“I’m absolutely done” – Calgary city manager slams council over Olympic direction

Jeff Fielding spoke. Councillors nodded.

Calgary’s city manager defended his staff Monday as conversation over a possible Olympic bid delved into forming a new oversight subcommittee and approving a public engagement plan.

Before council made those moves, along with approving a plebiscite in principle, Ward 5 Cllr. George Chahal proposed directing administration to look into how high school students could be involved in the vote, despite not being of legal age.

Despite the city solicitor indicating that wouldn’t work because a plebiscite is of a vote of electors, Chahal persisted, and Fielding stood up.

“Are we just taking direction willy-nilly off the floor of council on all the things that we’re talking about that come popping into your head? I got to tell you, I’m done with that folks, I’m absolutely done with it,” Fielding said.

But the city manager wasn’t just talking about Chahal, as his rant referenced the ongoing debate around a possible bid, including issues of transparency as some councillors have previously stated concern about bias and favouritism within the administration.

“I’ve listened to our folks get castigated over the last several months for mistakes that have been committed, and I’ve made clear that we had made mistakes,” he said. “But we’ve never been clear about who we were responding to, who is the leader of all of this process and who is responsible at the end of the day that we were supposed to report to.

“So, I’m putting my stake in the ground today,” he said. “You’re setting up a structure, please stick with the structure.”

Administration is expected to return to council no later than June with more details around the handling and timing of a plebiscite, which Mayor Naheed Nenshi hopes will happen in Autumn.

As for Fielding’s display, Nenshi said the city manager’s point was a good one.

“I actually take a ton of offence at councillors who say there’s been no public engagement, there has been so much public engagement on this, people have talking about it for two years because we’ve been doing it all in public,” Nenshi said.

“Give the people working on this some oxygen to work on it, let them try and build this vision, let them try and build this financial deal because right now they’re spending all their time responding to sniping from the sidelines and that’s no way to actually bring this forward.”

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