Calgary Minute: Integrity Commissioner, Housing Affordability, and 21 Ways To Cut Council Spending

Calgary Minute - Your weekly one-minute summary of Calgary politics

This Week In Calgary:

• This morning there will be an Organizational Meeting of Council. Amongst other things, the committee will address administrative issues arising from Councillor Ray Jones' recent retirement, which he announced last week, citing health reasons.
  
  
• On Wednesday there will be a meeting of the Citizen-Led Selection Committee for the Integrity Commissioner. The Committee will pick a replacement for Integrity Commissioner, Sal LoVecchio, whose term expired recently. LoVecchio had previously recused himself from investigating complaints about Joe Magliocca's expense scandal after it was revealed that lunch between Lovecchio and Magliocca had also been expensed.
  
  
• Even if the Committee picks the perfect person to be the new Integrity Commissioner, Council's Code of Conduct - which the Integrity Commissioner is tasked with enforcing - is not up to code. You can read all about the problems with the Code in an Op-Ed by our Executive Director, Megan McCaffrey, here.

Last Week In Calgary:

• Last week, we, along with 4 other like-minded municipal advocacy organizations released a report with 21 Ways to Cut Council Spending in 2021. If you agree that Calgary taxes are out of control, and the city needs to find a way to reduce costs, check out the report here.
  
  
• The City's Priorities and Finance Committee debated 11 proposed new communities on the outskirts of the City, with the Mayor and administration arguing that these new developments would cost taxpayers more because demand is lower than normal at the moment and so the City won't recoup enough of its costs. The problem is, not a single one of them seems to understand that supply and demand are linked, that increasing supply reduces prices, which increases demand. Given these same people are the ones usually complaining about housing affordability you'd think they'd be all over a policy that could make housing more affordable. But not, they'd rather development stayed in the city-centre and stayed expensive.
  
  
• During the debate, Mayor Nenshi also confirmed the City is working on an Annexation Strategy that will stop the communities surrounding Calgary from growing. This is not about supporting Calgary's growth, but rather is a purely ideological anti-growth nonsense that will hurt Calgarians and Albertans.

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