[An open letter to the scores of people who worked on my campaign in one way or another.]

Dear [insert your name, you tasteful and stylish citizen, you],

On today, the occasion of my swearing in at City Hall, I need to say some thank-yous.

We did it. Again! And with a fairly commanding result. We already know that on a percentage basis we had the highest turnout in the city – quite an accomplishment for a race that was considered by some to be a snoozer. This is arguably attributable to the amazing efforts of scores of volunteers who came out to knock on doors (6,000 on the last weekend alone) and hand-deliver election literature (more than 50,000 pieces over the campaign). You can’t buy that kind of direct contact with voters and it definitely made a difference. So thank you all!

Specific thanks are due to Deputy Campaign Managers Leanne Brown and Dan Lazin for coordinating the volunteers and managing visual communications respectively. Both contributed an enormous amount of time, but also great advice.

Also, I feel terrible that at the victory party I forgot to specifically thank two key people whose special efforts deserve mention: Raffaella Loro, our campaign photographer and videographer, who did superb work. Secondly, Lisa Hagen reworked and refreshed this website and her efforts certainly helped raise our game from 2007. Thanks both.

My wife Sarah put up with the most grief and disruption of anyone, and to her for being such a great mom to our son generally but especially through the tumult of the campaign, I owe incalculable thanks.

And last but not least, Campaign Manager Chris Henderson. Nobody (with the possible exception of my wife) can know what it takes to both manage the logistics of the campaign and manage the candidate. It’s not an easy job but Chris exceeded already high expectations. Special thanks to him.

My compliments to challenger Al Slemko for working so hard (we ran across him and his flyer teams on many occasions, as you may recall) as well as for running a positive campaign focused on city and ward issues. He made sure that we had to work for the win, and you know we did. That, in part, is where the turnout came from.

Thanks finally to the people of Ward 10 for their strong support. I look forward to continuing to serve them and our great city.

Yours truly,

-Don

These campaigns are won and lost on the ground. Despite what people say about evolving on-line campaigning, there is still no substitute for knocking on as many doors as possible and stuffing every mailbox with thoughtful campaign literature. Social media, like campaign literature, has to be about the content, not the medium. We pride ourselves on the use of complete sentences, for starters.

The number of people who say they base their vote on who comes to their door still astounds me, but more importantly if you want to do the job effectively you really do need to have listened to a good sample of the people you want to represent. And you need to meet them on their terms, which usually involves a great deal of walking or running up front walks.

So that’s what we’ve done since July, and this past weekend we went back to basics and visited every doorstep with a final piece of literature and knocked a good number of doors to put them right in peoples’ hands. Also, last week we sent something to all apartments that Canada Post can serve.

How? Dozens of people from across the city and across the conventional political spectrum came together and offered more than 400 hours of volunteer time this weekend alone. (It helped that we had waffles from Eva Sweet and sandwiches and muffins from Elm Cafe.)

I cannot say thank you enough to each of them for their support, and to all the others who’ve supported my campaign in one way or another. I don’t think there’s much more that we could have done.

I’m proud of my record on pursuing municipal campaign finance reform (see here, here and here). In Calgary, a good number of campaigns have agreed to disclose their funding in advance of the election, and I expect this will become common practice here in the future.

I see value in being transparent about the donations we’ve accepted prior to election day, so my team and I have decided to close off donations today at noon (the last business day of the campaign) and post the tally. We believe it is accurate, but reserve the right to amend it if we discover an error prior to filing our official disclosure statement.

I think it’s important to disclose where the funds came from that helped run this campaign. By law all candidates must do this, win or lose, but not until long after election day.

Other than selling tickets to fundraising events, none of these contributions were solicited. These are simply people and groups who support my vision and would like to see me re-elected.

Consistent with the recent changes to the Local Authorities Election Act, donations $100 and greater must be identified; donations less than $100 need only be totalled together. We have presented the information in this format. It is downloadable as a pdf here.

This video builds on a blog post from last year where I used Lego to illustrate some principles of urban design. I’ve since turned that into a popular slideshow that I’ve presented to several different audiences. It seems people enjoy seeing concepts illustrated using Lego, so we thought why not do the same for one of the campaign videos? Needless to say we had some fun:

The main theme is that I’ve worked and will continue to work on improving transportation choices by making walking and cycling safer and easier and by supporting further expansion of LRT and improvements to bus services. In my mind, dealing with the growth of our city can be accomodated with more freeways or more LRT – both are costly, but the long term savings to our economy of a strong LRT system are clear.

In the Edmonton region households spend more on transportation than any other Canadian city, according to the 2008 Statistics Canada Survey of Household Spending. $13,903 per year compared with $12,216 in Calgary, the next highest. We spend correspondingly less on shelter. It seems evident to me that one way to help with the rising cost of shelter is to make it easier for people to chose less costly transportation options to meet some of their mobility needs.

Look at where the money goes if we can pull that off: if people spend it on shelter, that’s an investment in our community since real estate isn’t really portable. If they spend some of their savings at businesses that are along their walking or transit route, that creates a different kind of local wealth. In contrast, household spending on private automobile transportation represents a leakage from our local economy since we don’t build cars here and of course cars tend to diminish in value over time; there is a local economy around retail and service but most of the expenditure on initial purchase, insurance and parts leaves our city.

Of course private automobiles will remain essential for most Edmonton households, but I believe there’s more we can do to improve transportation choice and help ease pressure on household budgets. There are environmental and public health benefits too, of course, which just improve the case.

The dark blue circle is 400m and a 5 minute walk; the light blue is 800m or a 10 minute walk. This is the generally accepted practical walking radius for LRT. Notice that it reaches from Petrolia mall to 106 Street. It covers both high schools and a good number of older walkup apartments that could be redeveloped over time. I've centred it on the intersection but exact location would require further study.

Council’s Transportation and Public Works committee mulled the question of adding a station between Southgate and Century Park at a meeting in 2007. The discussion focused on a station for Harry Ainlay High School and Louis St. Laurent Jr./Sr. High as well as Confederation Leisure Centre. Councillor Bryan Anderson had made an inquiry which yielded this report here, which was the basis of the discussion.

As a citizen, I marvelled and scratched my head at the lost opportunity. Knocking on doors later that same year as part of my campaign, I heard a lot of disappointment in the communities of Royal Gardens, Greenfield, Duggan and Rideau Park which make up the four corners of 111 Street and 40th Avenue.

After the election I made some inquiries about the feasibility of adding a station during construction of South LRT and while it is technically feasible, and would have been easier to do before opening, the policy of the day was to run LRT fast and far out to the suburbs and region. It was almost more of a commuter rail approach than an urban transit philosophy.

Two things have convinced me that the question of adding a station is worth revisiting:

First, the city’s philosophy on LRT has shifted considerably in the last 18 months. I wrote previously about the new ‘urban vision’ for LRT, but in essence it means stopping a bit more frequently to serve more communities it runs through, and making sure to connect major institutional centres (like, say, high schools and rec centres) and areas with redevelopment potential (like, say, Petrolia Mall at 40 Avenue and 114 Street).

The other thing that’s convinced me to look at this again is the number of people who live in these neighbourhoods that stll bring it up, knocking on doors three years later. I’ve asked people and I’d say 10 to 1 the people in these neighbourhoods would love a chance to more conveniently access the LRT.

With bus service to connect it would improve access for adjacent neighbourhoods like Aspen Gardens as well.

So, if re-elected I will push for the question of a station somewhere around 40th Avenue to be re-evaluated.

I’ve been hearing more and more frustration with parking around the LRT: both the shortage of convenient places to park for riders, and neighbouring community concern with so-called ‘parasitic parking’ plugging up nearby residential streets.

We filmed a short video with my thoughts on some considerations and possible next steps for Park and Ride:

The city stands ready to assist neighbourhoods with implementing residential parking restrictions if they are desired. Restrictions have gone in near 76 Ave, they are being implemented in Malmo just West of Southgate station, and they are being contemplated in Parkallen to the east of South Campus and in Blue Quill to the west of Century Park station.

So the good news is people want to use the LRT. The bad news is a lot of folks are driving to get to it. As suggested in the video, we need better bus feeder service to help commuters access LRT without needing their cars.

We will also eventually need a larger permanent lot to the south near the Henday to take up some of the regional and suburban demand where bus service is poor or nonexistent.

Most people don’t realize that the city still owns the land for a parkade in the northwest corner of Century Park. However, if we’re going to build a parkade at Century Park (or anywhere else for that matter) I think riders will have to come to terms with paying something for the privilege of parking in a parking stall that costs $30,000 or more to construct.

The Parking Membership pilot program, which I support, is a start toward this. It calls for 18% of the stalls to be set aside for people who buy the roughly $40/month membership. I believe if will be oversold on day one. This program will be debated by the next council as part of the 2011 budget deliberations for implementation in the new year. Charging a modest fee will also help manage demand by sending a price signal to those who could walk or take a connecting bus or carpool with others to the park and ride to make a more cost effective choice.

So we have work to do in the short term and long term to deal with the impacts of high-demand LRT service.

I haven’t said much about the ongoing Expo 2017 bid but I’ve been getting more questions about it, particularly in neighbourhoods adjacent to the proposed U of A South Campus site.

On the one hand, I accept that council overwhelmingly supported it, and I see some of the benefits like leveraging investment in U of A expansion and getting some other key civic infrastructure fast tracked, like LRT and a new Walterdale bridge.

On the other hand I see some practical risks. The cost of building the proposed infrastructure on a tight timeline has uncertainty because strict deadlines sometimes drive costs up. More concerning, our resource-heavy economy is still subject to commodity-driven booms which also drive up construction costs, and this is completely out of our control. If the province is able to assume the risk on the infrastructure side, that at least will reduce our city’s financial risk. The current thinking is that the city would back the operations and take the risk there. The infrastructure budget is in the billions, the operational budget are the hundreds of millions.

I am also concerned about risk to the city’s reputation if the Energy theme isn’t very carefully handled. Energy issues are tricky in Alberta, and the project cannot look like a marketing exercise for the oilsands otherwise it could do more harm than good. However, I’m assured that those working on the bid are also hypersensitive to this.

I have a more principled hesitation, which is that while hosting these events can yield great investments in infrastructure for host cities, the very reason this is attractive is because we have a weak urban infrastructure strategy in this country. Now this isn’t an Expo issue, it’s an intergovernmental fiscal issue, but it’s related because we need to build communities to succeed whether they host big events or not; but that isn’t happening now – which is part of why cities go after these events.

The other reason for these events is more etherial: Montreal and Vancouver are both cited as Canadian examples which had transformative impact. But can Expos still make the kind of impact they once did? The Shanghai Expo happening this year does seem to be presented by the Chinese Government as a kind of watershed moment for that country, but the scale of it eclipses anything previously presented (they’ve spent more than $60 billion), and is orders of magnitude greater than what is proposed for 2017 ($2-3 Billion).

It’s been argued by many of my Council colleagues that our city needs a moment to rally around – a spark to ignite a new and more confident way of seeing ourselves in the world, and this notion is the source of their enthusiasm. Some of them who were at Expo ’67 describe having this kind of experience, and remember Canada having just such a moment. Thus, the concurrence with Canada’s 150th anniversary in 2017 is no accident.

And yet, I still find myself pondering what mid-size cities in the world are doing to ‘get on the map’ as it were. I think of Portland, Oregon; Boulder, Colorado; and Austin, Texas. All of them are leveraging strong post-secondary institutions, focusing on economic development in technology, and delivering exceptional quality of life for residents. They do this to attract and retain productive people. It’s a simple formula when you break it down, but it seems to me that whether we get Expo or not, we need to stay focused on that kind of city-building here in Edmonton.

So: since you asked, I’m agnostic on Expo. Most of the rest of the outgoing Council was firmly committed to it so my focus has been, and will be, to provide constructive input on managing the risks, and special attention to ensuring meaningful engagement with the surrounding communities that would be affected by the main site on South Campus.

I was very pleased to see Mayor Mandel announce his platform plank calling for a coordinated strategy to keep communities vibrant and viable and, in turn, keep schools open. In my mind schools are the heart of community.

I’ve been trying to do my part on the municipal side of things, working to make infill development and density work for families in these same neighbourhoods:

In knocking on doors throughout Ward 10 these past months I’ve heard real apprehension from the residents of communities just now going through the sector review process. They have last spring’s school closures fresh in mind, and genuine worry with the new suburban schools opening up for students who had been busing in and propping up the enrolment numbers in older neighbourhood schools.

I’ve been monitoring the Edmonton Public School Board sector review process closely and attended their drop-in event last week at McNally school to review the material and provide my own feedback as a parent with a child a few years away from public school.

The framing of the background material and the worksheet and questions makes clear that the Board’s goal is building great schools to serve students, which makes sense on the surface. The exercise has a zero-sum premise, where there are no additional resources available: funding is set by the province ever since school boards lost control over the education property tax. The most common feedback I heard from other parents at the meeting, and on the doorstep, is that more funding is needed so that boards are not as cash strapped – a rejection of the zero-sum premise.

But it struck me after reviewing the material that I’m ok with more good schools rather than fewer great schools. The reason is simple: good schools as the heart of the neighbourhood add so much to the neighbourhood beyond the education of neighbourhood students. The opportunity for community use of school space is very important, and we have work to do to ensure that more of that space is available, not less, whether it’s for sports, day-care or adult education.

Encouragingly, this lines up with a key principle in the recommendations from Minister Hancock’s Inspiring Education project: “Community resources should be fully engaged to support learners, including expertise, facilities, services and learning opportunities. Community resources—whether local, provincial, national or global—should actively participate in the education of learners.” (see page 31 of the Steering Committee Report.

There was a positive meeting between the Board, Council and the Minister of Education this past spring. Unfourtunately I couldn’t attend but it was preliminary. The main thing that came out of the meeting was a commitment to meet again after the election to discuss solutions to keeping more schools viable. One of the possible next steps is a joint task force to delve further. I would be among the first to volunteer.

We need these schools to make living centrally more attractive to families, and we need more families to make these schools viable. So we’re going to need some creativity and collaboration to find a solution. If this whole election for council and the trustees could be about one thing, schools should be it.

Some interesting resources that have stimulated my thinking on this issue:

• Very good questions about the full costs and implications of closure are up on trustee candidate Michael Janz’s blog, including comments from outgoing trustee Sue Huff.
• Interesting comments in an open letter from the Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues refusing to participate in the sector review process.
• Interesting analysis of the planning disconnect between the school board and the city from planner Beth Saunders, based on collaboration between the Edmonton Journal and blogger extraordinaire Mack Male using open data from the city.
• The Community Schools Coalition has some articulate thinking and further links to other resources.

If you didn’t get a chance to attend the last consultation, there is another for the South Central Sector:

Tuesday, October 5, 2010, 4:00 – 9:00pm

Vimy Ridge Academy, Gym, 8205 – 90 Avenue

The Campaign has settled into a nice rhythm of door knocking and appearances. It didn’t occur to me until this week but having done this before makes a huge difference. I am continuing to learn from people at their doorstep and have been able to solve some local issues for people as well that I wouldn’t have known about otherwise.

Yesterday I spoke to a very bright and inquisitive group of grade six students from Ecole St. Stanislaus who are studying government. I make these kinds of visits throughout the year but they tend to be especially captivated when there’s actually an election on. Our conversation was wide-ranging but the most poignant was a discussion about diversity on City Council, particularly the underrepresentation of women and visible minorities. I have been thinking about that one and will come back to it with a blog post.

We were waiting for our main piece of literature to come back from the printers and now the big flyer push can begin. It sure is nice having volunteers to handle the bulk of that – means they don’t get lost in with the pizza flyers and other bulk mail delivered by Canada Post.

Meanwhile the duties of a councillor haven’t stopped entirely – tomorrow I have to attend the Capital Region Board transit committee meeting to review the regional priority list for provincial Green Trip grant applications. Don’t mind though, that one’s for a good cause.

Now off to the Shaw forum taping followed by the NextGen/InterVivos Candi{date} forum, which I’ll be a bit late for.

Tomorrow is nomination day. When I file my forms and pay my deposit the campaign will become official. But tomorrow is closer to the end than the beginning.

Preparations have been underway since last winter. I announced in January, and we launched the campaign in June. Since July I’ve knocked on doors in every neighbourhood in the new ward. My superstar volunteers delivered the first handbill in August to every door we could get to and it got great response.

The first wave of signs went out today with fresh ‘Re-elect’ stickers. We wanted to re-use the signs from last time since they’re still in good shape and we continue to run the campaign with an eye to minimizing our impact on the environment.

Speaking of reducing our footprint, the new South LRT has proven a great asset – delivering volunteers to key muster points in the ward. Keep an eye out at the South Campus LRT Station for a special message about transit starting tomorrow.