Tag: envision edmonton

Let us move forward, together

There were no major upsets last night. Mayor Mandel was re-elected to his third term. Every incumbent councillor was re-elected, including Kim Krushell in the close Ward 2 race.

Envision Edmonton made a lot of noise about 100,000 people wanting to have their say on the airport, yet they apparently didn’t care enough to show up at the voting stations.

By all accounts, yesterday was a victory for Edmontonians ready to move forward, beyond the airport and on to bigger and better things. Yet if you read today’s Edmonton Journal, that’s not the impression you’d get at all.

The Day After: Calgary Herald vs. Edmonton Journal

Here are the headlines/key phrases today on the front of the Calgary Herald:

  • It’s Nenshi
  • New mayor paints town purple with decisive win
  • Political newcomer vows change on the way for city
  • Best voter turnout in years ushers in new faces to council chamber
  • What’s next for council?
  • Big changes at City Hall
  • Calgarians flood polls

Here are the headlines/key phrases today on the front of the Edmonton Journal:

  • ‘Finally, we will move forward’: Mandel
  • Envision Edmonton vows to continue fight to save City Centre Airport

Turn the page, and on A3 you see in big bold letters, side-by-side:

I’m definitely not the first to point out the differences between the Herald and the Journal – this kind of thing happens far too often. And before you comment and say that the Journal is just trying to be balanced, let me say to that: I don’t buy it.

Is there really a division?

There’s no question that the airport has been a divisive issue in Edmonton in the past. But yesterday is not today, and today is not tomorrow. In his article on the airport issue dividing the city, David Staples wrote:

“A council bent on shutting the historic downtown airport won re-election, but the bitterness over issue will continue to fracture Edmonton.”

I humbly suggest that the only “fracture” left is the artificial one that David and his colleagues seem more than happy to perpetuate.

Let’s follow the logic here. Thousands of Edmontonians re-elect a city council that decided it was in the city’s best interests to close the City Centre Airport. Envision Edmonton’s Ed Schlemko says the issue “has divided the city”. As a result, we’re going to continue to be fractured?

This afternoon, the Herald’s website was full of stories about Nenshi. And the Journal? They’ve got a story about new ward 11 councillor Kerry Diotte pushing for an airport plebiscite. It’s not just the Journal either – CBC, the Edmonton Sun, and iNews880 also have similar stories.

Let’s move on

Edmontonians want to move forward – they voted for a council that decided to close the airport. Mandel wants to move forward, as he made very clear in his victory speech last night. Even David Dorward seems to want to move forward.

Envision Edmonton is heading to the courts, refusing to accept defeat. They and what few supporters they have left don’t want to move forward. Kerry Diotte has decided he doesn’t want to move forward either.

The City Centre Airport will close. And then the lands will be redeveloped. We need to focus our energies on making sure that redevelopment is positive for Edmonton.

Let us move forward, together.

Envision Edmonton’s petition insufficient, City Centre Airport phased closure will continue

Yesterday the declaration of the City Clerk was released, stating that the petition put forward by Envision Edmonton was not sufficient, for two reasons:

  • There were no more than 73,657 valid signatures.
  • The petition was not brought within 60 days of Council’s decision to close the airport.

According to the Municipal Government Act (MGA) that means that City Council was not required to take any notice of the petition. They debated the issue in their final meeting before the election, and voted 10-3 against including a question on the ballot. The vote breakdown was exactly the same as it was in July 2009, when Council voted in favor of a phased closure of the City Centre Airport. Here are some of the quotes from the meeting:

  • “The decision to not put a question on the ballot is the right one for Edmonton.” – Mayor Mandel
  • “For some unknown reason it took 11 months to get a petition.” – Mayor Mandel
  • “This needs to end.” – Mayor Mandel
  • “This motion is the same year late as the petition. This needed to happen last year.” – Councillor Iveson
  • “I am not prepared to support something that could lead to 42 years of inefficient operation.” – Councillor Anderson
  • “Somebody has to have the guts to say enough is enough.” – Councillor Henderson
  • “I am prepared to stand up and say I did eight months of research on this issue.” – Councillor Krushell
  • “Is this the only big decision we’ve made in the last three years?” – Councillor Sohi

In both the meeting and a media briefing, we learned more about the petition verification process.

  • Roughly 80 staff worked for more than 3700 hours to verify the petition. About 60 of those staff were hired specifically for the verification process.
  • One of the first things the City had to do was photocopy every page of the petition. The copies and the originals are now stored in a vault, where they will remain for at least 5 years.
  • It turns out Envision Edmonton did not contact the City Clerk about its petition. If it had done so, it might have learned about the 60 day requirement.
  • Had the petition been valid and sufficient, the outcome of the question would have been binding for ten years. If Council had decided to put a question on the ballot anyway, its outcome would not have been binding.
  • The total cost for the verification is estimated at between $125,000 and $150,000.
  • Banister Research was hired to help complete the verification, which they did via telephone.
  • The petition signatories (addresses) were compared against both the Edmonton Elections database (current as of 2009) and SLIM (Spatial Land Inventory Management).
  • Since the July 2009 decision, the City has incurred costs of $12 million, while ERAA has incurred costs of more than $23 million.

Links

Lots of people have written about this already. Here are some relevant links:

Resources

PDF Municipal Government Act (2.4 MB)

PDF Declaration of the City Clerk (689 KB)

PDF Report on the Petition (55 KB)

Final Thoughts

I don’t for a second think the battle over the City Centre Airport is finished. I’m sure we’ll see additional challenges and fights in the weeks and months ahead. Edmonton Airports seems to think so as well, launching Share The Facts today. I am confident that City Council made the right decision yesterday however, and I think they’ll be rewarded for it on October 18.

Closing the City Centre Airport is the right decision for Edmonton’s future. Yesterday was simply another step along the way to making that future a reality.

Who’s behind Envision Edmonton?

Last week, the City Centre Airport was once again in the news thanks to a “new” group calling itself Envision Edmonton. Though City Council voted to close the City Centre Airport nearly a year ago, the issue has never really gone away. First there was the delay to accommodate the Edmonton Indy, then there was the lawsuit from Airco (they lost their bid for an injunction to stop the closure last week). The Edmonton Flying Club has also filed suit trying to keep the airport open.

With the AEG turning its attention toward the oil sands, it’s almost like the local media were salivating for someone to reopen the issue. Here’s what the Envision Edmonton press release said:

In response to Mayor, Stephen Mandel’s challenge issued during his State of the City speech – to convince City Council that the City Centre Airport should stay open – a group of local business people stepped forward to propose alternatives.

A group of concerned Edmontonians created “Envision Edmonton” – an independent community organization formed specifically to develop a suitable and economically viable plan to revitalize the City Centre Airport.

I’m really disappointed with how this has been covered in the local media so far. Here is how they reported the “news”:

I’m sure there was a 60 second piece on the evening news that day too. If you read through those stories, you’ll find that they don’t provide much information beyond what was contained within the press release (as is so often the case, unfortunately). Here are some of the questions that sprung to mind immediately that were not answered:

  1. Who’s behind the group, and is it really new? Have they been involved in the issue in the past?
  2. Where have I heard that name before?
  3. Where can I learn more about the group and its proposed alternatives?

Simple stuff really. Maybe those questions didn’t come to mind for the writers and editors working that day, or maybe they found that answering them was too daunting a task (that might be a valid excuse actually, given that Envision Edmonton still doesn’t have a website…yes, seriously). To be fair to Gordon Kent, his piece did at least treat the group with some skepticism.

It gets much better though. All of those stories use quotes from or paraphrase the press release, which is pretty standard. I’m wondering how they chose what to include, however. Here’s the last paragraph of the press release:

Envision Edmonton is primarily funded by individuals and businesses, many of which have no direct investment in or association with the City Centre Airport, but who are instead dedicated exclusively to helping to make Edmonton a great city.

That’s a pretty cut-and-dry statement, and it ties in nicely with my first question. So I set out to find the answer. Turns out it is completely false (not the last part of course, I’m sure they all want to help make Edmonton a great city).

Here are the Envision Edmonton board members:

  1. Charles Allard (Chairman)
  2. Ian Barrigan
  3. Dr. Joseph Fernando
  4. Phil Milroy
  5. Barry Breckenridge
  6. Bob Bentley
  7. Dr. Kerry Pawluski
  8. Ralph Henderson
  9. Ed Schlemko
  10. Eugene Strilchuk
  11. Bruce Ritchie
  12. Dean Braithwaite

No direct investment or association with the City Centre Airport huh? Right.

I also have answers for the other two questions I mentioned above. The name “Envision Edmonton” has been used a few times, but was probably best known as the former name for the City of Edmonton’s Strategic Plan. That certainly raised my eyebrows. Of all the names they could have picked, they went with the name of an important City document.

Where can you learn more about Envision Edmonton? That’s a good question. For now you can follow them on Twitter, or you can check them out on Facebook. I suspect you’ll hear more about the group later today after they hold another press conference, this time to actually unveil next steps (the last press conference was a meet-and-greet I guess). Here’s what I think you’ll hear:

  • Envision Edmonton will announce that they are launching a campaign to gather 78,000+ signatures to force a plebiscite.
  • One alternative, not many as the press release stated. They will announce loose, high level plans to expand business activities at the City Centre Airport, while retaining (and perhaps improving) medevac facilities.
  • A website. Maybe. It is 2010 after all.

What you probably won’t hear but might want to know:

  • The group has been raising a lot of money to support the campaign. I have heard numbers as high as $700,000. Their total budget, confirmed by Charles Allard, is $500,000. They’re also actively recruiting volunteers.
  • They have been making the rounds, and not just locally. Some members of the group visited Yellowknife back in May to try to get the GNWT on board.
  • Over the last few months they have been making an effort to leave comments on blogs and post updates on forums (example 1, example 2).

If you know something else that I’ve missed, let me know.

I invite you to read my posts on the City Centre Airport. In particular, you should read this post that outlines some responses to the most common questions (medevac, economic activity, etc) and contains links to additional documents. You might also want to read Scott McKeen’s column from last week. There are also lots of links to resources at NotMyAirport.ca.

UPDATE: As expected, Envision Edmonton announced plans today to get 80,000 signatures to keep the City Centre Airport open. Their campaign website includes the proposed plebiscite and other information. Part of their proposal is a new LRT route, running alongside NAIT to the east of the airport. The group has already raised half of their budget, and will start an ad campaign on TV and radio later this week. I asked Charles if they get the signatures and it goes to a vote and citizens want to close the airport, what’s next for Envision Edmonton? He told me “we’d have to respect the decision of the electorate”. Gordon Kent from The Journal asked a ton of questions, including lots about the funding. He is suggesting (and is correct in doing so, I think) that this could be the most heavily funded campaign in the fall election, more than any other race. He also asked if many of the members or funders of Envision Edmonton are involved with the City Centre Airport. Charles told him no, but as you can see above, that’s just simply not true.