to pay for the water connection itself. The details are unclear, as the province has never publicly released them, but it’s almost certainly true that their solution cost taxpayers millions of dollars more than if they had legislated the Plan, and it’s not at all certain they will ever be able to recoup the cost.

Last week, the Premier met with the council of the Municipal District of Foot-hills (another of the holdouts), and was quoted in the local paper saying that she would not “force” the MD into the Plan (meaning she would not legislate the plan). She also implied that she is not sure the Plan is needed at all. The same day, her Minister backpedalled furiously, saying the Premier’s words did not represent government policy, that the decision was his to make, and that he would continue working to a resolution.

You might forgive me for being a little confused.

What I am not confused about is that the future prosperity of this city is the future prosperity of this province.

Treating the City government as the farm team in this relationship and managing important files as cavalierly as this is not good for Calgary, and it’s certainly not good for Alberta.

It’s weird seeing a mayor take this approach to government relations. You see it with the provinces and the feds all of the time but rarely with cities and their province (Toronto would be the only other city that plays hardball with the province). In Saskatoon former mayoral candidate was mocked for this desire to be more aggressive in asking the province for more. We seem to have resigned ourselves to be reduced to thanking them for government handouts when they are so inclined. Nenshi took a different approach and not only got his meeting with Premier Redford but also was offered mediation from the province.

According to this column by Don Braid, there will be a political cost to pay.

Even as Mayor Naheed Nenshi was being invited to meet with the premier, provincial needling continued Thursday over the city charter.

The PCs don’t forgive readily, and they never forget.

Premier Alison Redford implied that Edmonton Mayor Stephen Mandel co-operates, and Nenshi doesn’t.

She said both Edmonton and Calgary city councils are satisfied with talks on the charter. So is Mandel.

By leaving out Nenshi, she suggests he’s the unreasonable renegade.

In an interview Thursday, the mayor said none of that’s true. He and Mandel agree on most points of the charter, he insists. Nor is he offside with his own council.

The mayor also points out, correctly, that he never called anybody names in this dispute.

He did say in a Herald op-ed piece that the province is fumbling civic issues and treating Calgary like a “farm team.”

Technically, he was only calling Calgary a name. But even that mild comment deeply irked the provincial types who, in recent years, have become almost fanatical about suppressing criticism from local municipalities and authorities.

In the midst of this dispute, Municipal Affairs Minister Doug Griffiths said Nenshi has “an election coming up; he’s going to puff up like a peacock and be tough.”

Answering a question Thursday, Griffiths said: “If there’s tension, it’s on his side. I don’t feel any tension.”

But the PCs do. They have ever since ex-mayor Dave Bronconnier scared the heck out of them 2007, when he accused then-premier Ed Stelmach of a “broken promise” over infrastructure funding.

Facing an election, the government had to back up. Bronco won that contest by a knockout. Everybody knew it — especially the provincials. They fumed, but didn’t forget.

During the 2008 election campaign, Jack Davis, then CEO of the old Calgary Health Region, declared a medical emergency and demanded extra funding from the government. Again the PCs were livid.

Within four months, the health regions were abolished.

There were many reasons for that decision; but one was the growing tendency of the health regions to speak up about local problems.

It will be interesting to see what this is going to cost Nenshi.

Calgary Mayor Nenshi picks a fight with developers

Feb 23rd, 2013

by Jordon Cooper.

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This is interesting

Mayor Naheed Nenshi is reprimanding the top Calgary home builders group for speaking out against the city’s planning department.

In a letter sent Thursday, Nenshi informed the Calgary branch of the Canadian Home Builders Association that its members are sidelined from city advisory committees — until its president recants statements he made to an industry dinner last month.

The advisory work includes cutting red tape and reforming the entire planning department.

Nenshi told the Herald the city would continue to work with the development industry and home builders, but it “will find our representatives from the home building industry elsewhere” until they clarify comments the mayor contends contain “misleading and inaccurate information.”

Nenshi is taking issue with a speech made by Charron Ungar at the CHBA’s Jan. 9 economic forecast dinner, which was attended by Premier Alison Redford.

Ungar was critical of the city’s planning and accused the city of freezing surburban development in favour of increasing density in existing communities.

“Currently, there exists a significant (divide) between city hall and our industry on this issue of how we are going to grow,” the Herald reported Ungar saying at the meeting.

Ungar, an executive with a major homebuilder, called the city’s plan to balance growth by increasing density in existing communities “essentially a suburban development freeze.”

He told the group increasing density in existing communities shouldn’t be done “at the expense of suburban growth. Ensuring proper and adequate housing in all areas of our city should be our main focus – and not a byline of a grand experiment in planning.”

Nenshi said Ungar’s comments to colleagues contradict what CHBA has been saying directly to the city.

“It doesn’t mean we can’t disagree, we disagree with one another all the time, but we need to do so in a respectful, thoughtful way,” Nenshi said in an interview.

The mayor also says that Calgary “is up to pre-recession year levels in housing starts.”

Although the group president made passing reference to Nenshi’s past comments about “crap” development applications, the mayor says his reprimand isn’t about a personal grudge.

The CHBA is an influential organization whose members build the houses and condos of Calgary’s suburbia, and also redevelop existing neighbourhoods. They’re a top lobbying force in the city, and its home-builder members are among the top civic campaign finance donors.

If you let the market decide how to build homes, they will build for profit. One of the roles of a city planning development is to take in considerations on how the development will impact the city and those that live in it. Most cities abdicate that role because they don’t like fights like this with developers. It’s a gutsy stand to take, especially with an election next year. That being said I think it is the only stand a mayor can take here. Calgary suburb lots are being sold at a lifetime lost. The city isn’t making back the money needed to install and maintain the sprawling sewers, roads, and other infrastructure during the lots life which means that Calgary is subsidizing quite heavily each and every new suburban lot in Calgary. That is a path that has taken many American and especially Californian cities to bankruptcy.

Nenshi’s campaign videos

Oct 10th, 2012

by Jordon Cooper.

1 comment

Wow, I love these campaign videos by Calgary Mayor Nenshi.

Naheed Nenshi speaks on Calgary 3.0

Aug 27th, 2012

by Jordon Cooper.

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Naheed Nenshi speaking at TEDxCalgary and is speaking on some troubling trends in Calgary that we are seeing in Saskatoon.

Transparency in the Mayor’s Office

Jul 16th, 2012

by Jordon Cooper.

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The debate around Mayor Don Atchison’s journal has gotten a little weird. It started with council asking about him releasing his schedule and quickly went to Darren Hill tweeting in council chambers and some allusions to conflict of interest. It’s not city council at it’s finest.

Gerry Klein suggested that the mayor adopting a smartphone to keep his schedule could help fix the problem and then use it to post it online.

It’s about time that the mayor catches up to the latter part of the 20th century and begins to use a digital device and mobile technology to help him manage his time. When he does that it would be a simple matter to post the information on the mayor’s website, which is remarkable now for being among the most static and uninformative Internet pages on the entire web.

He’s right, we could probably scrounge up an old smartphone that will sync up with Google Calendar pretty easily. I have a Blackberry Curve that I can contribute to the cause. While I am being flippant, this is a problem rooted in transparency and technology.

The real issue is that technology flattens any organization. What used to need to pass through gate keepers, now can be easily assimilated. Councillors have a right to expect this information to go to them while part of the problem is that historically the Mayor’s office (according to Atchison) used to decide who gets to go. This problem is made worse by the fact that both council and the public assume that an invite to the Mayor means that you want the local councillor there as well (which is the Mayor’s defense, I never think that way). The solution is not opening up Atchison’s journal but opening up the invitation process when you ask the Mayor to an event.

The mayor’s website is a static block of text and a contact form. It could be much more than that, especially when you look at the sites for the Mayor of Calgary and the Mayor of Vancouver. In some ways I am surprised that Atchison doesn’t have a better website. He’s a good story teller and evangelist for the City of Saskatoon and it would be a great platform for him to expand his audience.

With Calgary and Vancouver, they use totally different domains from the city page and while I prefer mayor. saskatoon.ca or more personally mayor.saskatoon.ca/atchison/ (there is some method to that madness that I will get into later) but either way works. If you want to invite the Mayor of Calgary to an event, they have a contact form that asks a variety of questions about the event, how to get there, and if you want the deputy mayor in case Nenshi can’t make it. Pretty straight forward.

It would take minutes to change the form to give you an option of inviting other city councillors (or making it clear you only wanted the mayor) to your event. Not all mayor’s adopt this view. To invite Winnipeg mayor Sam Katz to an event, you need to (snail) mail him an invite two months ahead of time and wait for a reply. I am not sure how to invite the Mayor of Edmonton to your event. I am sure there is a way but it’s not on his website. What I am getting at is that there is a really easy way to deal with these kinds of issues, even if not all cities adopt them.

Of course it’s big news because Yahoo! has a new CEO but one could use their Upcoming service to announce which public events the mayor will be attending. A blurb of selected events, contact information for others to attend, and even some follow up photos would extend the Mayor’s personal reach, help him politically, and promote the city. He could also do what Nenshi does and that is tweet about it while he is there but one thing we learned this week is that the Mayor isn’t so fond of social media.

While we are the topic of Nenshi’s website, it is an example of how accountability and privacy can work. Nenshi posts many of his meetings that he hosts. He excludes meetings with City of Calgary employees, staff, media, and government but does include meetings with individuals or small groups. According to the City of Calgary’s Mayoral Office

Publishing the Mayor’s meeting list was something we intended to do on a quarterly basis starting this spring. But while preparing the first list, we received legal advice that we could be contravening the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act by publishing people’s names without their consent. So, beginning May 1, 2011, the Mayor’s Office required that anyone meeting with Mayor Nenshi provide a signature approving to have their name published.

Quite a few colleagues have said, “It’s an incomplete list” and they are right. Nenshi needs the privacy to conduct some City of Calgary, personal, and even political business in private yet when he is operating at the Mayor of Calgary, it needs to be made public (even if people like me want to see the complete list)

Here is June’s public meeting list in it’s entirety.

Debbie Newman, Calgary Drop-In and Rehab Centre – June 8, 2012
James Murray – June 12, 2012
Carlos Salazan – June 12, 2012
Bhavini Pasel, Standard & Poors – June 26, 2012
Stepehn Ogilvie, Standard & Poors – June 26, 2012
Ian Merrit, Fraser Milner Casgrain – June 27, 2012
Joan Durshinim, Brookfield Properties – June 27, 2012
Ian Parker, Brookfield Properties – June 27, 2012
Martin Sparrow, Dialog – June 27, 2012
Earle Arney, Dialog – June 27, 2012
Sally Hodges, Project Ploughshares – June 28, 2012
Karen Huggin, Project Ploughshares – June 28, 2012
Douglas Roche, Project Ploughshares – June 28, 2012
Bev Delong, Project Ploughshares – June 28, 2012
Don Douglas, Calgary Airport Authority – June 28, 2012
Doug Mitchell, Calgary Airport Authority – June 28, 2012
Tony Kay, UK Counsel-General – June 28, 2012

The lists are both interesting and what you expect. Dignitaries, politicians, business people, community groups… the kind of people that you expect the Mayor of Calgary to be meeting with. A website like this for the Mayor could be easily powered by WordPress, easily updated and include future trips (like when he is going to Singapore) as well.

As for Atchison’s request that all of Saskatoon City Council do the same thing, he’s right. They should. (and many are willing)

On not making some councillors aware of a trip to Singapore for the World Cities Summit two weeks ago: He said he told CKOM and CTV about the trip in his weekly appearances last month. Other councillor’s make international trips under the same protocol, he said. “By the same token I don’t know what my colleagues are doing either. Their budgets are wide open to use as they see fit. As long as their expenses come in as they’re supposed to, that’s it. They’re all reported at the end of the year.”

He said if he releases his schedule so should all of council, out of fairness. “It’s all or none, ” he said.

Instead of giving out the information for the World Cities Summit to CKOM and CTV, he could announce it the entire city on his website and post his monthly expenses along with the rest of council (also, it’s a pretty big expense not to send out a media advisory for). As for the city, it needs to create mayor.saskatoon.ca/atchison/ for the mayor (and you leave it online when the mayor has retired or has been defeated as an archive of his time in office). For councillors you give them a council website at council.saskatoon.ca/hill/ for Darren Hill, council.saskatoon.ca/lorje/ for Pat Lorje and so on and so on. The U.S. Congress does the same thing. It’s their space for official business on. When the election comes (starting August 31st), they are locked out from the pages until they are re-elected. Each councillor has a choice between a couple of City of Saskatoon templates and a set up install of WordPress. You put the same requirements on them for reporting, expenses, and schedule as you do for the Mayor. Atchison is right that if he has to do it, they all have to do it.

I’ll be honest. I have been at every council meeting of 2012 and there have been some vote changes that have made me wonder what was going on. Who met with who (or even what kind of money exchanged hands). Some transparency is needed. The technology is there, it’s free, it’s easy to use and it would mean a more coordinated council and a better informed electorate. How hard could this be? Everyone else is getting it, why can’t Saskatoon?

The Junction

Oct 2nd, 2011

by Jordon Cooper.

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Sean Shaw uncovers to things about the City of Saskatoon. The first is the City is looking at redeveloping The Junction.

The Junction concept plan seeks to link together major redevelopment projects in three Saskatoon core areas by recommending public realm improvements, identifying future uses for vacant/contaminated lands, increasing investor confidence, and synchronize past studies and recommend improvements within the area. At the hub of the concept plan will be a community focal point, the future Station 20 West, a co-operative grocery store and community enterprise centre on Saskatoon’s historical business district, 20th Street. The purpose of the Request for Proposals (RFP) is to seek consulting and facilitation services to prepare a background summary report and design and execute a public engagement plan within the study area.

He found it while randomly browsing the City of Saskatoon website (nice to know that I am not the only one that does that) but it kind of underline the communications issues that both the city and in particular the city’s website has. Want to find all of the RFP’s that are out? Have fun with that as it’s not going to happen. The city website that has impressed me the most has been the City of Calgary’s. Along the same line, Mayor Nenshi has a spectacular website at www.calgarymayor.ca. I am not sure why Mayor Don Atchison doesn’t have the same thing. Whether it be him using saskatoonmayor.ca or even setting up mayor.saskatoon.ca for communications from the Mayor’s office, it would improve the Mayor’s messaging considerably. Nenshi’s Mayor of Calgary website is branded as a City of Calgary property which makes sense and can be used for the next mayor of Calgary in the same way premier.gov.sk.ca is used by the Government of Saskatchewan.

The advantage of a website for Saskatoon’s current and future mayors (assuming that Mayor Atchison does not rule forever) is that it gives information to his defenders as well. I am a fan of the job that the current city council has done (well some of them have done) but it’s incredibly hard to find the information needed to defend them at times. I have heard that the city has sent out of a RFP for a new Saskatoon.ca. Hopefully it makes finding information a lot easier.

Saskatoon likes our Mayor

Sep 27th, 2011

by Jordon Cooper.

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Mayor Don Atchison takes a lot of flack from some in the community but according to this poll done by Ipscos Reid that shows Mayor Don Atchison holding steady at 66% approval rating. I can think of several political leaders that would love to have an approval rating of 66%.

Don Atchison's 2011 Approval Rating

Of course Naheed Nenshi’s is sky high at 82% but you will notice that Regina’s Pat Fiacco’s approval rating has dropped 15% from last year.

The role of the arts in building a great city

Sep 27th, 2011

by Jordon Cooper.

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The Mayor of Calgary has headed east to tout the virtues of living in Calgary.

In his speech in Toronto Tuesday night, Nenshi discussed a host of promising cultural projects and investments into artistic spaces in Calgary, including the construction of Canada’s National Music Centre, a new downtown branch for the city’s public library and an initiative to transform old or derelict buildings into new arts centres, performance venues or artist studios.

Public-private partnerships serve a key role in helping these projects succeed and the municipal government is an important facilitator, for instance in passing zoning law changes to permit more artist live-work studios, according to Nenshi.

"Calgary is becoming a city where artists are moving to… rather than coming from. A lot of that is due to the incredible entrepreneurism and creativity of the artists themselves," he said.

"But it’s also important that the government creates an environment in which this makes sense… The role of government is to make sure they’ve got spaces to do it in and the ability to be able to do this work."

While I hate the design for the ~~Mendel Art Gallery~~, err, ~~Art Gallery of Saskatchewan~~, umm, Remai Art Gallery of Saskatchewan, I am still supportive of a larger and downtown art gallery, even if it is a big ugly box.