Calgary Minute: New Year, Travelling Politicians, and An Unimaginable Tragedy

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

This Week In Calgary:

• Happy New Year, Calgary! We hope you've had a relaxing holiday break and found a way to enjoy yourself while saying good riddance to 2020. The next municipal election is this fall so we have a lot of work to do in 2021! If you'd like to help, you can sign up to volunteer, while donations to support our work are always greatly appreciated too.
  
  
• Thanks to revelations at the provincial level, we suspect the news this week will be dominated by speculation about Councillor's travel schedules. Most Councillors have confirmed they didn't travel over the holidays, but that still leaves questions about other Councillors and about travel earlier during the pandemic.
  
  
• Speaking of breaks, Council's holiday will continue this week, with no meetings planned until January 12th when there will be a Priorities and Finance Committee meeting. The Calgary Planning Commission meeting that was scheduled for January 7th was cancelled.

Last Week In Calgary:

• Tragically, Calgary Police officer Sgt. Andrew Harnett was killed during a traffic stop, when two men allegedly took off in their SUV, striking and dragging the officer. Adding to this immense tragedy, Sgt. Harnett's widow is currently pregnant with the couple's first child. Our thoughts and prayers are with the family, friends, and colleagues of Sgt. Harnett during this unimaginably difficult time. Those wishing to send messages of condolence to Sgt. Harnett's family may do so by sending an email to: [email protected]
  
  
• Despite previously promising he would reveal his plans by the end of 2020, Mayor Nenshi is still keeping quiet on whether he plans to run again in 2021, telling the Calgary Herald "are we at a stage where the organization, the City of Calgary and the community are in strong enough shape that I can hand them over and trust that whomever comes after will get the chance to put their own stamp on things, but at the same time not break what we’ve built together?"
  
  
• The City of Calgary's 311 line has been inundated with hundreds of calls for "snow on road" and "snow on pathway" since the big snowfalls in December, but it's okay because at least the bike lanes no one uses in December are clear. #priorities

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