Decision 2010: Calgary Municipal Election

[fusili]

Originally Posted by Wooster

Naheed Nenshi's latest Better Idea - directly related to issues near and dear to many of our hearts on this forum:

Better Idea #7
Calgary will be a city of sustainable, walkable, livable, complete communities

http://www.nenshi.ca/new/2010/159

http://www.nenshi.ca/new/wp-content/uplo...Term-Sustainability-Nenshi-for-Mayor.pdf

We
need a capital investment plan that addresses the need for new parks, streetscape revitalization, and other
community amenities for the city centre. Costs can be offset by development fees, density bonusing, and
other sources of revenue.

Thank you, thank you, thank you Naheed for saying this.

A Capital Investment Plan is sorely needed in the Centre City and in the Beltline. Administration cannot seem to wrap it's head around this. Investment is terribly ad hoc and terribly insufficient. The other sources of revenue is key, it cannot just be development that pays. We need to leverage other economic activities to fund improvements.

Maybe Nenshi is stealing my ideas?

[MichaelS]

What are some other sources you would like to see?

[fusili]

Originally Posted by MichaelS

What are some other sources you would like to see?

You'll have to wait a bit until that can of worms is opened.

[Big Sky]

I like where Nenshi is coming from.

Right off the bat his better idea read has the statement

Calgary is a fast growing city, but the way Calgary is growing is financially, socially, and environmentally unsustainable. New
homes built on the periphery of the city currently cost more to service (provide sewers, roads, transit, police, fire, etc) than they
generate in tax revenue and development levies – $10,000 more in just sewer and water infrastructure, according to one recent
study. The entire city is subsidizing every new home that is built.

Something we've all been saying here on the forum. Does anyone know what study he is referring to? Not that I don't believe him, but I'd like to show the study to some friends of mine (who need convincing).
I'm also curious if there is a time-line for that statement. You would think that the tax base would eventually pay off those new infrastructure charges, but it must be quite a long period of time.

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by Big Sky

Something we've all been saying here on the forum. Does anyone know what study he is referring to? Not that I don't believe him, but I'd like to show the study to some friends of mine (who need convincing).
I'm also curious if there is a time-line for that statement. You would think that the tax base would eventually pay off those new infrastructure charges, but it must be quite a long period of time.

I heard ~43 years for the suburbs versus ~15 for inner city.

[Radley77]

Originally Posted by Big Sky

I like where Nenshi is coming from.

Right off the bat his better idea read has the statement



Something we've all been saying here on the forum. Does anyone know what study he is referring to? Not that I don't believe him, but I'd like to show the study to some friends of mine (who need convincing).
I'm also curious if there is a time-line for that statement. You would think that the tax base would eventually pay off those new infrastructure charges, but it must be quite a long period of time.

I believe this quote cam from the M2010-08 Financing Municipal Infrastructure Summary Report - Attachment 3:

"While the total city-wide average of all of the acreage assessments equals$137,800 per hectare ($7,660 per unit based on 18 units per hectare) The City has estimated that capital cost recovery of this infrastructure may be closer to $17,600/unit with over 75% of the shortfall due to The City currently not collecting acreage assessments for water or sanitary sewer infrastructure since 1999."

http://publicaccess.calgary.ca/lldm01/li...eral&msgID=QygcAgKKKT&msgAction=download

[fusili]

Originally Posted by Radley77

The other aspect is that while industry and City of Calgary tend to agree about paying for development capital costs, that operational costs, some parts of the city are also more cost effective to service than others.

Servicing is obviously very complicated, but as a general rule, the denser an area, the easier it is to service.

Really complicated is cumulative effects costs of capital infrastructure. For example, what is the marginal cost of one new residence in, say Somerset on intersection upgrades on MacLeod? More drivers farther out trigger upgrades to all the road infrastructure (ex- Crowchild upgrades). Who pays for this? It is a very complicated issue, but not one to be avoided.

[Riise]

I looked at Nehsi's latest Better Idea earlier and one of the interesting things that I noticed was the mention of structural changes to the planning system. This is something that Gian Carlo has also mentioned and something I am really interested in hearing more about, especially the implementation of these changes.

[Ferreth]

Originally Posted by charper

I want to connect personally and the dialers don't achieve that.

If not the dialers, what other suggestions would you all have around contacting community members? We're running a strong ground campaing with our door knocking since early March... so doing my best there.

Thanks for asking. I'm not big on the door to door stuff, although I recognize it's the traditional way of campaigning, outmoded, but effective in more traditional groups. I just ain't going be swayed based on a few questions and a handshake at the door.

Personally, I prefer a nice brochure in my mailbox. Equally important would be a good website. By good, I mean a website that covers as much policy in as much detail as you dare. Pay money for good web design. I laugh at slogans. I think buzz on the internet is going to become a big way of gaining support - it just has not been around long enough in a stable form to have a history of what works and what doesn't. That means you're going to have to try covering all the bases and being a bit daring to get some attention, hopefully of the good kind. Participating on this forum is a good step, although it might not get you the audience you quite desire.

It's always tempting to try methods that go directly to the voter. This was fine 60 years ago when half of us lived on the farm and even city life was a lot slower. I relish my peace and get right pissed off by anything that dares to disturb it uninvited. Your job is to give me a reason to invite you in, when I have time to invite you in. I keep every candidate's letter that gets put in my mailbox until voting day, and I look at every candidate's website to see what they stand for.

[charper]

Originally Posted by fusili

Door knocking is the best way in my opinion. Going from door to door means that you are really putting in effort to talk to people face to face. If someone called me during dinner I would be pretty mad, but if they came to the door, I would really appreciate the effort. Face to face communication is very important. Kudos to you on putting in so much effort on that front.

In my ward (ward 8) this is really hard, because the majority of people live in apartments, so you can't just go door to door. People on street corners would be a lot more effective in areas such as the Beltline (for those of you who live here think about how many times you have seen the Red Cross people).

Ward 8 would be a tough one for door knocking. That said, I recall Kent door knocking the condos extensively in the last Provincial.

I agree that door knocking is the way to do it. Most authentic, best opportunity to listen, and you can actually have a discussion. Good exercise as well!

[mersar]

I believe I heard somewhere that there's actually some rule in the elections act that gives candidates access into buildings such as condo's, similar to how a census taker is allowed access into them.

[bob1954]

I see the Sun Times poll has Barb Higgins at 41% to 30+% for McIver. And table scraps for everybody else.

[O-tacular]

SO Barb Higgins is running for mayor?

[Rusty van Reddick]

Originally Posted by bob1954

I see the Sun Times poll has Barb Higgins at 41% to 30+% for McIver. And table scraps for everybody else.

Why is a Chicago paper doing polls for our mayoral race?

[Rusty van Reddick]

Also, the Sun nonsense isn't a proper survey and only tells us how Sun readers are responding to a nonscientific- I don't even know what to call these shitty things- phone-in poll? It means nothing.

[Wooster]

http://www.calgarysun.com/

their online poll is on the sidebar. still open.

[mr.steevo]

Wow. Higgins is almost at 40%.

What's her position exactly?

Or does it even matter to voters?

s.

[Rusty van Reddick]

You can very easily find Barb Higgins' policy positions by googling her. She's a much nicer version of McIver, basically.

very heartened to find Naheed in a solid 3rd place with something like 22% this morning even if this sort of polling is crap.

[mr.steevo]

At least she'll smile warmly when she cuts services.

s.

[fusili]

Originally Posted by Rusty van Reddick

You can very easily find Barb Higgins' policy positions by googling her. She's a much nicer version of McIver, basically.

very heartened to find Naheed in a solid 3rd place with something like 22% this morning even if this sort of polling is crap.

Now Nenshi is in 4th with 16 and Hehr is tied for 3rd with 20% with McIver. Higgins still in 1st with 32%.

This kind of polling is such crap. It really doesn't mean anything.

EDIT: Ha, the total number of votes is 25. I voted twice! I represent 8% of all Calgarians. Fantastic.