 | Saturday, September 18, 2021
By Scott Dippel
Reading this online? Sign up to get this delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning. | | City parking and city control | | |  | The Calgary Parking Authority has operated at a distance from the city for more than 50 years, but will now be fully integrated. (CBC) | | | You might have thought that the City of Calgary, which owns the Calgary Parking Authority (CPA), also ran the CPA.
You would have been wrong. That is, until this week.
Since it was founded more than 50 years ago, the CPA has been run as a separate organization. In recent years, it’s been governed by an independent committee, which included city councillors, city and CPA staff as well as citizens appointed by council.
That system is now gone.
City council has voted to bring the organization in house.
This means final governance and oversight of the CPA now technically resides with city manager David Duckworth, who will delegate that responsibility within the bureaucracy.
Council believes that by bringing the CPA under direct city control, there will be greater efficiency — and the possibility of saving $20 million in costs over the coming decade.
Ward 4 Coun. Sean Chu, who has spent six years on the Calgary Parking Committee, isn't sold on the idea.
"It's a big mistake," he said.
Chu suggests bringing CPA staff under the city's umbrella will result in higher costs through salary increases. Some elements of the CPA are already unionized. But more staff will now join civic unions once they become direct city employees.
Chu also said he expects being part of a much bigger organization will slow down decision making processes at the CPA.
It's just the latest bit of change for the CPA. Several general managers have left suddenly over the past decade without much explanation, including last December. The current acting general manager has also recently announced he's leaving.
An official from the city’s transportation department, Chris Blaschuk, has been named to lead the CPA through the transition period. | | |  | This rendering shows what Arts Commons could look like in the future, after an expansion and extensive renovation. (Arts Commons) | Cash shortfall | The long planned expansion and renovation of Calgary’s Arts Commons has been approved.
The cash for that expansion was coming from several sources.
City council had been expecting a $77 million contribution from the Canada Community-Building Fund, which gets its money from a refund of the federal gasoline tax, but after the cash flows through provincial governments.
It turns out Calgary will be getting $73.6 million.
That’s created a $3.4 million shortfall which Calgary taxpayers will close after council dug deeper into local coffers this week. City council approved making up the difference from its major projects reserve fund. That fund is where council has parked money for the BMO Centre expansion, a new events centre, the Arts Commons transformation and a future fieldhouse.
The problem came in the number crunching, and a per capita calculation based on population data. The federal and provincial governments based their 2021 calculation on Calgary's 2019 headcount, not the city's 2020 population. So, less cash.
"This may well have been the feds and the province making the same error. I think this is a one-off," said Mayor Naheed Nenshi.
"I think between the civil servants at both the federal and provincial levels, frankly they made a mistake."
Ward 3 Coun. Jyoti Gondek asked if it's not the responsibility of the other governments to make up for their mistake rather than downloading it to the city.
Nenshi said, somewhat whimsically: "I would love it if the world worked in a place of justice and truth. I think it's fair to say we tried that and it didn't work."
Gondek suggested the next council should revisit getting the cash from the other two governments. Nenshi agreed | | |  | (Mike Symington/CBC) | Magliocca seeks re-election | Ward 2 Coun. Joe Magliocca made it official last week: he’s seeking re-election. This makes five councillors running for re-election with three other councillors running to be mayor.
Last year, a special audit of Magliocca’s expenses was performed at city council’s direction. It concluded Magliocca had improperly claimed items such as ineligible meals, drinks and air travel upgrades over a period between 2017-2019. Magliocca was then sanctioned by council for violating its code of conduct.
Magliocca publicly apologized in a council meeting before the audit, when the irregular expenses were first brought to light. He paid back the City of Calgary nearly $10,000 for his ineligible claims and the city said the matter was closed.
But Magliocca has yet to answer questions about the matter. He also hasn’t responded to council's sanction that he issue a public letter of apology to Calgarians.
Magliocca will only say that someday, he’ll be free to tell his side of the story. The RCMP continue to investigate the matter.
Magliocca's decision to seek a third term has already had one impact on the Ward 2 race.
Candidate Ron Taylor, who submitted his nomination last February, withdrew his candidacy this week and endorsed Jennifer Wyness.
Name recognition is a key factor in municipal politics and Taylor said he doesn't want to see the vote split.
There are still six candidates vying for support with Ward 2 voters.
Read more. | | The long goodbye | It's a council tradition to have a large agenda for its final meeting and this week's last gathering of the current term was no exception. But the meeting started in slow motion.
On Monday, for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic last year, every member of council (except Ward 1 Coun. Ward Sutherland, who was under the weather) gathered for a final photo.
Then, while they spread out in the council chamber, the six members of council not seeking re-election were saluted by their colleagues in a series of speeches.
There were some laughs and some tears were shed.
Council spent the next couple days voting on the matters before them, and it wasn't until Wednesday night that Mayor Naheed Nenshi banged the gavel for the final time.
He joked that after 11 years of presiding over council meetings, he wanted to take the historic 1911 gavel with him.
"Every time I held that gavel in my hand, it reminded me of the 35 men who have held that gavel before and the chain of history that I became part of. And I sure hope that that is something that the new mayor will appreciate when she or he gets to sit in that chair."
The current council may not have any more formal meetings scheduled, but the members remain in office until the new council is sworn in on October 25. | | | 5 more municipal stories you shouldn't miss | | | | | Share this newsletter | | or subscribe if this was
forwarded to you. | | | |
