All smiles at Calgary council’s swearing-in, but now real work begins

Arguments and counterarguments will come soon enough to Calgary’s newest city council, but it was all smiles, handshakes, and pledges of teamwork at the group’s swearing-in ceremony.

Mayor Naheed Nenshi and his 14 councillors, including four new ones, were greeted a crowd of several hundred outside council chambers Monday, as Nenshi was presented the Chain of Office for the third time by his nieces.

“I get to tell you all, that all of us feel that is an honour and a joy to be here with all of you today,” he said. “I want to say to all of you, thank you, our deepest gratitude is with you for loving this place and for choosing us as your vessels.”

The celebratory quickly turned to the work ahead, specifically the budget.

“Welcome to our world,” he said to reporters, joined by his four new councillors, Jyoti Gondek, George Chahal, Jeff Davison and Jeromy Farkas.

Among the issues is the $170 million shortfall the city faces if it puts in a 2018 tax freeze, Nenshi’s request to extend a $45 million subsidy program to cap business taxes for another year and dealing with the Calgary Police Service’s request to hire 55 new officers.

But Nenshi said this budget will be fine without being terribly contentious.

“The real work starts the day after we pass the budget because at that point we embark on a year-long process to work with Calgarians to develop our budgets for the next four years,” he said. “That truly is where we need to make some tough decisions.”

As for where the $45 million will come from, Nenshi said he’ll have more to say about that in the coming days.

“Some of it will come from our savings, that’s our biggest source of money, it is a rainy day fund,” he said. “And it is raining.”

All the new councillors said they were elected with platforms that dealt with getting spending in line and re-investing in their communities.

Ward 11’s Farkas, council’s youngest councillor who has vowed to stop the SW BRT project and bring fiscal restraint to council, also said he wants to end the shroud of secrecy around City Hall.

“Nearly 750 secret meetings that our previous council had over the last four years,” he said. “We’re going to be pushing hard that whenever any discussions do have to happen in camera, that a clear, legal reason is provided.”

Ward 6’s Davison has promised to bring a pro-business agenda to council and said it’s certainly going to be a big workload.

“Most Calgarians right now have a need and want list and unfortunately, most people have to spend from the need list and I think that’s sort of what they would like to see from council as well,” he said.

Ward 3’s Gondek said the clear concern she’s heard is better money management.

“There’s a lot of concern about the vacancies downtown and how we’re going to get those filled and how we’re going to keep generating the type of revenue we need to run a great city,” she said.

Ward 5’s Chahal said he doesn’t think there will be that much friction.

“I think we have a great group of council members and I think what I’ve seen so far, everybody seems to get along and work together and I think the fresh faces on council will do a great job of making sure everybody works collaboratively,” he said.

Farkas has been outspoken about his concerns with council in the past, but he’ll work to earn the trust and respect of his colleagues.

“I was really pleased to sit down one-on-one with our newly elected mayor, I’m really confident we can work together on a number of different files,” he said.

Nenshi had nothing but praise for his new colleagues.

“Two of them have extraordinary academic credentials,” he said. “One of them is one of the most dedicated community volunteers I know and the other one is also an incredibly dedicated community leader and also worked harder to get this job than anyone I’ve ever seen before.”