Jeromy Farkas Town Hall Event Transcript

Thursday, January 18, 2018

PBP Community Association

Calgary, Alberta

Notes: The representative from the PBP Community Association who spoke at times, audience

members, and residents who asked questions, have all been kept anonymous as names were not used during the event.

Parts omitted from the transcript include some opening and closing statements from the PBP Community Association prior to Farkas beginning the event, as well as offhand comments that weren’t in any way related to the town hall/politics (ex. calls for questions to be submitted, jokes unrelated to the conversation) These parts were omitted as the true content of the night revolved around Farkas reading and answering questions.

I have numbered the audience members who did speak out during the forum just to ensure that it’s clear that more than one audience member spoke out throughout the night.

Everything has been written as it was spoken, to the best of my ability. Any issues with grammar, unfinished sentences, etc. are just speech errors. Errors with spelling/format/missing words (often due to audio quality- which I noted with a “?”) are mistakes on my part.

[START]

FARKAS: You know what? I think this is the very first moment in the past 100 days that I realize that I actually am the councillor. It… the past several weeks have been such a whirlwind and you campaign so hard that you go so hard that the campaigns are, sort of, designed that you collapse just on election day but if the outside chance happens that you actually do win, what’s assumed but never really rationalized… The fact is if you win you actually have to report to work the next day.

So, the last couple of weeks have been just such a whirlwind and it’s been such a great opportunity to get to meet so many of you through the campaign, I see so many distinguished leaders here, community association presidents, as well as… I just wanted to take a brief comment, or a brief moment, to recognize two past candidates here in Ward 11 who are in the audience. So, Keith Simmons as well as Rob Dickinson, I just wanted to thank you as well for coming.

It was such an intimidating experience to be on this stage in so many of these candidate forums, one of which was here at Nellie McClung school but over the past several weeks I’ve been working hard to act quickly on many of my campaign promises as well as I hope to earn your support by following through on listening and this was one of my biggest campaign commitments- it was monthly town hall meeting where you have the opportunity to be able to ask me questions, put me back in my role as your elected official as one of listening and to really

keep in touch. Having campaigned against what I saw as a out-of-touch city hall I felt that there was just really no replacement to the face-to-face contact. So, I really feel privileged on the fact that so many of you have decided to join us tonight.

I wanted to just jump into some, very briefly, some of my very initial campaign commitments to tell you how I’m doing before I jump into just a pretty simple Q&A. So, one of the biggest commitments that I made during the campaign was to decline the pension and transition allowance available to elected officials. To me this was really important to setting the tone. I think that elected office, it should be a service and not a career and I think that staying in office for too long is frankly, it’s not good for the voters, nor is it good for the politician. So, this was a challenging decision for me that I felt that it was right for myself, my partner, my family where we’re at this time. But it wasn’t a small commitment that I made and I wanted to put that outright just to begin with so that you could hold me accountable to that commitment. A lot of people say things during a campaign, and it breeds into some level of cynicism where you never really know if you’re candidate or your elected official is actually following through once they’re elected.

Another piece is in terms of our office staff. So, right now we’re still getting off the ground and I wanted to introduce Chris Carlisle (spelling?) just at the very entrance there. Chris just joined our team about two weeks ago and is really hitting the ground running. So, on a lot of constituents’ issues, Chris is really going to be my lead. So, I like this as an opportunity to get to introduce you to some of my team and who we’re working with.

But I just wanted to, sort of, weigh in a little bit more on a personal note about my experience at City Hall. So, many of you are aware that I was quite skeptical or critical of many of the incumbent councillors, including the mayor, during the campaign. Every single one of them has spent a lot of time to help mentor me, to give me advice and nothing really said it best compared to when I was there on my second day, I had just gotten the key to the office, I had turned the door and I was standing there, sort of, in the doorway and I couldn’t quite enter because I didn’t feel I belonged there yet so I stood there for many, many, it felt like nearly an hour but it must have been at least half an hour and I was trying to muster up the courage after having won in the election. But many councillors came by, they patted me on the shoulder and they said “you know what? Now that I’m here, we’re a team, and we work together.” So, I never really took it to heart until one of them came by and just gave me a huge shove and said “we have a bylaw against loitering around here!”. But, in any event, I just wanted to mention that because I think sometimes elections can bring out the worst in people and sometimes the discourse is not as civil as it could be but every day I’m really committed to be able to work with the rest of council and I fully recognize that if I want to be an effective representative for you I have to work alongside the team. Obviously you’re going to see, more often than not, the media spin but I just wanted to let you know personally that I do take to heart your feedback as well as my obligation to be able to work with the rest of council.

But, in any event, I think that might be enough time for me speaking… I don’t think I’ve been elected the long- for every year served you’re entitled to another minute, so I’ve gone well over. In any event, before we dive into questions I just want to acknowledge some of my colleagues from the City of Calgary, from the Calgary Fire Department- thank you so much for everything

that you guys do. Thank you for everything that you do for our city as well as taking the time to be here tonight.

So, I should mention right now that this is a learning experience, we’re trying to get a feel for what the best format is so that everybody has an opportunity to be able to raise any questions or concerns. If there are questions that really dive into really technical details I’m happy to take that offline and to connect you with my staff who can assist to get that sort of…

QUESTION 1 [READ BY FARKAS]: So, this is a question asking about the advantages of Ward 11. So, it’s from a resident, actually, that doesn’t live in the ward but is someone thinking of returning to Willow Park. What can I expect of your office and you as a councillor to make Willow Park an even better place to live? And with special concerns around bottleneck traffic between Southland and Anderson, and on Deerfoot/Southland.

ANSWER [FARKAS]: So, one of the biggest advantages to Ward 11 is just the diversity in the ward. If you can imagine that all the way down Anderson Road is the southern boundary of where Willow Park (?) and Bridgeland but it extends all the way north to, essentially, Inglewood. So, it’s nearly 120,000 people that the Ward 11 councillor represents and I would say one of the biggest advantages on a personal level is that I wake up every day just so excited to be able to serve on various different issues for various different communities. Like, there is no day that is like the previous. Because I may spend, say, two hours, as I did, at the Alpha House and go on to spend two hours at a community meeting in Lakeview and then have an evening call about a re-development in Oakridge- the issue sets are so different.

I’d say one of the biggest things that I enjoy about Willow Park in particular though, having knocked on many, many doors in the community is just the… it’s the diversity. I meet many people who have lived in a home since it was first built, meet a lot of younger families moving into the area, there’s a lot of potential for change which could be a good thing and it could be bad thing with things like the Anderson TOD but a real benefit is the excellent volunteers on the Willow Ridge community association. So, there’s tremendous amount of great programming that’s ongoing as well as a new facility that will be coming online soon, I think it’s going to make for even bigger appeal to living in the area.

From a practical standpoint, specifically some of the transportation issues, this is a mixed bag because when you consider Deerfoot Trail it is a provincial jurisdiction although a lot of the downstream impacts are felt by people who live in the area regardless of whether it’s a provincial issue, city issue, or a federal issue.

So, when my… when it comes to commitments my office will make is we return every phone call, we make sure that we acknowledge receipts of messages that we get in and I do, unlike some councillors, actually read everything that goes through the… through our email, which is a big advantage as well, so for me one of the biggest (?) that I have is to keep a sense of the pulse of what’s going on and I may not personally be able to get to every single matter but I do keep it… a healthy pulse on what’s going on locally.

On transportation specifically, it’s not really specific to Willow Park but I think we have quite a bit of an issue around transportation planning. So, generally speaking, I’d like to see more transportation decisions driven by evidence rather than ideology. I think we have some misguided policies that, whether intentionally or not, say we have… we’re one of the few North American cities that it seems like we purposely don’t synchronize our lights. And, again, I don’t want… I don’t want to be too critical of city staff who worked really hard on this but it’s, as the politician I’m never the smartest person in the room- and that’s a rule that I want to keep- but it’s a number of different pieces and factors there that I’m keen to work with the local CA on from a street-level issue around pedestrian safety and so on.

[PAUSE TO PICK THE NEXT QUESTION]

FARKAS: I actually just want to acknowledge my parents. So, this is my father Peter he arrived to Canada originally… was it eight years old?

FARKAS’ FATHER, PETER: Three.

FARKAS: At the age of three and could have gone anywhere in the world but chose to come to Canada and to Calgary. Every day I look up to you both as a real great example of the fact that anybody can work hard to be able to achieve anything and I remember so many people when I first started running for council, if I was elected at the time I would have been the youngest to have been elected in many, many years, and many people told me it was a very silly thing to quit my job, to just go out there to knock on doors and to try to meet as many people as I could. There were many, many people who told me that it would be impossible for me to stand up here as the councillor for Ward 11 but you never said that.

But the reason that I mention my parents is that this is sort of related to, in my mind, to the question of term limits that council’s dealing with. I think, despite the fact that I’m standing up here in front of you and I’m so grateful for this opportunity to be able to address you all, I think that no matter the type of a success that you consider being a politician is, it’s a borrowed kind of a success. It’s not one that belongs to me, it belongs to you as the voters and any achievement that it is to be here it’s one that you have granted me for a time and it’s one that ultimately belongs to you given that you have the final decision of whether I’m allowed to continue to serve you. So, thank you.

I’m not doing a very good job at answering questions, because that wasn’t even a question I was asked.

QUESTION 2 [READ BY FARKAS]: So, this is in regards to Nellie McClung school traffic. What can be done to deal with the dangers created by after school pick-up traffic, such as excessive speed in alley, u-turns, intersection, etc.

ANSWER [FARKAS]: So, there’s a number of different pieces here that I think are not specific to Nellie McClung so I’ll answer this sort of in general. A big issue that we have in communities like Palliser, but also other Ward 11 communities like Oakridge, Acadia, Willow Park, and so on is that many of these older style suburbs that we built are designed with, sort of, out of date

engineering traffic principles in mind. So, the roads are designed in such a way as to encourage increased speed from a general traffic standpoint. When it comes to specifically areas around school, as well as locations for pick-up, it becomes more of a question of, in my mind, a piece of it is environmental design to make sure that students are safe and the traffic’s (?) but also around crime and potentially other risks that are not necessarily related to automobiles. The point that I need to make with that is that we can’t just take a look at just that single problem in isolation.

Specifically, I would recommend it always be typically best for the decisions that impact people to be made by the people who are impacted by them. So, I am a little bit frustrated with City Hall’s top-down approach which basically has a certain decision made at City Hall and then brought down with a one size fits all solution without really an understanding of what the local context is. So, when it comes to issues like this, my first instinct is to work with the school itself as well as the community association and to drive those changes that local residents are asking for rather than necessarily taking a solution that may have worked in other areas and importing it into an area where it may not. That said, I think that we’re… we are also keen to take a look at some of the best practices that are being employed elsewhere throughout the city, but also throughout Canada.

A piece that I’ve heard interest, at least from my office, in is the concept of Vision Zero so, it’s focused on the fact that in my opinion… well, not in my opinion, it’s a fact, but I believe that the evidence shows that a lot of these collisions, many of which are unpreventable but when issues do happen we need to make sure that they’re more forgiving. There’s some in the community on this issue, I’m undecided, but have advocated for, say, the reduction of speed limits. This could be done in residential areas, it could be done city-wide, I’ve heard proposals to go from 40, or to 40, or to 30. I would be keen to hear your feedback on that.

So, it’s a multi-faceted piece, there’s a lot of brute force changes to the actual infrastructure that we could do but it really depends on what the local context is and this is sort of an area where I am not myself a traffic engineer, I want to make sure that the decisions and the implementation that we have in place in this specific area are ones that are going to have evidence around it instead of, say, a more political decision, if that makes sense.

QUESTION 3 [READ BY FARKAS]: So, the question is: how are you going to work together with other councillors so that they trust you and you can pass motions forward? I feel the communication has been very poor, hard to get information about town hall, emails take a long time to be replied to, your statements come across as very sensationalist and have been widely mocked on social media. Consider hiring a communications person.

ANSWER [FARKAS]: I like this question because I want to answer all questions that come to me. I think that there’s obviously a reasonable room for difference of opinion. That said, so soon after an election… I campaigned on certain principles, certain values, where if I were to abandon very core parts of my platform and to go completely finger to the wind and abandon those principles I think that I would be failing the people who voted for me.

So that said, despite the fact that there’s certain commitments that I made and I want to adhere to- the fact of the matter is that I fell short of the 50% that I needed… or rather, the 50%

majority. I won the most votes of any candidate but the fact is that after I’m elected I don’t just represent the people who voted for me, but everybody who lives in ward 11. One of the best ways that I think that you can hopefully trust, at least, my goodwill and the spirit under which I’m trying to serve you is the fact that this sort of format has never been done. I’ve committed to once a month, every month, for the next four years this opportunity to be able to ask me any question on any issue and to hold me account. Many, many other councillors told me that this was the first promise that I would have to break because it’s just not practical but when you’re elected on a platform you execute, you do what you said you were going to do and you return in four years and see what the people think whereas, for me, that bothered me where I thought you know what? City Hall is the level of government that’s closest to us, it should be the most dynamic, it should be the most responsive to change and it should be the level of government where I can best incorporate your feedback.

So, when it comes to hiring a communications person, the point is well taken. I’m learning. I do have a lot to do to improve but I never said that I was perfect. I’m going to make mistakes along the way, I’m sure that we’re going to disagree on many, many issues but when we do disagree I always owe you the evidence that’s informed my position and I also owe you an open mind if you bring new evidence to me. So, the biggest response to that criticism is you know what? If you think my communication skills are poor to be out here in front of you, in person, taking unscripted questions, then I don’t know exactly what you’re looking for if you think some of the other politicians are professionals in that they hide at city hall all day without exposing them to anybody else who lives in the real world… So, I hope that you’ll accept the fact that I’m challenged a little bit about that.

I do want to grant, though, the validity in what you mentioned regarding working with the rest of council as a whole and that’s why I opened up in my statements by really acknowledging that every other single member of council has been an aid to me. Each and every single one- including the mayor, including, say, Druh Farrell, like Druh is one of the councillors that, perhaps, I’m closest with. I have an open dialogue with every other single member of council. Sure, they don’t agree with me on everything but they do, I think, have a begrudging respect for the fact that I’m trying to execute on the very things that I said I would do and then there’s other issues where we are just worlds and worlds apart and for me to live with myself, frankly as a man, as a Calgarian, and as a councillor, there’s things that I am going to have to do in order to stick to my principles and what I believe.

I will fully grant that, perhaps, a majority of you are very displeased with my attempt to revisit Midfield Park as an issue. But, you know, I’ll take that feedback. If you felt that I was out of line to say that perhaps they should be offered more fair compensation, I’ll take my lumps. You can hold me accountable but, you know, my look at the evidence was one that what I felt, knowing what I know from some of these secret meetings, I felt that there was much more that we could have done in that situation. The reality was that there are 13 other members of council who completely disagree, they thought that it didn’t even warrant a debate…

AUDIENCE MEMBER: It had been debated for years.

FARKAS: Well, I’m just using this as an example.

AUDIENCE MEMBER (2): You’re only one man, Jeromy.

FARKAS: I know. Fair point. So, this… I use this as just an example of an issue where I may be worlds apart from the rest of council but, you know, I’m okay with that. So, when it comes to… when it comes to the issue, I will work with whichever member of council brings forward an item. I will judge the item on its merits and not who has brought it forward.

COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION REPRESENTATIVE: These are tough questions, wow.

FARKAS: These are tough questions, but you know what? I am the happiest I have been. I am incredibly lucky to serve as your city councillor. Every day I am so excited and I wake up, I get to the office, and my motto is “ready for adventure” because every day is an adventure and the fact of the matter is that you pay my salary. I am accountable to you and I’m grateful for questions like these.

QUESTION 4 [READ BY FARKAS]: So, this is in regards to the Calgary Southwest Ring Road- information distributed in Lakeview about 37th street being closed for two years and access to Lakeview being restricted to Crowchild Trail. True? False?

ANSWER [FARKAS]: So, tonight I’ll let you in at this point the information is not verified. So, what I mean by this is that the province has made the commitment in the past to ensure that the two access points into Lakeview, both at 37th street and Crowchild Trail, will remain open. The issue is that sometimes when you have legal language like this the definition of open can be varied. Still, they commit to an all-turns access into 37th street which means that you can go any combination of east bound, west bound, north and south at that intersection. The difficulty becomes that given the constraints of that intersection at Glenmore Trail and 37th street it will be very difficult for them to do so in order to maintain basically the staging of the construction, there’s a lot of earth works, they have to lower a portion of the road and some people in the community have rightly raised the concern that this commitment and this promise may not, in fact, be viable.

At this point, I am willing and I’m eager to go to fight to ensure that Lakeview has these two access points in and out. It would be completely, completely unacceptable in my mind and I’m not afraid of raising some trouble or raising a storm but I want to, rather than shoot and ask questions later, I’ve reached out and facilitated a meeting that’s going to be happening in the coming days between myself, Jeffery Vanderburg (spelling?) as well as a representative from Alberta Transportation in order to get it straight from the horse’s mouth on this matter and I will be presenting the most up-to-date information on this that hopefully we can actually hold them to it in terms of written form at the January 27th town hall at Lakeview Community Association.

So, I will be there in-person and I’ll be able to present to you the most recent information on that. So, right now, I can’t tell you, or I can’t promise you whether this is true or false. What I can say is that the concern is warranted but I just want to make sure that we’re having the conversation based on facts and that we’re not having fear take over the conversation. I think that sometimes another piece of this is the potential access to the Tsuu T’ina nation and some of the other

concerns around development, which is… it’s a related conversation but I want to make sure that when we’re talking of this, that we’re talking all about the same set of facts rather than just conjecture. But also I, fully though, I just want to say that the concern is warranted and it’s something that’s personally on my desk to ensure that it’s dealt with properly and that the community is kept informed about this.

QUESTION 5 [READ BY FARKAS]: I (?) for peace, quiet, and safety. Now, I feel that they’re being pushed out with the ring road (?) and the Southwest BRT. How will you vote regarding the monstrosity that is the Oakridge Co-Op?

ANSWER [FARKAS]: That’s the question verbatim. So, just so that everyone’s aware there’s an application for a change of land use as well as redevelopment over at the Oakridge Co-Op. I’ve been following this one very closely and carefully through the campaign as well as by virtue of the fact that I live about a 3-minute walk away from it. It’s my Co-Op. I’m there practically on a weekly basis and I have a vested interest personally (?) if redevelopment happens that it’s such that it serves the community.

So, the fact of the matter is that when it comes to changes of land use every single member of council has to remain what is deemed to be amenable to persuasion. So, what this means is that a public hearing is conducted where every person or business has that right to be able to apply for a change at city council. When we go through a public hearing process that enables people to come and give testimony for or against and provide other letters regarding the proposal and a debate follows and council acts, sort of, as a judge would and only then are they able to cast a vote.

So, I’m in a tough situation on this matter because if it’s demonstrated that I have a bias for this or against this I can actually be prevented from voting on the matter. So, my first ask to the room is… this is not a politician dodge but if you want me to be able to represent you on this matter I can’t take a position for or against in outright terms like that. That said, I want to be able to keep an open mind but also ensure that I’m hearing from you. So, what I’ve done on this is I’ve attended all of the open houses. I’ve met, actually, many of you there through the process. I’ve heard a lot of mixed feelings, to be honest. I went to several Oakridge community association meetings regarding this and just one the other night where I asked if the board had a formal position on this matter and… but I was informed that… correct me if I’m wrong, but there’s mutual… no position on this. So, lacking guidance from community association about the will of residents, I need to hear from more of you directly. So, in clear, I’ll be asked to vote on this matter likely on Monday night. So, if you do have thoughts, opinions, on what you like about it, what you don’t like about it, let me know.

As an aside, with the Southwest BRT being approved that does unlock basically what’s called Transit-oriented development in Southwest Calgary. So, this is basically, in my opinion, more of a top-down approach from City Hall where regardless of other underlying principles areas around the BRT stop are basically forced into, kind of, a high-density mode. So, right now the city is going down a path where they’re forcing more and more density and, in some cases what I’m hearing is against the wishes of local residents. So, generally speaking, what I’ve seen from

the observance process is that there have been several changes made to the Oakridge application that have incorporated community feedback.

A concern that I have is that given that the redevelopment does not go to the full extent of the density that the city would like that if this application’s turned down we may have something much, much bigger down the road in even just a few short years’ time. So, that’s a question that I think that the community grapples with and it’s something that I grapple with as an elected representative where sometimes we’re put into positions where we have to ask is this… maybe this is not the ideal, but is this the best of potentially some not great options from certain perspectives and I want to share also some feedback that I’ve heard in terms of, say, I’ve knocked on many doors in Oakridge and, again, many people have been in their homes since it was first built, others younger families moving in. I do… I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that I hear from seniors who’d like the options to be able to downsize into more affordable accommodations, smaller properties that are still in the area so that they can remain close to their friends and their family.

So, on this issue I am generally undecided. I need to be from a legal standpoint, but I do see a lot of the merits from the arguments both ways. So, at the very end of the day I need to hear from as many of you as possible and I encourage you to participate through the public hearing process on thid coming Monday and to shoot me an email directly to get your thoughts on what you like about it or what you don’t and you can do that straight to ward11@calgary.ca.

AUDIENCE MEMBER (3): Is Facebook okay? Or just the email?

FARKAS: Actually, that’s a good… it’s good that you mention Facebook. So, my Facebook account is my personal account so when you send me things relating to city business I can’t act on that. I would rather if there’s something that’s related to me as a councillor that you do it through my official channels if that makes sense.

QUESTION 6 [READ BY FARKAS]: So, there’s two questions. Only one… I’m only allowed one per sheet, though, to be fair. Maybe we could do a vote. So, one question is about Amazon and one is about secondary suites.

ANSWER [FARKAS]: In fifteen seconds, Amazon: I’m embarrassed that we didn’t even get to the top 20. We have so many… it’s a perfect storm of anti-business policies in Calgary. Calgary used to be the best place in the world to be able to start a life and to make a business. My father… like, it’s embarrassing how far that we’ve fallen in just a short period of time. I’m disappointed but I’m not surprised with the fact that we have not been rewarded by a grossly overspending by… and producing business certainty around approvals and so on. So, it… to me, it’s disappointing but it doesn’t surprise me. It’s sad, but I think if we want to play in the big leagues, we’re going to have to actually put our money where our mouth is in terms of getting our property taxes under control as well as allowing for more predictable business climate and to me that looks like less government rather than more.

SECONDARY SUITE QUESTION [READ BY FARKAS]: So, the question is R1 zoning should equal R1 or close neighbours should have veto every two years from the noise, parking, etc.

ANSWER [FARKAS]: So, it’s not really a question, it’s more of a statement to, or a submission. So, that gives me an opportunity to speak to secondary suites. So, I campaigned strongly against blanket re-zoning (?) to permitted use. I think that there’s many in council who view secondary suites as a magic bullet to issues around affordability, and housing, so on. What I like about Calgary is that you have a choice in the type of neighbourhood that you live in. There’s some that are much higher density that some people enjoy having some of the amenities more close by and then there’s some that enjoy the quieter atmosphere the fact that perhaps more likely know their neighbours.

For me, it’s a balancing act because… the first thing I should inform you about is just the sheer amount of time that is spent by council on this issue. It’s 30-40% of council’s time that’s spent on individual secondary suite hearings. We spent about two hours on a single home application and then the week after that we actually spent fifteen minutes discussing a $3.7 billion dollar capital budget. So, the amount of effort and time spent on this issue is very misguided. So, I fully grant that we have to reform the process and like, I think, reform almost has implicit in it the fact that there’s going to have to be some compromise.

So, I did have a conditional support for the current proposal which suggested we move to a discretionary use. So, this basically means we establish concerns around, say, parking, around transportation, around safety and really solid planning principles and then we allow it to be basically delegated to an administrative process. The advantage to this, in my mind, is that now we have an objective criteria where the planning issues are debated as planning issues rather than having neighbours come testify against neighbours. We don’t have council broken down by really frustrating stories and I don’t mean that it’s frustrating to hear these stories but there’s certain things that are shared with members of council that it’s just frankly none of my business. I don’t need to know, or rather the public does not need to know that you lost your home and you’d like to… or rather you lost your job and you would like to be able to supplement your income. We don’t need to know about family disputes and other things like that but the sheer fact of the matter is that council tends to reward some of these sob stories so that the more details, the more the human elements that are brought out it seems like the more likely that council will vote on an issue and not really stay stringent on issues of parking and transportation and so on. And the realistic dynamic is that on council we now have a supermajority that wants secondary suites no matter what. So, I decided that despite the fact that I have mixed feelings about secondary suites, I wanted to have a voice at the table to say, you know what? If I can influence the process I’m not fully happy with the discretionary process but I think that it could be more improvement and actually protect communities and that there is objective criteria. I mean, another advantage is that if a decision is made that you don’t agree with you can actually go through the subdivision and appeal board. So you have recourse. Whereas the current process where if council makes a decision you have nobody to go to. Council’s decision is final.

So, for a number of different reasons, I support it, the tentative move to a discretionary use.

To be clear, though, the changes have not taken effect. So, right now that checklist is being designed and it’s going to be brought back in the coming weeks to council to have another round of public hearing as well as, ideally, a consultation process. So, I’m hoping to be able to speak at a future town hall meeting like this about what the criteria are for are secondary suites are allowed or they are not. And I’m hoping to have your feedback on that.

AUDIENCE MEMBER (4): The SDAB has the opinion, and I have been in front of them, that if something is listed as a discretionary use and all the rules are met it must be approved. That is their view. I have challenged them on it, because the legal definition- no, it is not. The discretionary means discretionary. The development appeal board does not have that view and that view comes from the city solicitors. All other solicitors in the province and planning have a totally different view.

AUDIENCE MEMBER (5): That’s right.

FARKAS: I take your point to heart.

AUDIENCE MEMBER (6): And $100 to challenge it.

AUDIENCE MEMBER (4): And that becomes a neighbourhood fight. It is worse than at council.

FARKAS: I take your point to heart. So, one of the reasons that I have tentative support for this is that we’ve seen how the situation played out in Edmonton where basically a lot of the initial concerns were shown to be not as, not as big as they were going into it and I feel that the model for other cities is probably the way to go.

I think that the current situation is just not tenable. Right now, in practical terms, I think that you elected me to tackle big issues like spending, or transparency, or respect, and the fact of the matter is when I’m sitting there in my chair at 11:45pm straight from 9am, and I just got worn down by 30 secondary suite approvals and now I have to vote on a big budget, it’s… we make terrible decisions and I’m a member of council so I can say that but at 11:45 we make terrible decisions. So, the current process is untenable there’s going to have to be some give on this and it’s not a perfect solution and I’m keen to take this conversation offline too, to get your thoughts on how we can actually change this. Because right now, it is a right under law for you to apply for a change of land use. You can no matter what. There is no way that council can say that you can’t. So, no matter what, council must continue to receive applications like these if they are not listed under the discretionary use.

AUDIENCE MEMBER (4): If they have to pay for an application and they put a few down, it would be a different attitude.

FARKAS: Well, that’s another piece of the proposal is that we take a look at, perhaps, a… some sort of registration system. There’s some on council that would like to take a look at licensing. I think licensing is really intriguing because it tackles that form of say, absentee (?).

So, right now, if, say, a senior comes before council and says they’d like a live-in caregiver, often people will judge the senior but that use will stay, say, after that senior, say, if they move on if they sell their house.

So, for me, I have a really hard time. Like, I’m fiscally conservative, socially very live and let live, you’d say libertarian, but I believe strongly in property rights. I think if you are exercising your lawful property rights and you’re not harming anybody, that you should have very little infringement by government. So, when it comes to what happens within your four walls, I think it’s not really any of my business or your business what people are doing as long as they’re not harming others. The caveat is when we get into things like backyard suites, laneway housing which have potentially have large massing issues or could block out the sun for neighbouring properties. So, that’s the distinction. So, when it comes to basement suites, I’m pretty… I don’t really… I really have zero, zero issues whatsoever if the person resides there, if there is a licensing system where the person doesn’t reside there then I think that that allots for.. that accounts for some concerns as long as there’s a really sharp enforcement component and, finally, I think that the city should re-instate the fee for the applications. Right now, they have opened the floodgate where anybody can apply. Some people apply without even intending to proceed with one just because they want to prove their property values. So, I don’t think that you should be subsidizing that as a taxpayer. I think that we should be cost recovering.

QUESTION 7 [READ BY FARKAS]: So, this is in regards to the ring road. Will there be a response to comments by Barry Leester regarding the overdesign referred to in the newspaper of three days ago?

ANSWER [FARKAS]: So, just for context, the Alberta Transportation is overbuilding the Southwest portion of the ring road in order to partially accommodate projected future massive, massive growth on the Tsuu T’ina nation- many billions of dollars of investment and development as part of their (?) project, and then also partly due to the directive that there’s going to be no future outer ring road. So, right now, they’re basically doubling up and they’re building twice the amount of freeway concrete, interchanges that they need to.

So, I will be following this and I will be responding but I want to ensure that I have the opportunity to actually hear directly from Alberta transportation. So, I hope that you’ll trust my… I’m not afraid to jump into contentious and controversial issues but I want to make sure that I have all of the facts at hand. So, on this matter, I’ll be asking you just for a little bit more time and a lot more comfortable to speak to this in a similar, perhaps, setting as this, just at the Lakeview town hall on Jan. 27th- the Saturday. So, I hope that you’ll just respect my craftily-worded dodge to this question.

QUESTION 8 [READ BY FARKAS]: This is in regards to purchasing and contracts. I know who wrote this already. How much control does council have on city-purchasing policy and procedures such as (?) sourcing (?) builders afterwards and so on.

ANSWER [FARKAS]: So this is more of a philosophical question. So, I would rather interpret it that way. So, city council, in my mind, should operate more like a board of directors of the corporate division. So, it’s not my job, necessarily, to micromanage. You don’t elect me to get

into the day to day of executing, but you elect me there to be oversight to staff who have certain rules in place and to ensure that they’re actually complying. So, my major job as a councillor is not to be deciding contracts, but to ensure that the policy is reasonable and that it serves Calgarians and, secondly, with the staff that we’ve hired are competent to do so and that they’re actually following the rules. So, I would say, generally speaking it’s none of my business specific to (?) projects, and I’ve really struggled with this because there’s a lot of really great local business who want to have an opportunity in a certain cutting edge field that would like that chance to have a (?) source bid with the city. But for me, I’ve decided to take a more hands-off approach on that where I don’t think councillors should be awarding contracts like that. It concerns me because it’s hard to draw the line between, well, what’s a good local business versus somebody who, perhaps, donated to your campaign versus a monopoly situation.

So, I think that it’s better for councillors not to be involved in those questions. I think that we should get the rules right, let’s make sure that we’re following the best practices in terms of guidelines being followed in other cites, but I should never really be knowing who’s bidding on a project before it’s all finalized. Like, I should not have that level of sway. I think that that would be… that would be an over-reach in my role. I get into difficulties sometimes where there are members of public and constituents maybe in this room who want me to be more hands-on and interfering and giving certain favors or giving advantage to certain bids over others but I think that my principle on this issue is that I have to say no.

QUESTION 9 [READ BY FARKAS]: So, the subject is local district police office. People are missing a district police office which once was set in the small mall at Braeside Drive and 24th street. Can you ask the Police Commission to reconsider and re-open the office as it supplied many social services and our own peace service.

ANSWER [FARKAS]: Yes. The key importance of this, though, is that community policing model. Policing as a model is changing over time and what we’re seeing is that the old adage is true that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. So, when it comes to having a much more proactive presence out in the community this is just tremendously invaluable. It builds trust with local businesses, with residents, and having that even just from the optics or a psychological standpoint is very advantageous.

What we’re struggling with right now is a scarcity of resources. It was a very difficult decision for me, but in the end I decided to support the additional police ask through the 2018 budget adjustments to help enable them the hiring of 55 new police officers as well as help enable reforms like body cameras and so on. I think, though, that it can’t be a blank cheque and we have to ensure that no matter the department any resources that we give have a clear line of accountability. To ensure that we are getting value for those dollars, and there’s no reason that police should be exempt to that expectation. Nor do I (?) what they’re asking for (?). So, I’m in the early discussions on more of the community police model and where it’s a volunteer station, largely, but I also want to bear in mind that there’s other areas in the ward that are undergoing tremendous, tremendous stress.

So, right now, also in ward 11, the Victoria Park police station just closed and they’re facing issues… a different sort of magnitude when you think of, say, the Sheldon Chumir, the

Safeworks site, the safe-injection site coming online, and that coupled with, say, the Victoria Park police closures and a lot of other stress and they have re-development issues where huge increases in population in the Beltline as well as other factors of the economic downturn, we have increased drug use and so on. So, there’s a number of different factors there. I’m going to be working to ensure that we continue with that police… that community policing model but, in the short term, these conversations are very premature. I am making the case, though.

[PAUSE TO PICK QUESTION]

FARKAS: Actually, just for accountability purposes, at the end of the night if you’re interested, you can come and read the questions to ensure that I’m actually reading them as written. Yeah, so, if any of you want to do that you’re welcome… I’m just reading them verbatim.

QUESTION 10 [READ BY FARKAS]: Update, please, on BRT on 14th street.

ANSWER [FARKAS]: So, let me just preface that I know this is an issue that splits us down the middle. We’re 50/50 on this issue- there’s strong support of this project, and there’s strong opposition and I think that what we’ve seen is in the past I’ve been troubled by allegations of bullying, discourse at former town halls, I’ve seen individual homes where people have, say, ready to engage signs that are targeted by the pro-BRT people and I just want to say that no matter your opinion on this issue, I think that it’s really important for us to have a dialogue based on facts rather than resorting to emotion or threats or violence or anything like that.

The BRT is the reason that I chose to run because I was very frustrated to see the town hall format shut down. I thought that a lot of my neighbours had really reasonable concerns. Many of you know that I campaigned against the project. I just want to reiterate the fact that I’m strongly in support of Transit. I just feel like, in this case, given many, in my opinion, warranted concerns around safety, around ridership, around cost, that if we have only so much money to work with and we’re closing things like the police station in Braeside, why would we choose this as the investment?

So, just to reiterate. I’m strongly in support of Transit- I often take Transit to City Hall. But, the question becomes is was this the best way to improve Transit? I still think that the answer’s no. I was unsuccessful in those motion before city council to ask council to look at a pause for the project pending….

AUDIENCE MEMBER (7): Well, you vowed to stop it, and was that your whole plan to just one simple motion… was that your whole plan?

FARKAS: If I may just have an opportunity to…

So, I vowed to kill it. And I took my lumps because a lot of people thought that I sold out to the people who wanted the BRT, because I thought, you know, to be reasonable, or rather, once elected I have to represent all Calgarians, not everyone wanted to kill the BRT.

So, in my mind, it was a compromise on my part to ask for a two week pause and, despite that, council chose not to go forward. In terms of the information I’ll be sending out frequently a newsletter that shows what I have in terms of some of the staging and construction, we’ll make sure that all the community association presidents are informed of that.

Right now the contract has been awarded. I believe it’s for $42 million dollars and I have deep concerns over that number because it’s such a low-ball number that I don’t think that the project can actually feasibly be constructed for that amount. So I have a lot of concerns around where the money’s coming from, how it’s being built to other projects that might suffer as a result of the proceeding of the BRT that may not be fully warranted at this time in regards to ridership but I continue to ask for very frequent updates from city staff.

I’ve been frustrated with some degree of lack of information. And again, I don’t want to shoot first and ask questions later, but I have not been given all the information that I need to be able to stand here and tell you what’s going on. I continue to demand, on a daily basis, up-to-date information. I have not been able to fully get that yet. But I’m keen to keep the community informed. Essentially, though, some of the initial constructon has already began and the initial geotechnical work along 14th street, there’s other concerns around, say, flooding at the 14th street and 90th avenue intersection which I feel have just not been reasonably addressed. So, living in the area, I know that that’s a problem intersection many times during the course of a summer that some city officials have yet to actually recognize that this is a situation. I have concerns because, you know, it’s going to add more to the budget if we have to get, actually, scuba gear for the buses to be able to get down into that underpass, or that tunnel under Glenmore Landing. But, in any event, it’s going to be ongoing with construction and some road closures that will be coordinated with some other work that they’re doing.

I feel terrible that I have to stand in front of you and say that I don’t know much about this because I have not had the information given to me but I’ll always err on the side of saying that I don’t know rather than try to be (?).

QUESTION 11 [READ BY FARKAS]: Not happy about your willingness to appear exposed…

The question is going into more detail but I’m not comfortable to repeat it verbatim, if you’d like to see the question you can but I will address the issue of the swim night at Southland Leisure Center.

I want to be really, really clear on this issue- it’s none of my business, it’s none of your business what consenting adults do on private property on their own time. Furthermore, the city staff made the wrong decision to cancel the swim night because of the security concerns.

As you know, I am pretty libertarian I… when I was first called by the media about this event I said I didn’t really care. Like, Calgary’s been doing these sorts of events for many, many years in the past in many other facilities and, you know, if it’s a club that has decided to do this and they’ve done this in the past then I have no problem but I was called again before the week… and I’m starting to learn as a new politician how my words can be taken out of context and how I also have a responsibility for better discourse on issues like this. So, my perspective on this issue

is that you know what? Despite the fact that I don’t really care what people do in an event like this, when I receive enough calls and emails it’s my job to care. So, there’s a point where, regardless of how an issue fits into my worldview, if it’s important to many, many hundreds, nearly a thousand ward 11 residents, I have an obligation to raise concerns.

So, the concerns, to be clear, that I raised were not really moral concerns but they were around the potential liability to the city, in the event of something going wrong in a situation like this. And the distinguishing factor in there was that this was not a group that had a strong past track record, there’s many groups in the past who have rented out pools but they’re governed by society structure where they have oversight, they have vetting for individuals in position of leadership, kind of like if you’re involved with Cubs or Scouts. So, there’s always the fact that they had that past success the could be looked to. In this situation it was just sort of a come one, come all situation and I felt that some of the concerns around the involvement of children were worth raising. I spent about 20 minutes on a call with…. Nobody in this room.

There was one person that raised the concern with me, given that children are involved and they were there with the potential consent of their parents, if the city was in a situation where a child was nude in the pool and wanted to leave but the parent wanted them to stay who would the city side with? So, with the security in place, would you force the child to stay naked in the pool and side with the parent or would you allow the child to leave and side with the child? So, it’s complicated, there’s some complex legal aspects to this that I think are not… I don’t want to fear monger. I think that there were warranted concerns around that but at the end of the day, many other cities have been able to pull off events like this without having to (?) out the group.

So, I think that we could have addressed those concerns in a way that the event could proceed and when it comes to the fact that I’m threatened, my constituents are threatened- I’m so furious. My obligation as your councillor, it’s my ward, my responsibility, but the fact is that if somebody’s threatened at city facilities with violence, that is not okay. Full stop. It’s not allowed. It’s not permissible.

The moment that we allow fear and lack of understanding to evolve into threats of violence it’s completely unacceptable, I don’t care where you stand on this as an issue, for me it really wasn’t my cup of tea to participate, but I took an interest the moment that somebody threatened me that I couldn’t participate doing legal behaviour that did not harm anybody, I said you know what? If I’m going to have an opinion, I should have skin in the game. Literally. You can laugh at me. You can laugh at me, but as a politician if I have an opinion about something I need to have an informed opinion and I said, you know what? To start a dialogue I’m willing to participate in the event. Let’s talk about what it is that’s going on there, inform me as a councillor, I’m not the smartest person in the room and, you know, if it means that I participate nude then I’m willing to. But I don’t want to drum this up to sow division or controversy but it just, to me, it speaks to the fact that I have to go all the way if I want to be able to represent you, no half measures. If I want to have an opinion on this matter, I should be all in.

So, where I stand on this going forward, and obviously it’s not an issue I campaigned on, it’s not really related to the things that a campaign…. Like spending and secrecy and so on, but the fact

is that if I get a thousand emails and calls about a matter, I have to raise it. I have an obligation to raise it, regardless of how it fits into my worldview.

AUDIENCE MEMBER (6): But never before has a group shotgunned invitations to strangers and self-directed sign-ups to enjoy an event with nude children advertised. So, this is like throwing jet fuel on a campfire. If you don’t like the extreme threats, I doubt if there’s anybody here that would make those treats, but when you do extreme violations of social norms you’re gonna get those threats.

FARKAS: Sir, I categorically reject your premise that these people were asking for threats. Nobody deserves to be threatened.

AUDIENCE MEMBER (6): Never before has a group done that.

FARKAS: No, I categorically condemn that notion. The issue is no longer nudity, the question is are Calgarians safe at city-supported facilities? And if engaging in legal behaviour and within their rights for private bookings, they should be safe. So, full stop. These individuals… we should not have…. We should not have backed down to these threats, in my opinion, but we should find those parties responsible for the threats, hold them responsible, and proceed in a way that addresses those very real concerns about the participation of children.

For me, it’s my responsibility. I am the councillor for this area. I am kept awake at night with the many things that I hear from the varied security briefings and the many decisions that weigh on my conscious. If I am ever going to err on the side of caution, it would be for the safety of kids involved. That’s where I stand on this. I was willing to raise the questions but, again, to reiterate my position, is that this type of event is not reinventing the wheel. There are very real concerns at play, but as long as the safety and the liability pieces are addressed, which they can be, they’re addressed in other cities, they should be allowed to continue. But in no uncertain terms I completely condemn anybody who would resort to threats of violence on this.

QUESTION 12 [READ BY FARKAS]: So, it’s in regards to the 37th street interchange as part of the ring road work.

ANSWER [FARKAS]: So, on this I’m going to be working closely with, again, with Alberta Transportation to actually get detailed drawings, not just a commitment but actual staging information so that some of the members of the community who have a tremendous amount of engineering experience can actually go through this and trust and verify that the contractor’s able to follow through. So that is part of my ask is to ensure that we have the actual details about what’s going to be there.

QUESTION 13 [READ BY FARKAS]: So, this is in regards to community involvement. What community events have you, or your staff, shown up to?

ANSWER [FARKAS]: This is such a huge issue because I feel with my time on the board of this community association the heavy-lifting is done by the community association volunteers. The real… not that the work at City Hall isn’t valuable but I think that where I get the most value

from this type of work is to actually meet face-to-face with… I don’t want to say “real people” but the people that I’m here that I’m supposed to, at City Hall, to serve. So, participating in events in the community are really important to me.

I had a ton of privilege, actually, to serve in December as Deputy Mayor. So, this is a role where, when the mayor was away, you would have a councillor who would assume the role of Deputy Mayor and go to various community events throughout the city and to chair the meetings when the mayor was gone. So, this was actually quite a bit of workload for me personally. It was disappointing in that for that month of December I was on call basically for all sorts of events Calgary-wide. So, I flipped the big switch for the lights at Confederation Park.

But, what I mean to say is just as an explanation, I was sad that I was not able to do more events in the ward in December but the obligation under our code of conduct is that I have to prioritize those city-wide events as the Deputy Mayor. So, this is just an acknowledgement that in the month of December I was not able to hit as many of the invitations in ward 11 as I could have . Basically my calendar is sort of given over to the mayor where if the mayor can’t make it, I have to go to represent all 15,000 employees of The City of Calgary.

So, on a go forward basis, though, in terms of community involvement, we’ve just hired our, again, I introduced Chris earlier, who’s going to be helping around constituent work. We’re going to be working hard to be participating in as many of the community association board meetings as we can.

We’re going to be hosting a once a month event like this where any members of the community can come, but I’m super eager to be out in the community.

I’m frustrated with just how bogged down City Hall has become. I’m starting to realize, like… a good example is this, sort, red tape reduction committee, like a zero-based review process that got bogged down by red tape. I don’t know if you read about that in the paper, but they couldn’t actually hire the people that they needed because of certain technical glitches. But everything moves at City Hall at a real glacial pace, whether it’s getting an email online, getting the phones and so on.

Part of the difficulty we’re seeing is that as a councillor, I’m receiving invitations sometimes same day or the day before and it becomes very difficult for me to be able to have that response time.

Part of it is also giving me the onboarding with the council, we were going through a budget process and I don’t mean to give you these as excuses for why I didn’t spend as much time, it’s just, sort of, an explanation and explaining these factors that have influenced how I perform. Try to help you… give you a better idea of how I’m going to change this behaviour going forward to be more present. But I am super keen, if there’s every any sort of opportunity, or anything that you would like for me to attend, just let me know but over the past… I counted it, actually, a couple days ago but over the past two years I’ve attended more than 200 community association board meetings as a candidate on the campaign trail, I’ve attended about 21 since being elected as well as probably about 35-40 other events just in the past 80 days or so. So, I am working as

hard as I can and I don’t mean that to say that I can’t work harder but I have to also balance my time with my family. My partner doesn’t see me very much and I have to commit the time to her that she needs as well. So, my hope is that I’m balanced, I can serve you well but have a healthy family life too.

COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION REPRESENTATIVE: To be fair, I believe you have more communities than any member of council.

FARKAS: Yeah, so, for context is good, so we have about 25 monthly community association board meetings. One of my colleagues, Councillor Colley-Urquhart has 3, I believe, so just the scale of the… of ward 11 as quite a gerrymandered riding is very difficult to manage and I think it’s going to need a representative with a lot of energy and, trust me, my chief of staff was in the office at 6am most days. We’re working off the clock to ensure that we’re present in as many as we can.

FINAL QUESTION [READ BY FARKAS]: How do you see building voting coalitions at City Hall?

ANSWER [FARKAS]: Basically, how do I work with my co-workers?

I see myself as, well, I think I’m one of the youngest city councillors elected in many years, quite a bit younger and more (?), progressive… in some ways I see myself as a bridge on city council. I see myself as a mix of, say Sean Chu and Druh Farrell depending on the issue. I know that’s a hard combination but I want us to be able to build good development, I want us to keep taxes low, I’m very live and let live, I want us to be able to attract, to build Calgary into a much more world class city, I want us to be in a great place for entrepreneurship but all of these things that I’ve said are probably in common with almost every other member of council. So, what I’m doing on a practical level is just reaching out to them for mentorship and this is the full scale of humility part where I say I have much to learn. I’m new, I’m young, I’ve made mistakes, I’ve pissed you off a lot, but hopefully we can work together. But it’s just in the spirit of saying, you know, I have so much to learn from these people. It’s not me exerting my will over others, but it’s taking as much as I can from them to be able to do my job better, but on the other hand, working hard to make sure that they’re effective in the areas that I find agreement.

So, for example, I supported, or will be supporting, Councillors Sean Chu and Joe Magliocca’s motion for term limits.

I support Shane Keating’s effort to make free Transit service for veterans on Remembrance Day.

AUDIENCE MEMBER (8): Should be every day.

FARKAS: I think so too.

But I bring up these as examples and there’s people that you typically, you wouldn’t think that some councillors have a lot in common but the reality is that we all work together in a really close space. So, it’s impossible not to see each other much. We see each other all the time, we

run into each other, we swap ideas, we say what are you hearing? What are you learning at your community association? We serve on committees together.

So, I know that this is not really an exciting piece of information, but 99% of the time we get along. There’s a not a lot of sparks or drama, until the media gets in. Otherwise there’s nobody on council that I couldn’t pick up the phone and say hi to.

Obviously that doesn’t mean that I’ve done all the work that I need to, I’m going to be working hard for many years to be able to earn their trust just as I’m earning yours. I’ve fallen short in many ways and there’s, again, just so much to learn. I repeat it every day: I’m not the smartest person in the room and I’m okay with that. I love the fact that I will meet with somebody who is an expert in their field. I like the fact that I have other members of council that I can go to and ask for help.

But, on the other hand, there’s a lot of things that I ran on that I was not very happy with how things were going there, so part of it’s just sticking to my guns to make sure that I’m completely honest in terms of my goals and I just… I reject the premise that many people bring to me that I have nothing in common with some of the other people on council.

Like, even say with Councillor Farrell who is probably quite ideologically different from me, I thought she did a great job bringing up the issue of, say, inclusion, or inclusive playgrounds. So, the idea that no matter… say if you have other various disabilities, you should be able to enjoy fun if you’re a child. Like, there’s so much in common between myself and the other councillors and every day I’m looking for it. There’s some days we’re going to fight but I wake up trying to assume the best of people and that’s generally what I hope that people would assume of me.

[END]