#YEGVOTE 2013

Chiming in on the 2013 Edmonton municipal election

Boyle Street is in the hotly contested Ward 6, a long district that runs from 84th Street in the east out to 149th Street in the west, and from 111th Avenue in the north down to the river. So Ward 6 encompasses one of the toniest residential areas (Glenora) and one of the grittiest (our wonderful Boyle Street). It includes Little Italy, Chinatown, Central McDougall (downtown), Oliver, Queen Mary Park, North Glenora, Grovenor. A huge and complicated area.

I have been keeping an eye on the forums and on the twitterverse and the candidate literature and websites. A terrific field with some wonderful people running. Here are my thoughts so far:

1. Reporting is not doing. While some journalists successfully turn to politics when their media run is over, others are less successful. Alberta has seen its fair share of these on the provincial stage over the past century, and some of them have been extremely damaging. William Aberhart and Ralph Klein were beloved of their constituents because they had a media profile before they were elected to office - and they had ideas. Lots of ideas. But reporting or commenting on politics is different from being in office, and the damage they did in office was breathtaking. Feeling like you know the will of the people is not the same as being able to do a complex job competently. So when I look at a candidate who comes from the media, I want to see that there is more there than a refined heckler. The candidate seen as the leader in the Boyle Street ward race (according to his media colleagues) is Scott McKeen. Here's the problem: McKeen's qualifications and track record are not as good as some of the other candidates. He does not have the history of solid accomplishment in this sphere that a couple of the other candidates have. His work on community efforts started, according to his pamphlet, in 2010. It's a drop in the bucket compared to most of the other candidates - and it feels to me as if he was using that to pave the way for running in this election. Call me cynical.

2. Live here. Unbelievable to me that a candidate would run in a ward where he a) doesn't live and b) hasn't located his own business. But Dexx Williams is that candidate. Williams is all about transparency when it comes to other politicians, but he hasn't exactly been up front about the degree to which he is committed to Ward 6. Doesn't live here, didn't put his business here (it is in the south end, if the address given on the website is correct). So why is he running? Because he is a police officer in this Ward. His experience of the ward is mostly related to his job - and while he might be an expert on the policing issues of the areas of the ward to which he has been assigned over the past 7 years, that does not qualify him to deal with the complexity of representing this area's complex business and social environment. Since 1986 I have lived in Boyle Street, Central McDougall, Rossdale and Oliver. I have been a partner in three businesses in the heart of this ward, been employed by several others, as well as serving on the community league and other boards, and working on two of the community garden projects. Where is Williams' personal investment in this community? Sorry, it does not stack up against other candidates who choose to (rather than being assigned to) live in, work in, and are personally involved in the community. I know there are issues of safety for police officers, and I understand it might not be a good idea to live in the area to which you are assigned. Fine. Run in the area where you live. Or run where your other business is. Don't try to tell me you can represent the people of this ward better than those who have been committed to it 24/7 for years. I am not endorsing Dexx Williams.

3. Be savvy about communication. 

No matter how brilliant you are, if you cannot communicate your ideas you will not succeed on council. Several of the candidates have shown they have a weakness in this area. Granted, my own biases as a communications professional are coming into play here. Perhaps these are good people who simply don't communicate well in public forums. 

While I admire Melinda Hollis' backbone when some of the Twitter folk got bent out of shape over comments Hollis made in the forums, her willingness to fan the flame wars made me feel like she is too easily distracted. I also find her campaign material to be long on principles but short on ideas for how to achieve them - especially since her targets seem difficult to accommodate. I want to see more of a plan if you indicate you are going to increase infrastructure spending, develop and fund a lot more programs, increase funding to the arts community AND reduce debt and taxes. Without some brilliant ideas (which we need), this looks like nothing more than political pandering. Tell them what they want to hear. Hollis has worked for the city in the past and lives in the ward and she might be good at the job - but she is not bringing to the table the same level of creative thinking and past achievement that some of the other candidates have. She also wants to revisit the city centre airport debate - and that's a dead horse. Settled in 2009. Rather than open up the debate again, have a creative plan for how those lands are going to be developed without undue stress on existing infrastructure. Then I might be interested in voting for you.

Other candidates have also had communication missteps. Dexx Williams had to do a great deal of explaining after he suggested politicians be subjected to the same kind of scrutiny as police officers - including lie detectors. 

Alf White got some negative reaction on Twitter after he misspoke at a candidate forum - saying he wanted to eliminate infill. White has a strong record of community service and he has some profile in the east end of the ward where parking lots weaken not only the aesthetic but the feeling of community. White has in the past expressed a desire to see these areas developed, and his intention was the same at the forum - but he misspoke and seemed unaware that he had misspoken. Isolated incident? Maybe - let's see how he performs in the other forums. 

Adil Pirbhai has not been able - in the forums we have both attended - to articulate his vision beyond ranting about past decisions and saying he will speak out for the average citizen. 

Javed Sommers has a Facebook page, and he links to his answers to one of the questionnaires. His answers show that he might not understand how some aspects of the city work - such as his decision not to make engagement with post-secondary research/faculty/students a priority. The universities are a major economic driver in Edmonton and they are playing a significant role in downtown development - not recognizing that reality does not give this campaign much credibility. The LivingBridge project is not a model for urban sustainable agriculture - my experience with its precursor in Boyle Street taught me many things about why this model will not work to achieve the goals. Don't just accept the hype, Mr. Sommers - look carefully at the model.

Erin Northey seemed a bit at sea in the early forums. Call me small-minded, but I took against her tagline "Committed towards a better Edmonton". I noticed that on her platform webpage she has used the correct term and commits TO a better Edmonton. Prepositions are not interchangeable. As of the date of this writing, her platform statement is a mess. The material is not well organized, the specifics are lacking, and there are a lot of rookie grammar errors. Fuzzy writing indicates fuzzy thinking, in my opinion. Well-meaning candidate, but not ready. 

Bryan Kapitza's website is also full of errors and broad generalizations (like saying 52% of the downtown core is surface parking lots - and unless you are drawing a circle around the four blocks east of City Hall, I don't see that this assertion stands). He gets points for having a set of clear priorities, but his facile solutions (avoid debt by not approving debt - but with no thought to how you then finance needed infrastructure) do not convince me. I really like some of his "other initiatives" - but I have heard them before, and some of them are not going to be possible without incurring debt.  An inner city credit union would need assets of $10 million minimum to provide full services (check the provincial guidelines). As for growing plants on the boulevard strips between sidewalks and the road - well, he wouldn't be the only candidate who is doing that.

I find Pirbhai's website much clearer than the man is in person - which could have something to do with these speed-dating forums where people only have one minute to speak. So why am I not voting for Pirbhai? Because city council DOES have to worry about how to attract and keep business, and none of the decisions regarding the airport or the arena or the Indy were undertaken without a lot of study and concern and public uproar (whether a plebiscite was conducted or not - plebiscites will only yield wise decisions if the people who vote on them are fully informed of all the ramifications of the situation). No, I do not agree with some of the decisions - but I am not looking for monsters under the bed. Councillors wrestled hard with these decisions, and if Pirbhai is not prepared to respect that, then will he be able to respect contrary views if he is elected to council and will he be able to work with others? I do not see that from his appearances or his materials. His claim that he is the only candidate who has attended budget hearings and Public Forums - well, I am not sure which public forums he means. I know Candas Jane Dorsey attended council sessions on the LRT and on the Boyle Renaissance and worked with various levels of city bureaucracy on Chinatown consultation, The Quarters, Boyle Renaissance - got in there and did the work, not just listening to the meetings. 

I haven't met Carla Frost and I haven't seen her literature - only heard about her campaign platform second hand. Audiences seem to be distracted by her aggressive approach; people have trouble telling me what she is actually planning to do (except for saying that no-one is going to tell her what to do, which doesn't sound like a team player to me).

Andrzej Gudanowski's platform as expressed in his answers on the Local Good site suggest a man of big ideas who hasn't a clue how things work or what is already being done on various issues of interest to him. This impression might be in part owing to a language barrier.

4. Have a broad platform. 
Here is a problem we see on the federal scene too: the Green Party is trying to save the country, but they are not seen as a party capable of managing anything but an environmentalism portfolio. Of course this is not true. Elizabeth May won the leaders' debates in the last election in my opinion. 

What does this have to do with Ward 6? Well, it's the role Kyle Brown plays. And I wish more of the candidates incorporated solid greening in their platforms. In many of the broad-based platforms I get the feeling the candidates have learned what to say to get votes rather than what to do to bring about change. Kyle is focussed, but he lacks the breadth of experience that will bring a seasoned voice to debates on matters that are NOT related to sustainability (I know: everything ought to be related to it, but at the council level it is not). 

Similarly Taz Bouchier: we really need this social worker/First Nations perspective, but I am not seeing the level of experience of some of the other candidates. 

Heather Mackenzie has a fairly broad platform, but I don't see much experience with the business community either as a business person or hooking the business community into her other endeavours - and this could just be that she hasn't written about it. 

Williams is mostly about security and policing and safety. The broader picture he paints is long on promises of what he would do, but short on details of how he would do it. Encouraging small business to move to the core might be a hard sell if your own business hasn't moved there.

The weird things is how much Dorsey combines or overlaps the qualifications of the other candidates. She started as a social worker (like Bouchier) has small business experience and a lot of board experience; she ran a communications company (like McKeen) from the Weinlos Building and then a publishing/consulting firm (like Williams) from the Birks Building. Dorsey knows some of the challenges facing businesses in the downtown core. She doesn't have Hollis' experience as an executive assistant or Brown's political family.

5. Demonstrate specific achievements. 
Sitting on a committee is not an achievement. For all we know, you could have been the person everyone else rolled their eyes over. 

Derrick Forsythe probably has some specific achievements, but I find his literature vague and lacking in anything concrete. He recently posted about a community consultation success before Council - yes, that is what I would like to see more of. Yet he has been active on the Community League board, I believe, and has demonstrated a willingness to work with multiple communities on a range of issues.

Terry Parada has run a business (this is true of a few of the others in the race: Dorsey, McKeen, Williams). And he has a son.

The leaders in this race, in terms of expressing specific achievements, are Candas Jane Dorsey and Heather Mackenzie. Mackenzie can point to the gradual transformation of the EPSB; Dorsey can point to the Boyle Renaissance as well as a long history of creating and sustaining specific local, provincial, and national organizations to meet needs. As a co-founder of The Bullet (Edmonton's arts newspaper before SEE and Vue), of The Books Collective (publishing Alberta voices that were not getting a chance in other places), of Hromada Housing Co-op, of the Writers Guild of Alberta, of SF Canada, seventeen years contributing to an EPS liaison committee - Dorsey has a pile of awards reflecting the respect she has garnered in Alberta and beyond for her community work and her writing. McKeen has some awards as a journalist - as part of his job - and some recent recognition for his newfound passion for community service - but nothing as sustained as Dorsey.

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My vote is for the person with the strongest grasp of the most issues and the longest record of getting things done in a creative, cost-effective way. That means my order of preference based on what I have seen at the forums and what I have read online is as follows:

1. Candas Jane Dorsey. No-one else comes close to her credentials or length of service. Analytical, communicative, consensus-builder.

2. Heather Mackenzie. She would be a young voice, but she has shown strength and determination and managed change at EPSB. She shares many qualities with Dorsey.

3. Taz Bouchier. Solid champion for community and some underrepresented Edmontonians.

4. Derrick Forsythe. Talking with him at the events, he seems like a genuine candidate with a long history of community involvement and an analytical ability. He would grow into the role.

5. Scott McKeen. At least he knows the history of how we got here, so he might be able to stop council from repeating mistakes - but in my opinion he has been an observer for much longer than he's been a doer. And he hasn't actually released much of a platform yet (although I hear he will soon).

While I admire and respect the 11 others for their willingness to serve and their desire to make Edmonton a better place, their platforms or their performance are not working for me.

UPDATE: I received a comment on this post, but it was accidentally attached to a different post by the sender, so I have typed it out here. The sender was anonymous.

"I think it’s sad to judge Carla Frost, she has served as a community service worker in Edmonton for 27 years and this is her second time running in ward 6. She is real and to speak about someone in this way isn’t community spirit and she is a huge grass roots Edmonton woman."

First, I did make it clear I was not operating on first-hand information and I tried to be fair about that. Second, these candidates are asking voters to judge them - to assess whether or not they would be the best councillor for the ward. That's our job in an election. Third, I don't claim to be a voice for "community spirit" - but even if I were, nothing I have said about Carla Frost is in any way mean-spirited. No-one suggested she wasn't "real". This is how she is presenting herself; if she wants to be seen in a different way, she will have to present herself in a different way. That is true of all of the candidates. If there were one obviously perfect candidate, we wouldn't need to have an election!