Who are you choosing for mayor this election?

[Calgarian]

Originally Posted by DoubleK

Turnout seemed pretty good for a muni election.

Looks like vote splitting allowed DCU to get through in Ward 13.

They said 58% of eligible voters turned out. I'm sure it would have been higher if the lines weren't as long and they didn't run out of ballots in places.

[suburbia]

Originally Posted by Calgarian

They said 58% of eligible voters turned out. I'm sure it would have been higher if the lines weren't as long and they didn't run out of ballots in places.

2017 - 58.1% (total votes 387,306)
2013 - 39.3% (total votes 262,577)
2010 - 53% (total votes ~353,000)
2007 - 33% (total votes ~205,000)
2004 - 18% (total votes 115,549)
1951 - 37.3% (total votes 87,550)

Voting challenges over the last two hours aside, relatively speaking 2017 was pretty impressive. Need to give credit for the improvements in advanced polling also.

One thing that seems odd to me is that the eligible votes list is not increasing with the population.

[CrossedTheTracks]

Originally Posted by suburbia

I guess the question is, what ideology is council? I don't think it has any one ideology. They are about smart solutions, and that's that.

I did note that two of the new ones have graduate degrees. Farkas comes a bit across like Smith - wants to trash the SW-BRT. Hopefully he is willing to listen to logic and expertise.

Ideology might be a poor choice of words. Certainly not any ideology based on "partisanship", but on some issues, there was a fairly even split on council, and if the election moved the needle in one direction, then some things might see changes.

e.g., secondary suites couldn't get a comprehensive change, because there was a 7-8 split in past councils.

[Corndogger]

Originally Posted by CrossedTheTracks

Ideology might be a poor choice of words. Certainly not any ideology based on "partisanship", but on some issues, there was a fairly even split on council, and if the election moved the needle in one direction, then some things might see changes.

e.g., secondary suites couldn't get a comprehensive change, because there was a 7-8 split in past councils.

There's no question that the new council will be more conservative on some issues based on the four new councilors. Will this council be more harmonious despite that? I hope so even though last night the "experts" were saying it won't. Farkas late last night tweeted each councilor individually and reached out to them on common issues they might have. I thought it was a great first move on his part and shows a willingness to work with all of council.

[Policy Wonk]

I really didn’t follow the election above and beyond what showed up on Facebook, which was just repetitive proselytizing for or against a new Flames arena by the same four people (I never want to see John Oliver's Muppet rat face scroll across my screen again.) and a woman who works for Nenshi reminding everyone she is still madly in love with him and another woman complaining Nenshi is the worst "mansplainer" to have ever lived but didn’t actually indicate support for anyone else.

I still don't really know how I feel about Nenshi and I don't know if I would have voted for him or Chabot when it came down to it. I respect the man for a lot of reasons, but I think his myopia on certain issues is a huge stumbling block and of course the Green Line continues to baffle me. The shortened initial phase doesn't have me doubting my belief that connecting the SELRT and NCLRT doesn't serve any purpose that justifies the expense, especially since that expense is obviously reflected in the reduced length of the SELRT.

I tried to follow things on election night but was thwarted by the election website showing no results most of the night and the CTV and Global streams freezing on sketchy wifi so I went to bed only knowing that Nenshi had been re-elected by an unknown margin that I assumed was pretty large.

However looking at the results I am actually pretty shocked by just how effectively Bill Smith got his vote out. I see the guy only as Mike Judge might imagine a dopey failed businessman running for office because he needs the pay cheque. Smith running on only a vaguely conservative reactionary message (I won’t call it a platform because he doesn’t appear to have had one) and tainted by scandals and public embarrassment received 169,588 votes and grew voter turnout doing so.

Unless Bill Smith is a popular figure who I just failed to notice until now those 170,000 voters are going to be there for the taking by any conservative and I don't think those who supported Bill Smith represent the entirety of potential voters for a hardline or reactionary candidate. I suspect someone like Michelle Rempel or Ric McIver would have defeated Nenshi on Monday. That has to weigh on his mind as he contemplates running for Darshan Khan's seat in Calgary Skyview. Trudeau would give him a pretty nice cabinet position but a conservative hardliner could be elected mayor in his absence.

Council wise I am curious to see how Jyoti Gondek fits in. I know a number of people with extremely strong feelings about her. A few people absolutely adore her and a few people absolutely can’t stand her. I'm not overall that happy with the council, a dysfunctional status quo will persist and Farkas looks like a moron.

[geotag277]

Originally Posted by Policy Wonk

I really didn’t follow the election above and beyond what showed up on Facebook, which was just repetitive proselytizing for or against a new Flames arena by the same four people (I never want to see John Oliver's Muppet rat face scroll across my screen again.) and a woman who works for Nenshi reminding everyone she is still madly in love with him and another woman complaining Nenshi is the worst "mansplainer" to have ever lived but didn’t actually indicate support for anyone else.

I still don't really know how I feel about Nenshi and I don't know if I would have voted for him or Chabot when it came down to it. I respect the man for a lot of reasons, but I think his myopia on certain issues is a huge stumbling block and of course the Green Line continues to baffle me. The shortened initial phase doesn't have me doubting my belief that connecting the SELRT and NCLRT doesn't serve any purpose that justifies the expense, especially since that expense is obviously reflected in the reduced length of the SELRT.

I tried to follow things on election night but was thwarted by the election website showing no results most of the night and the CTV and Global streams freezing on sketchy wifi so I went to bed only knowing that Nenshi had been re-elected by an unknown margin that I assumed was pretty large.

However looking at the results I am actually pretty shocked by just how effectively Bill Smith got his vote out. I see the guy only as Mike Judge might imagine a dopey failed businessman running for office because he needs the pay cheque. Smith running on only a vaguely conservative reactionary message (I won’t call it a platform because he doesn’t appear to have had one) and tainted by scandals and public embarrassment received 169,588 votes and grew voter turnout doing so.

Unless Bill Smith is a popular figure who I just failed to notice until now those 170,000 voters are going to be there for the taking by any conservative and I don't think those who supported Bill Smith represent the entirety of potential voters for a hardline or reactionary candidate. I suspect someone like Michelle Rempel or Ric McIver would have defeated Nenshi on Monday. That has to weigh on his mind as he contemplates running for Darshan Khan's seat in Calgary Skyview. Trudeau would give him a pretty nice cabinet position but a conservative hardliner could be elected mayor in his absence.

Council wise I am curious to see how Jyoti Gondek fits in. I know a number of people with extremely strong feelings about her. A few people absolutely adore her and a few people absolutely can’t stand her. I'm not overall that happy with the council, a dysfunctional status quo will persist and Farkas looks like a moron.

That's a pretty bang on analysis considering your relative detachment from the events.

People like Gondek, Farkas, Sean Chu, Roy Jones, Ward Sutherland represent the conservative/developer side of council, and many of them squeaked by due to (in some cases) rather extreme vote splitting.

Farkas does seem to meet the profile of "useful idiot" to a T. Somehow sold himself to the conservative/developer interests to have a well funded campaign, and conservatives coalesced around him while the rest of the vote was split, essentially allowed him to fall ass backwards into a 6 figure council salary for the next four years. Out of all the budgetary issues facing the city, somehow the fact we will be paying this guy almost half a million dollars over the next 4 years is particularly detestable to me, but hey, good for him, he pulled it off.

[suburbia]

Originally Posted by geotag277

That's a pretty bang on analysis considering your relative detachment from the events.

People like Gondek, Farkas, Sean Chu, Roy Jones, Ward Sutherland represent the conservative/developer side of council, and many of them squeaked by due to (in some cases) rather extreme vote splitting.

Farkas does seem to meet the profile of "useful idiot" to a T. Somehow sold himself to the conservative/developer interests to have a well funded campaign, and conservatives coalesced around him while the rest of the vote was split, essentially allowed him to fall ass backwards into a 6 figure council salary for the next four years. Out of all the budgetary issues facing the city, somehow the fact we will be paying this guy almost half a million dollars over the next 4 years is particularly detestable to me, but hey, good for him, he pulled it off.

Agree regarding Farkas.

Regarding Gondek, it is interesting to note that she was on Westman's list, but it was Jun Lin that was on the UCP / Bill Smith / Stephen Harper / Jason Kenney slate. Poking into this a pinch, I learned that Gondek, who has a PhD is Urban Sociology (or something like that) is actually one of the instructors within the real estate program in the UC school of business. See here - the Provost is flanked by Westman on one side and Gondek on the other:
https://www.ucalgary.ca/utoday/issue...ty-real-estate

So I think Westman went with her instead of Jun Lin because of this, and not any other reason. If that is the case, and given her education and engagement with the city and community (certainly way better profile than Jun Lin) I think she can be good. Of course, proof will be in the pudding. If some people don't like her, it might be because she seems to be an evidenced based person, and others like Farkas not so much.

My biggest hope for the councillors is that they think city-wide as much as for their own wards. So no reason Gondek could not support something that makes longer-term sense and be beneficial for the inner city, even if her ward is out a ways. Don't want this protectionist BS within the city.

[canucklehead2]

Any follow up thoughts from Election 2021?

[Policy Wonk]

Originally Posted by canucklehead2

Any follow up thoughts from Election 2021?

Conservative Calgary seemed to find a worse candidate than Bill Smith in an easily winnable election.

Farkas is the type of candidate that makes women's skin crawl and that is only one of his mortal flaws. Nihilistic contrarianism isn't a governing philosophy.

Gondek made absolutely no impression on me what so ever good or bad as a councillor, but I have now been living away from Calgary for the better part of a decade.