I’ve been very blessed over the past few years to be part of some great projects, which do that very thing. I’m active in:

• the Winston Heights-Mountview Community Association,
• the Calgary Professional Arts Alliance,
• the Mayor’s Evening for Business and the Arts,
• the Bob Edwards Award Luncheon,
• PechaKucha Nights,
• CivicCamp,
• Reboot Alberta, and
• Leadership Calgary.

I’ve had the pleasure of helping re-brand and build two theatres, the most recent being Lunchbox Theatre after their move to the Calgary Tower. I’m also working hard to help create Nuit Blanche Calgary, and bring a Poet Laureate and open data to the City of Calgary. Not to mention the time I spend on my blog and CBC Radio column where I get to talk about all kinds of initiatives that inspire me.

Most of these projects have been civic-minded in some way. I have even called myself a “civic advocate” – which is to say I like doing the kinds of things that make my city better.

Over the past year, friends, colleagues, and even relative strangers have been asking me to do more. Because of my civic-development focus I have been repeatedly asked to run for Alderman.

A year and a half ago I half-laughed when people asked. “Me? Surely there must be someone better.” I would think. Then as time progressed I realized people were serious and they really wanted someone like me, who was real and not just another stereotypical politician who cared more about ideology than what they thought, to represent them. I was flattered but still didn’t take the idea too seriously.

But as time has passed, and more and more people have asked me privately and publicly to run, I’ve begun to feel like I would somehow be letting them down to not do it. There is a real thirst for something different and these people really do think I can provide it; and they cared enough about it to approach me and say it.

It’s important to note I’m just a Calgarian like anyone else out there. I don’t harbour a life long ambition to be a politician. I love my life AND I see how poorly we treat our elected officials. But I do have an intense sense of duty and of right and wrong. I see many areas in our municipal government that can use fixing and I feel responsible to help fix them, both as an individual citizen, and as a community leader.

My friends and colleagues have worn me down by showing me the good I could do.

My wife, Christine, and I have talked about this for some time and we have decided that we are willing to make the sacrifice to help improve the City we love so much.

However, unlike every other candidate for public office I’ve ever heard of, I’m instead announcing that I will let my name stand for Alderman if YOU really want me to do it. You will have to be the one to decide if I run; I won’t decide for you. If you want me to run, you will have to make a sacrifice too.

I can’t do it alone. It takes a small army of volunteers to do a campaign right. (The only way I’d be willing to do it.) If you want me to run, we’ll need to run as a team. This team will need everything from doorknockers to organizers to fundraisers. I also want to know what special skills you might have which you think might be able to help.

If you want me to run, and are willing to help even for just a couple hours, please add your name to the list here: http://bit.ly/IWillHelpDJ.

If you are willing to make a small commitment to me, I’m willing to stand up and run for you. And I promise if you make that commitment, you will see all of the energy I’ve split across each of the projects I’ve listed above come together into the singular goal running for Alderman on your behalf. If you ask me to do this, I will give it everything I’ve got until election day and beyond.

If you want me to represent you, you have a role to play. If you’re not committed to playing that role, I’ll happily continue working on all the great civic projects I’ve got on the go. But if you think I can provide something better than what you see right now at City Council and in the declared candidates then let’s work TOGETHER to make it happen.

In 2009 Avenue Magazine said this about me: “DJ Kelly appears to be giving our stateside leader a run for his money as a community organizer. Like Barack Obama — Kelly brings passion and commitment to his cause. And that cause is making Calgary a better place to live. DJ Kelly is committed to the big picture — a better Calgary — through a more vibrant arts community, a more accountable political system and more transparent communication. And he is involved hands-on in making change.”

How “hands-on in making change” I will be is up to you.

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Today I want to announce a project that I’m working on that draws on both of these.

Last year I had the good fortune of pitching the idea of Open Data to a couple aldermen who liked idea so much they presented it as a notice of motion, which eventually passed Council and will be piloted this summer and fall. (If you’re interested, details are here.) Much of the feedback I received about this project from aldermen revolved around the fact they didn’t remember the last time an idea from a regular citizen came forward like this and they wished it would happen more often. Buoyed by that successful experience I decided I would try to get one more notice of motion passed before council breaks for the summer.

I want Calgary to have a Poet Laureate.

The City of Calgary Poet Laureate would be an artist officially appointed by City Council, for a two-year term, to compose and present poems for official City of Calgary events, to help raise awareness of local issues, and to raise awareness of the local arts community to citizens and the City of Calgary.

Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal all have a Poet Laureate. But this isn’t just about wanting what bigger cities have. Edmonton, Victoria, Halifax and St. John’s have one too. Heck, so does Sackville, NB, Brantford, ON, Owen Sound, ON, Sudbury, ON, Cobourg, ON, and even Cobalt, ON (which I’ve never even heard of before). The provinces of Saskatchewan and Prince Edward Island have an official Poet Laureate; so too does the Yukon Territory, as well as the federal Parliament. (Click here to see who the current poets are.)

Responsibilities for the Poet Laureate within these cities include being an advocate, champion or ambassador for poetry and the literary arts in the community, with the intent of the position being to raise the profile/status/public awareness of poetry, writers and literary arts. They are asked to produce new works that reflect the life of the city, either per year or per term, and are invited to attend a variety of civic functions, both informal and formal.

What does this have to do with openness and transparency in government however you may ask? As we well know, the biggest key to unlocking the door of institutional secrecy – whether intended or not – is to have someone who isn’t afraid to speak up looking around. Officially endorsed Poets Laureate have trained eyes to unveil what is hidden often from plain sight. And they can tell you more about the place you live in than you ever thought possible.

Case in point, the very first moment Canadians commonly shared together at the recent Winter Olympics was courtesy of a poet. The beat poetry of Shane Koyczan’s “We Are More” at the opening ceremony was a communal moment when all Canadians reflected together on what it means to be a citizen of this great country. It primed the nationalist pump – so to speak – leading to an even greater sense of pride when Alexandre Bilodeau and Jon Montgomery won their gold medals. “We Are More” became the underpinning theme to all effort from Canadians at the Olympics. Whether they be the athletes trying to show we can win gold on our own soil for the first time, or the volunteers proudly showing off their city and country in a manner all Canadians would be honoured by.

(Heck even our greatest beer commercial of all time is nothing more than a passionate delivery of a poem telling us what the writer – and Molson – think it means to be “Canadian”.)

As much as I might wish that open data was the beginning and end point for a truly open government it is not and cannot be. I know there is a role to be played by artists and that is why I work in the arts. They can do things no data set will ever be able to do.

And I think the time is now.

The City has tried to get a Poet Laureate before but they haven’t been able to get it done because of one major stumbling block: money and administration. I decided – in true citizenry-style and spurred by seeing it is possible for one person to make a difference – I would try to solve both of those problems and propose to them a Poet Laureate program that wouldn’t cost them, or taxpayers, anything.

Below is the proposal I put together. So far The Calgary Foundation are on board for $15,000 from the Small Grant program. Calgary Arts Development has also committed approximately $15,000 of in kind support to administer and promote the program. Both groups have committed to three years of support. (Click here to read a PDF letter of support from TCF and here for one from CADA.)

What I am looking to do now is to get five corporate donors to agree to donate $1,000 per year for 3 years. I feel strongly it should be five partners and not just one, to show the strong commitment of Calgary’s business community to the arts in Calgary. There are already a couple potential groups who have said yes, but the details are being finalized so I can’t tell you anything about them yet. However there is still plenty of room to get involved!

Of course individual donors are welcome too! If you’d like to donate to the program just drop me an email at blog@djkelly.ca.

I believe it is time we stop waiting for our elected officials to do everything for us, so I’m happy to go out and organize everything for them to rubber stamp. I’ve mentioned this project to a few different people and received nothing but positive reactions. Even the Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation has offered their support and I think that is absolutely amazing. (Click here to read CTF’s PDF letter of support.)

I think this is a simple and very affordable way to place the arts on the agenda of the City in a BIG way and to open the City of Calgary up a little bit more. But I need your help to make it a reality.

Click here to read the proposal. And please let me know if you’re able to help.

And if you don’t believe in the potential of a Poet Laureate, I invite you to scroll back up and watch Shane Koyczan’s “We Are More”. That is what a Poet Laureate could do for us.

PS – I won’t be sitting on the selection committee, so I thought I could share with you an example of who I think would make a great Poet Laureate for Calgary. Most might suggest Sherri-D Wilson, who would be great for sure, but I’m more partial to Dragon Fli Empire, who was first introduced to me by Sarah Blue. Rap battle with Edmoton’s Poet Laureate Roland Pemberton (aka Cadence Weapon) anyone? Here is DFE’s ode to our hometown “CGY”.

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Here’s the whole story:

On December 9, 2009 I saw a tweet from a friend in Toronto saying Scotiabank Nuit Blanche was now accepting applications for the 2010 festival. I retweeted saying something like “why don’t we have this in #yyc?”. My tweet was then retweeted and echoed by about 10 Calgarians. I thought to myself, what does 10 retweets really mean? What sort of support does that translate to? And so I put together a Google Docs form asking people to provide their details if they “might be interested in helping plan or attending a Nuit Blanche in Calgary.”

In two days 150 people had signed up.

Suddenly I was faced with a reality: that’s a pretty good critical mass, but what’s the next step to make a Nuit Blanche in Calgary a reality?

I thought about it and realized with my contacts in the arts I could at the very least get the right people in the room to talk about it. And with 200 people (where the list ended at after about five days) we knew there were people who wanted it in our City.

So that week in December I met with two people from Calgary Arts Development and pitched them the idea. And then I met with five people from the Calgary Downtown Association. And then a few others I know in corporate community investment, and even Michael Green from the High Performance Rodeo. Everyone said the same thing: it’s a great idea and we should make it happen.

Obviously I couldn’t do it on my own – not to mention I didn’t have any interest in organizing a festival – but buoyed by the 200 names on the list I felt I should at least see it through. As luck would have it toward the end of my meeting with CADA, Karen Ball mentioned that I should talk to a friend of hers. He had mentioned to her before that he thought Calgary should have a Nuit Blanche, but – I’m paraphrasing her words – he didn’t know the kind of people needed to make it happen. But she thought he and I would counter balance each other because I knew the people and he knew Nuit Blanche. He knew it so well in fact, because he had curated a zone at the Toronto Nuit Blanche for two years.

Email introductions were exchanged and a few days later I was sitting in the Auburn Saloon with a pint of Grasshopper in my hand across from Wayne Baerwaldt – a complete stranger. We chatted a little bit about our backgrounds: me in arts marketing, him the curator and director of the Illingworth Kerr Gallery at the Alberta College of Art and Design, before quickly getting to the point of our meeting. I must have talked for 10 or 15 minutes straight, laying out everything I knew about making Nuit Blanche in Calgary a reality, everything I learned from the half dozen or so meetings I had the week previous. When I was finally out of breath, Wayne asked one or two simple questions, which, if I remember correctly, I answered surprisingly succinctly, and then he said “okay, let’s do it.” I was taken aback by how easy it was to get him on board, but I did nothing more than put my hand out to shake his. I had a partner.

And a partner who is knowledgeable too. A month or so after that we had a tour of Stephen Avenue with Janet Jessiman, the manager of Stephen Ave from CDA, Karen Ball from CADA, David Down, senior architect with the City of Calgary, and Paula Dozois, a prof from MRU and a friend of Wayne’s. Following our hour and a half tour, it was decided that Stephen Ave was the place and the festival should probably run from City Hall to Bankers’ Hall with two major installations per block. Ideas for big brought in installations were exchanged, as were ideas for smaller projects undertaken by local artists. (That’s not to say some of the big installations won’t be done by local groups however.)

Things were getting real and it was time to become real. In order to apply for funding we needed to become an official not-for-profit society and we needed five directors to do that. Wayne approached Paula, and we also added Rita Mckeough and Diana Sherlock, both instructors from ACAD. We had our first meeting at Paula’s house on April 24 and the paperwork was filed by lawyer Tyler Shandro (who was one of the original ‘re-tweeters’), arriving in Edmonton on May 11.

Last week it became official as the Certificate of Incorporation from the Alberta government landed in my inbox.

We are moving forward with a target of September 2011 for the first Nuit Blanche Calgary.

Grants are about to be applied for, but in our first VERY rough budget we estimate it will take $300,000 in cash to make the kind of splash we think a first year needs to have. Potential sponsors will be approached soon. The plan is being developed. Identifying our needs at the same time as applying for funding.

Wayne has already had meetings with Scotiabank Nuit Blanche in Toronto about ways that we might be able to work together, and he’s just returned from Berlin where he spoke with organizers of their Nuit Blanche.

We’re serious about making this happen – even if I’ll need to take a step back soon lest I be suddenly “organizing a festival” like I said back in December that didn’t want to do. But we’ll need your help soon to make it all a reality!

So if you haven’t done so already please fill out this form: http://bit.ly/nuitblanchecalgary. It’s still the original form that started it all.

And please share the link with your friends!

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As the project is being mapped out moving toward a launch date, it’s important to note that it will only be as successful as the usefulness of the data included in the catalogue. Poor design or minor mistakes can be overcome and corrected, but a lack of useful data almost certainly will lead to a failure of the pilot project. This more than anything will determine how many developers and academics make the choice to get involved and try to create something out of the information provided in the data catalogue. If there isn’t much data, or the data provided isn’t very useful, the project will crumble.

So in the interest of helping things get off on the right foot, I’ve put together a list of the data I would like to see included in the initial pilot catalogue this summer.

1. Community and Ward Boundaries
Most of the conversations I have had with people about open data revolve around being able to mashup City data, or data they have accumulated themselves, with mapping data of Calgary to be able to show a visual representation of their data set. Specifically what is required is information about areas of the City that programmers may want to segregate their data by. (For example, creating a map where neighbourhoods with the lowest income appear light yellow, those with the highest appear dark yellow.) In order to be able to do almost ANYTHING useful with any data the City might provide, programmers will NEED to have the GIS created data outlining the boundaries of neighbourhoods and wards. Without providing this information I’m confident the entire open data project will be nothing more than an interesting internal exercise for the City. This will be the tell-tale sign how serious they are taking transparency and accountability: if the City publishes the mapping data for neighbourhoods and wards they have given the pilot project a reasonable chance of success, if they don’t, then it’s fair to think they’re not taking it seriously.

The next three data sets I think are required because of the first two Laws of Open Government Data:

1. If it can’t be spidered or indexed, it doesn’t exist
2. If it isn’t available in open and machine readable format, it can’t engage
3. If a legal framework doesn’t allow it to be repurposed, it doesn’t empower

2. Community Statistics
The City of Calgary produces and posts on it’s website statistics for every community in Calgary. There is a ridiculous amount of interesting and immensely usable data contained in these reports that are updated every few years after a census is completed. However unfortunately you can’t do much with the documents because they are PDFs. You can read each one individually and that’s about it. Right now it is impossible to do comprehensive comparisons because the information is not open and machine readable (and therefore doesn’t engage as much as it could). To make this data available in CSV format would greatly increase its usefulness and potential. The City has made it available to the public for a reason. Making it available as part of an open data catalogue would go a long way to fulfilling that reason.

3. Transit Schedules and Stops
Wow do Calgarians like to complain about Calgary Transit schedules and the Calgary Transit website. For the most part I disagree on the former, but I too find the website’s trip planning functionality cumbersome. You know what though? I say if whiners like me want to complain, then let them try to make something better. There are hundreds of applications online and on smart phones that do what the City is trying to do, but better and cheaper. This might be the conservative side of me coming out, but I say it’s time the City got out of the way and let these small business people show us why they are so good at what they do. If the City were to make transit schedules and stops available I’m confident that within a month we will see current app providers add Calgary to their rosters, thereby giving Calgaraians dozens of new – and more than likely better – ways of planning their Calgary Transit trips. (And yes, if they wanted to, Transit could even eventually partner with ones they liked, shut down their site, and save some major money this way.) They’ve already done this with Google so let’s give the small guys a chance too.

4. Crime Statistics and Locations
Again, all this information is available online for free to the public, but it is behind a proprietary wall. The City of Calgary Police I’m confident spent a lot of money making their “Crimes Web Mapping Application” that they didn’t need to. There are many crime map providers out there that would be happy to do this job for them, if only they made the data available in a machine readable format. The other – and more important reason – this data should be made available in a machine readable format (instead of only via the map application where it can only be read and not used) is so it can be mashed up with other data sets. If someone were to, for example, mash it up with the community statistics or locations of services we might be able to see some patterns emerging and create an even more effective police presence where potential crimes might occur in the future. The police do this currently using anecdotal evidence and personal/personnel experience, but open data allows for all kinds of potential permutations to be created by others that the police may not have the time or money to undertake. We already allow for this kind of work to happen via the most successful public engagement initiative undertaken by police of all time: 911. If they trust us to report the crimes, they should trust us to do something useful with the data too.

5. Fire, Police, Recreation Centre, Community Centre and School Locations
This one is almost a no-brainer. This information is surprisingly hard to find, yet it is so basic. I can only imagine how much more useful it would have been to have this information when we were house hunting a few years ago. (I’d love to see this info and the crime data mashed up with the Canadian Real Estate Association’s MLS.) But I can’t imagine how many other fantastic mapping systems may be created if this data were available in a consistent format. Simply listing the name of the building, it’s street address and it’s longitude/latitude coordinates should be more than enough, and easily put together by anyone at the City in an afternoon.

6. Development Permit Locations and Contact Information
It baffles me that the City publishes crime data in a map but not development permit locations on a map. Any citizen can go down to City Hall and get a copy of the permit for any construction occurring in the City, but this information isn’t published online for some reason. I would have thought it would be a privacy concern of some kind, but that doesn’t make sense either considering the name and phone number of each permit applicant is published on a blue board out front of every location during a two-week window before construction begins. (I think it is also included in the newspaper advertisements during this window too.) This would be great information to have available in a useful format like CSV and KML instead of just a document file at the planning office and on a sandwich board on the street. As a community association president, this would certainly cut down on phone calls at the very least! And would be helpful in keeping track of all development going on in our neighbourhood.

It is important to note that ALL of these suggestions involve ONLY data that is already publicly available, but just in a format that limits the data’s usability and usefulness (such as PDF or proprietary software solutions). The good news about this is there will be many less hoops to jump through in order to get the data included in a pilot. I can think of many other data sets I’d like to see available, but let’s start with the low hanging fruit.

There is one data set that is not currently available to the public that I would like to see included in the initial data catalogue however that is not currently. It’s not really “data” per se, but I think it is something, which should be made available:

7. City of Calgary Contracts
I outline my rationale for this request in this blog post. It probably won’t be in the initial data catalogue, and that’s okay, but the conversation and process required to make this data available in the very near future should begin now. Otherwise it could be years before we see something so simple made available to citizens.

There is one other thing however that must be sorted out before a Pilot Project can go live: the terms of use. I’m sure the City of Calgary’s lawyers have been working overtime on this one, but I would like to suggest the City uses the same terms of use the City of Toronto and City of Edmonton are using. There’s are identical. (Seriously, click those links and read them side-by-side.) Clearly if it is good enough for BOTH of those cities, some major investigation has been done to arrive at that wording. At the very least it should be used as a starting point. We should build on the work of others rather than starting from scratch. I like these terms of reference for many reasons, not the least of which is the following section of the license which alleviates much of the concern I’ve heard from some aldermen:

The City now grants you a world-wide, royalty-free, non-exclusive licence to use, modify, and distribute the datasets in all current and future media and formats for any lawful purpose. You now acknowledge that this licence does not give you a copyright or other proprietary interest in the datasets. If you distribute or provide access to these datasets to any other person, whether in original or modified form, you agree to include a copy of, or this Uniform Resource Locator (URL) for, these Terms of Use and to ensure any such person agrees to, and is bound by, them but without introducing any further restrictions of any kind.

I’m confident if we can get each of these items included in the Pilot Project, the City has done everything in it’s power to ensure it’s success.

If any readers have suggestions for other data you would like to see, you’re welcome to put it in the comments below, but you should probably send it directly to the City. (I’m just an interested citizen with no direct connection to the pilot project.)

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What do all of these have in common? A lack of respect for the role the public plays in democratic government.

I won’t bore you with the details – I’ll save those for another post or for the Cities and Towns in Transition conference on June 4 and 5, which I have been asked to speak about this topic at – but at the end of the day public wisdom and government adaptability must grow together. Each relies on the other to succeed. This is done through transparency (government giving to public) and accountability (public giving to government).

I believe open data plays a big role in the transparency side of the equation, and a useful role in the accountability side, but I’ve recently been struck by the lack of systemic adaptability in our governance systems. In short, why are 15 people making all the decisions for the City of Calgary when we know public wisdom itself contains much more useful decision making information. One multiple choice question every four years hardly seems like the kind of thing our bravest citizens should be asked to give their lives to protect. Shouldn’t there be more? What of the really good ideas that lay outside the institutional input model? The good ideas that model is not designed to – and therefore unable to – reach? Do we just give up on those? Do we just call our current system ‘good enough’?

I’ve recently re-discovered Clay Shirky. I’ve been familiar with his work for several years but I’ve always classified them within the box of mind as applying to ‘technology’. Which is fair given that most of his examples lay in this field (Wikipedia, Flickr, Linux, Meetup, etc). But recently I was afforded the opportunity to apply his theories and teachings to the world of governance systems and I was surprised that what he was talking about almost seamlessly fit this world.

But so what.

I’m just a regular guy. I have no power; no input. And I certainly cannot change the 150-year-old institution of Canadian democracy. So I relished the opportunity to do what I and many others witnessing a travesty that I am unable to change would do: I whined about it.

Fortunately, I recently read the book “Mistakes Were Made (but not by me), Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts” and was reminded of the quote by Ken Low, “despair is not an option”. I could blame others and wallow, or I could look within myself and see what I could change.

I am not the mayor, premier or prime minister, so tackling one of those institutions is ludicrous. But I am the president of another governance system: my community association. Upon quick inspection of that organization I found we – despite having an active membership, being well respected by the community, and being in excellent financial shape – exhibited the same things I wanted to rail against. We had a board of 14 elected officials who were charged with doing all the work of the association. But who cares what we thought most needs doing? We’re just 14 people who happened to have some time or caring to sit on a board. That doesn’t make us any smarter or more capable than any other group of 14 people from the community. It just means we were willing to make the commitment. But how did we make our decisions? Where did our information come from? How did we ensure the really good ideas that lay outside our institutional model were invited in?

The answer is: we didn’t. We did what almost every government does; we made decisions based on the best information available. We went with our gut and our experience; we talked to our neighbours, did the odd bit of research, and made decisions at a boardroom table. All of this put the onus on the 14 people and never once invited the public to be part of the decision making process (aside from that one annual vote or having the ability to complain). We also never invited them to be part of the implementation process either.

I was lucky enough at this point to make a connection to something that happened several months earlier. Following the second CivicCamp I had a discussion with someone had the general tone of which was: ‘Having these kind of un-conference meetings where we talk about things that matter most to the participants is great. I wish there was more of this in other places.’ The ‘open spaces technology’ format discussions used by CivicCamp I found immensely useful because the agenda for the day was never based on someone’s unintentional bias, it was the group bias that set the agenda. And being the sum of our parts almost always proves to be better than that of one person, or a smaller group of people. (Hence my trouble with 14 people at a boardroom table making all the decisions.)

So how could we engage our community to get the best ideas out of them? And do so in a format that is not just a ‘town hall’ style event featuring general discussions, Q & A sessions, and the same 14 people responsible for implementing things at the end of the day anyway?

To do this, the Winston Heights-Mountview Community Association partnered with CivicCamp to create “CivicCamp in a Box”. A sort of ‘kit’ that anyone can use, which asks members of the community to come forward and say what they believe most needs doing in the community. It does not end here however. If we are truly going to invite them into the decision making process, we also have to involve them heavily in the implementation process. After all a small army of people working only on the specific project that interests them the most, affords much more possibility for getting ‘stuff’ done than a group of 14 board members working on things they may only be casually interested in.

Take for instance what I mention in my 2009/10 presidents report on how things often work at a community association: You as an interested community member want to plan a Stampede BBQ (for example) and you come to the board and tell us you want to plan a Stampede BBQ. More often than not, because you are a warm body who is interested, the community association will promptly make you a board director. The problem is now the majority of the work you will do has nothing to do with planning a Stampede BBQ. This has been a major focus of my time on the Winston Heights-Mountview board, lowering the bar of involvement and eliminating these kinds of barriers. You want to plan a Stampede BBQ? We’ll let you do that. Do you want to join a board? It is our responsibility to provide that opportunity too. Government should be about empowering the people, not getting in there way.

And so that is the second half of “CivicCamp in a Box”. Once participants have listed the ideas they have to make the neighbourhood a better place, they will each be given the chance to select one idea that they ‘think most needs doing’ from their perspective and to work on making that idea a reality. We will provide whatever resources we can to help them – starting from lunch and coffee at the event, through to any funds the association might be able to give to their project, to our contacts with neighbours, local businesses and all three levels of government.

I’m confident the ideas coming out of this event being held tomorrow will be better and more robustly thought out than anything our dedicated and whip smart board of 14 people could have done on their own. It will even have the added benefit of creating more engaged residents who will be illustrating their commitment to a better neighbourhood, which of course comes with many unintended side benefits from Block Watches to cleaner streets to more friendly ‘over the fence’ conversations.

I’m excited about this event even though I’m not sure what any of the outcomes might be, but I’m willing to take a risk and see if it will work. Cherie McCauley and Sarah Arthurs – who I’ve been working with on the logistics of creating “CivicCamp in a Box” – and I have floated the concept to other community associations and many are interested in how this might be used in their neighbourhood.

But why stop there? If this process works, why could we not see the Province or the City apply this kind of citizen engagement to, for example, budget deliberations? When an alderman says something is what their constituents want, what process did they go through to ensure it’s not just what they think and that had received little negative criticism? A process like this can eliminate their unintentional bias created by an institutional decision making model. Heck you could go the other way with it too and use it at the local elementary school, senior’s centre or baseball team. The possibilities are endless, really. And I believe by taking our time to do public engagement in a way like this (let’s not kid ourselves, this will slow down the current institutional decision making process) we can see added benefit of increased caring and decreased expenses.

Someone just needs to be willing to try it to see if it works. So, I’m happy to volunteer to take the risk. I’ll let you know how it goes.

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As recently as yesterday, things were not looking great for Mr. McIver’s chances of becoming Calgary’s next mayor. As each mayoral candidate announced (Joe Connelly, Jon Lord, Craig Burrows) observers could see small parts of McIver’s assumed lead chipping away. Once Kent Hehr announced, enough had been chipped away that we were looking at a very real two way fight between McIver and Hehr.

With Nenshi and Hawkesworth entering the race, it’s fair to assume Mr. Hehr is now the one experiencing the chipping away of potential voters from his target group. It’s my guess that when it all plays out, enough will have been chipped away to return Mr. McIver to a healthy leading position once again.

What are your thoughts?

Cross posted to calgarypolitics.com

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The fraud allegations unfolding at the City of Calgary should be surprising to no one. Our band-aid is not working on this gunshot wound.

I applaud the City for investigating better regulations to the procurement process, but even that will not be enough to heal the wound. It’s just enough to stop the bleeding.

Have you, as an owner of the City of Calgary corporation, ever read a single contract the company you are co-owner of has tendered? I’m guessing no. If you wanted to read one, who would you call? I’m guessing you have no idea. If you got through to someone to ask them about a contract, what are the odds they would be willing to send you a copy? I’m guessing slim to none.

If you co-owned any other business, would you stand for that kind of treatment by your staff and their policies?

I’m a big proponent of Open Data because of situations exactly like this. If we have ease of access to information (transparency), staff and elected officials will be less likely to try to take advantage of the hiding in the shadows and avoid potential fraudulent activities (accountability). You need one to have the other however.

Here’s my proposed solution to avoid this sort of harmful – or perceived harmful – activity in the future: make all City of Calgary contracts available online. All of them.

Not only does this kind of transparency lead to better accountability on both the City’s and public’s sides of the equation, but I also believe it can lead to more cost efficient services and better value as well.

If you, as a contractor, are considering bidding on a project, and you can visit the City’s website and see what other previously successful vendors bid on similar projects, you now have an idea as to what your potential competition might bid and what has resonance with the City. Arming vendors with this kind of knowledge increases the likelihood they will attempt to add value to their bid on the new project either by offering the service more efficiently (read: cheaper) or by adding benefit to their bid that may be attractive to the City in ways they had not previously considered (delivery schedules, quality, etc).

I know it’s often comfortable living in the shadows because when no one can see what you’re doing you don’t have to constantly be on your toes. I get that. But the benefits to opening up the data and being more transparent does not have to be a negative experience. Accountability often has more positive outcomes for the person being held to account than negative. It’s time we stop worrying about the negative, embrace the positive, and be willing to let the public help build a better City through accountablity.

Let’s start simple. Please post the contracts online.

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Last year at the AGM, I was asked to layout the basics of what the board would be doing over the next year. We had a passionate group of volunteers and a solid vision and mission to build from.

The board set about improving the governance of the organisation this past year with a goal of helping create a community association where people can volunteer their time to work on projects that interested them. Far too often the moment a community member in any neighbourhood expresses an interest in helping organize a fun event, they shortly find themselves on a board doing work they never had an interest in to begin with.

To have an engaged community it is paramount to be able to interact with residents in the way they most want to. If you want to work on a specific idea, we have groups for you to work with. Please read more on the sheets on the wall, and feel free to sign up to work with any group you find interesting. We are only as good as the people working on these projects. If you want to sit on the board, we happily invite you to join us there too.

The first year of our plan has been filled with re-writing the bylaws you have been presented with, creating board policies, and terms of reference. All kinds of boring stuff to most people. But all this needs to be done to make us a flexible organization capable of doing all kinds of cool stuff.

I’m happy to report that we are ahead of schedule. If you picked up one of the fridge magnets at the Eco-Fair you will see we have more events going on this summer that anyone can probably remember.

Here is a snapshot of some of our more popular events over the past year:

One of the highlights of this year is all the work that has been done on the Centennial Garden. It is a great addition to our Community Hall and the perfect place to take wedding photos or photos of your family! If you have a green thumb and would like to help with the ongoing maintenance of the garden, please talk to Yvette.

As part of the new Garden, we have introduced a series of Gardening Education workshops, the next one this Thursday. If you don’t have a fridge magnet that lists our many events this summer, please get one from Darlene.

We celebrated the New Year with a fabulous Gala attended by about 120 people. Attendees loved the food and dance their way into the new year.

In April, we hosted a sellout rain barrel sale and ecofair. Thanks to Coca-cola, we could offer the barrels at a very attractive price and engage our community in some volunteer opportunities. Following this event we now have 200 volunteer hours in the bank to use on upcoming projects.

We continued to show great stewardship of our offleash area on the escarpment with the annual Scoopy Doo Day cleanup attracting 26 volunteers.

In May, we held our first Jane’s Walk that provided a window into our community’s colourful landscape and history. It was one of the most highly attended walks in the whole city. Following the walk, we held a Volunteer Tea to salute our hardworking volunteers.

Reports on what each board committee undertook this year are available in the May newsletter and the hand out you have been given today. I hope you have a chance to read it and see all that has been accomplished by our community volunteers.

In all, I’m very proud of the work of all our volunteers this past year and they all deserve a hearty thank you. Without our volunteers we would not be as great a community as we are.

2010/11 may well prove to be a watershed year for Winston Heights-Mountview.

The board plans on working much harder this year to build out our membership further and engage volunteers and residents in more events.

We plan on providing more opportunities to get more of you involved in more ways that you want to. In short, we’ll be doing more.

Coming up in July, we will once again be hosting a Stampede Barbeque. Tickets are $15 for members, and $20 for non-members. There will also be details in our next newsletter. Come on out, it is always a great event!

We strive to enhance the recreation opportunities in our community. For example, this winter, we brought back our skating rinks to the enjoyment of both children and adults. We have also embarked on a major project to upgrade the playground on 7th Street. Alex, Christine and their hard working committee have secured a unique playground structure for the location, and we anticipate the build will take place this fall. If you are interested in helping to build this great addition to our neighbourhood, talk to Christine.

On May 29, all community members are invited to join us for an opportunity to help shape our community’s future. The Civic Camp will run from 9-2:30, with lunch provided, and will guide community members through a process to identify your best ideas for our community and how we can help make your vision a reality. If you have ideas about what you want to see changed or improved in the neighbourhood, or want to get to know your neighbours better. Join us! The ideas coming from this event will propel us forward for the next year and beyond.

We hope that you love our community as much as we do, and see its potential, and will get involved in 2010 to help us achieve that potential. We can’t do it without you.

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But more can be done and I don’t want anyone else to go through the same struggles I did. True, I’ve been lucky enough to convince the majority of bloggers with an interest in Calgary’s municipal government to get together to cross-post to CalgaryPolitics.com, but I still don’t think that’s enough to make the average potential voters’ decision making any easier.

That’s where CivicCamp comes in.

At CivicCamp I found others who felt the same way and were willing to get to work to reduce ignorance as a barrier to voting in the 2010 election. The CivicCamp Governance group (aka “Cabin”) were tasked with coming up with the 2010 election plan and have been meeting regularly for a couple of months. Today we’re ready to let you know what the plans are. (For full details please read my post on the CivicCamp website here.)

CivicCamp will “act as an honest broker” of election information. Nothing partisan, no endorsing of candidates or anything like that.

1. We’ve partnered with Grant Neufeld on a project of his called CalgaryDemocracy.ca. Just as CalgaryPolitics.com will gather all the news about candidates together, this new site will gather together all the basic information on candidates you could ever want. Websites, phone numbers, Twitter usernames, Facebook Pages… all of this for every candidate, for every race, will be listed here for your one stop shop for candidate information.
2. CivicCamp will undertake the most comprehensive candidate survey Calgary has ever seen. The key aspect being: we will not let our own bias determine the direction of the questions. Using the online tool Uservoice, every citizen is given the opportunity to ask a question and to vote on which questions others have suggested, that you would like candidates to answer. Yes, democracy can even be applied to the process of asking candidates questions. This will ensure the questions being asked really are what citizens are wanting answered. So go and see if you’re question is being asked. If it is, vote for it. If not, please add it. The top however many questions will be handed to candidates on nomination day when they file their paperwork. Visit civiccamp.uservoice.com to ask your questions and vote.
3. The biggest and most complex undertaking during any election is organizing an all candidates forum. CivicCamp has committed to organizing one all-candidate forum for each aldermanic race and one for the mayor’s race. This is a HUGE undertaking. I don’t know any other group that has tackled such a big task in past elections, but it has to be done. The questions from the Uservoice poll will form the basis of the questions for the candidates, and the crowd will be given a chance to fill in any local holes not addressed by those questions. It will be a pretty crazy couple of weeks between nomination and election day as CivicCamp hosts a forum almost every night. A call has gone (or is about to go) out to community associations asking for donations of hall space to host these events. If you have a space or if you would like to volunteer to help out with the forums, please contact the people listed here.
4. CivicCamp is also undertaking a poll of the Campers to find out what issues they think are most important. The results of that survey will be posted on their website for the public and all candidates to read.

This group is doing a lot of work. Details on everything they are undertaking can be found at here and a summarized version is available at civiccamp.org/2010election.

If you’re interested in getting more involved with CivicCamp and their election activities, the next Cabin meeting is Thursday, May 20 at 7pm at Eau Claire. Please feel free to show up and volunteer to help out.

It’s my hope that these projects will help voters find out more about the candidates, and more easily, than 2007 afforded. Getting basic information and finding out what the candidates think about issues should NOT be a barrier to voting. I’m proud of the CivicCamp volunteers for doing their best to tear down that barrier.

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On Friday – almost ironically the same day I published my post – the Calgary Sun published an advertorial by Ald. Ric McIver. The theme of the piece was Ald. McIver’s vision for what he would do if elected mayor of Calgary. I can think of no better place to start off the ‘How?’ campaign, than with that piece.

Below is the article taken from Ric McIver’s campaign site. Text in bold are my comments.

CITY HALL MUST OPEN ITS EARS

Calgary Sun - May 5, 2010

By Ric McIver

As a candidate for mayor, I would like to suggest a new way forward.

I propose city government should boldly embrace our city’s growth, harnessing the vitality, commitment to progress and entrepreneurship of Calgarians in managing the challenges of a city that can and should become a model to other Canadian cities. [Here is Ald. McIver's stated goal. An excellent start. The rest of the missive lists the objectives to accomplish this goal.]

I believe we need a mayor who believes in his fellow citizens, who listens to and consults with them [How?], who knows they are the actual builders of this community.

I believe we need a mayor who sees leadership as a team effort to be shared with all members of the community. [Can't really ask 'how' on this one because it is listed as a quality of the mayor not something the mayor would actually do.]

And I believe we need a mayor who is prepared to re-examine the way city government does things, creating a free flow of information and ensuring citizen and employee participation play an integral role in defining and creating the future of our great city. [How would one go about doing this?]

Most of all, I believe Calgary needs a mayor who will do everything in his power to ensure working families share in the growth and prosperity of this city. [How? What is 'everything in his power'. As a side note, I understand sharing in 'prosperity' but how does one share in 'growth'? I digress...]

So I propose to you the vision of a flourishing, competitive, entrepreneurial city that welcomes working people, small and big business alike, while offering an affordable, high quality of life for all of its citizens [How?] — all of which can and will be realized within a framework of cost control, accountability and transparency. [More objectives, okay. But how will you be accountable? How will you be transparent?]

Calgary will be open for business. We will cut red tape and implement policies that will make Calgary the place to build businesses and homes. [How?]

We will look after the environment. [How? This line especially seems staggeringly in need of detail.]

When a company wants to move employees here, their families will know Calgary has a great arts, culture, sports and recreation scene. [I assume we are not talking about implanting chips in peoples heads when they land at the airport to beam messages directly to them. So if not that, then how?]

Where we fall short, we will work with the private sector to come up to standard. [How will you know when you've fallen short?]

We will work with our partners in the Alberta government to complete the ring road and, yes, that will include the southwest portion. [I don't need if we need to ask 'how' here. We know how the City works with the Province.]

We must have and we will have proper access to the airport. [Before I can ask 'how' I have to ask: define 'proper'?]

In the short term, we will review downtown parking policies that make for the most expensive and least convenient parking situation of almost any city in Canada. [This is a great tactic. Two thumbs up for listing one.]

In the longer term, we will work toward spreading out jobs so they are not just concentrated in three areas of the city. [I guess 'work toward' is vague enough it's hard to realistically ask 'how'.]

We need to look to a future where people aren’t going to the same, limited areas at the same time each day, causing congestion and frustration. [How?]

We will re-build trust in our relationship with the provincial government. [How?]

We will strive for a core transit strategy that will create a zone in the centre of Calgary where people will have a real choice about whether to leave their cars at home. [Another tactic. Excellent.]

We will bring together the development industry, sustainability groups, city council and the administration for thoughtful, realistic discussion on building the Calgary of the future. [Didn't we just do this with PlanIt?]

We will work with all parties interested, including the private sector, to support the 10-year plan to eliminate homelessness. [Define 'work with' and 'support'; then we can talk about How?]

A vibrant, competitive Calgary that flourishes, with quality services for all, with taxes that are fair must be our shared purpose. [How?]

Our promise that Calgary is the most welcoming place in all of Canada for ambitious, hardworking people should be more than just rhetoric. [Agreed. It should be more than just rhetoric. So: How? Because without that it's just rhetoric.]

We should not only expect, we must demand a city government that listens to and recognizes the role of its citizens in decision-making. [How will the City encourage/do this?]

This is by no means an exhaustive list of goals but these are goals that must be at the forefront of any candidate’s platform, and I promise you, they are at the top of mine. [There's more objectives still? How about a tactics listing? I hope there is one of those too.]

I will provide that needed leadership to see these goals through to reality. [How?]

That’s why I am asking for your support and for your vote to become Calgary’s next mayor.

So there you go. Now it’s your turn. And by your turn I mean 1) you, dear reader, should go and ask the same questions of other candidates, and 2) you, Ald. McIver, are welcome to provide some details once you have them ready. I’ll happily post them!

Note: The ‘No’ How post series should not be seen as an endorsement or condemnation of any candidate. They are meant only to encourage the peeling back of layers of rhetoric – purposeful or otherwise – in an attempt to have candidates publicly state how they plan to accomplish their goals should they be elected. No candidate is meant to be harmed in the writing of these posts.

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