Mike Pal lawn signs are now available and will start popping up around the ward in the next week.
To order your own lawn sign, click here
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Tickets are available in $10, $20, and $100 denominations, and are mailed out daily.
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Contact
Cell: 403-999-6177
Email: mike@mikepal.ca
Web / Photos: www.MIKEPAL.com
July 6, 2010
MIKE PAL ANNOUNCES ELECTION RUN IN WARD 9
Veteran of Afghan War Now Looking to Serve Calgarians at City Hall
Mike Pal announced his candidacy for Alderman in Ward 9 on Tuesday morning in front of supporters gathered outside of the Inglewood Community Center.
“We have arrived at a moment of choice” Pal said, “there are going to be two types of candidates in this election, those who want to be something, and those who want to do something.”
Mike Pal is a ‘do something’ kind of guy. He is a University of Calgary graduate with a double major in political science and philosophy, and he studied publicity and public relations at the University of Toronto. Pal, an Infantry Officer and Platoon Commander in the military for the last four years was also recently in Afghanistan with the Canadian Forces working on the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team and later the military All Source Intelligence Center.
“Leaders are made through tough experiences, and I have the experience to deal with the toughest imaginable.”
Pal is not new to the politics of City Hall either, having worked in the Office of the Aldermen after challenging Mayor Bronconnier in the municipal election in 2004.
On Monday Mike Pal presented a flag of The City of Calgary, which was sent with him overseas by Alderman Ric McIver, and which he flew in Afghanistan, back to City Council (photos available, see below).
After months of public consultation, Mike Pal confidently declared, “this election is about reform”. He then outlined a constructive program of political and economic reform, based on fiscal responsibility, the elimination of wasteful spending at City Hall, a more transparent and accountable City Council, and additional support for Calgary’s emergency services.
Mike Pal lives in Inglewood with his wife Lara.
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If you would like more information, or to schedule an interview with Mike Pal, please call 403-999-6177, or email mike@mikepal.ca High resolution photos are available via www.MIKEPAL.com and on our Flickr page at http://www.flickr.com/photos/mike-pal
Mike Pal Presents City Council with a City of Calgary Flag Flown in Afghanistan.
I have spent the last little while learning about the City’s high-level 30-60 year development and transportation plan called Plan-It Calgary.
Plan-It Calgary is composed of two major components:
1. The Municipal Development Plan, which deals with housing and urban growth, and
2. The Calgary Transportation Plan, focused on transportation and infrastructure.
What I have found is that Plan-It Calgary is an urban design and social engineering experiment, designed to transform Calgary into a City it isn’t. Its targets are based on unrealistic and unprecedented behavioural changes which are not based in reality, nor on Calgarians choices.
How do we know what Calgarians choices are? Simple – the City has spent over $6.5 million in tax dollars on polls, surveys and research into what Calgarians want. Amazingly enough, the direction the plan is taking us focuses entirely on our very lowest priorities, at the expense of what we have said is most important to us.
Housing and Urban Growth
The housing and urban growth portion of Plan-It Calgary intends to set much higher density requirements for future development, meaning in the future, things must be built closer together and taller. Its main goal is to contain urban growth (our lowest priority according to the City’s research).
Graph: Calgarians Ranking of Municipal Priorities for Urban Growth and the Environment
The problem is around 70% of Calgarians want to live in single family detached homes, for various identified reasons including family, privacy, and quality of life. Plan-It Calgary will intentionally take that choice away from many Calgarians. By artificially reducing the amount of single family detached housing available in the marketplace, owning your own home will become more and more expensive. We will reach a point in which having your families own home will be a luxury reserved for only a small percentage.
Plan-It Calgary will control urban growth, but that it isn’t what Calgarians want, and will come at the expense of housing affordability (one of our highest priorities).
Transportation and Infrastructure Spending
Those who support Plan-It Calgary would like to see the vast majority of the City’s limited transportation dollars being spent on alternative modes of transportation that do not reflect actual usage. They would prefer to see car lanes converted into bicycle lanes, greater subsidies for public transit, and priority of snow and debris clearing from pathways over roads.
Plan-It Calgary also wrongly expects automobile usage in the City to drop, yet even if its own goals for growth are met, there will be nearly 1 million more vehicle trips per day on Calgary’s existing road network than there are today.
The plan for increased densities, and less transportation infrastructure will deliberately create traffic congestion and further deteriorate Calgary’s already poor parking situation in order to discourage you from driving your “evil” car, despite the fact that nearly all of us use a car daily for transportation to work, shopping, doctors, recreation and entertainment (do you ride your bike to the doctors office?).
What should we take away?
After reading the plan, and from what I have heard from Calgarians like you, we believe that infrastructure spending should be linked to use, and spending should reflect growth areas supported by Calgarians choices. Plan-It Calgary does not reflect Calgarians choices, therefore I do not support it.
Plan-It Calgary is largely driven by catastrophism and a need to control. It leaves little room for the creativity and innovation that Calgarians are known for.
There are political candidates who feel they need to tell us what is best for us, in order to save us from ourselves, while disregarding our preferences. Politicians selling us something we don’t need is exactly what we are trying to get away from at City Hall, and political leaders who support Plan-it Calgary are simply not listening to us.
Calgary is not New York City, and we happen to like it that way.
Mike Pal and Capt. Glenn Bailey, both awarded the South-West Asia Campaign Star, Kandahar Afghanistan Mar 2010.
In a 14-1 vote, Council approved the latest City tax hike this week. The provincial education portion of property tax was increased by 2.9%, and the City’s portion went up a whopping 4.79%, meaning our total tax increase this year comes in at 3.9%.
According to the Statistics Canada Consumer Price Index, the rate of inflation sits around 0.29% for 2009.
What this means is, despite tough economic times, City Council was not willing to cut back, or tighten its belt, and no real effort was made to reduce costs or seek the greatest value for citizens and tax payers. This has a lot to do with the current budget process, and how core services are delivered in Calgary.
The Budget
The budget process was revamped by Council in 2003 from a bottom-up to a top-down system. The result was a new budget system that no longer considers the rate of inflation, and the economic rate of growth is only considered after the desired tax increase.
The new budget process has moved the City in the wrong direction, and away from good economics and prudent financial management. It also comes close to eliminating any discussion or public input.
“The tax rate is set to fulfill the levels of expenditures without much explanation. In the meantime, sound financial concepts are ignored and accountability is the clear loser.”-Marcel Latouche, MBA
What we should be moving towards is a three-year zero based budget (ZBB). In a ZBB every activity is challenged, and programs are re-examined for their relevance. It’s hard to believe, but in the current system, the City’s program expenses are not justified.
Service Delivery
A substantial portion of the City’s budget is devoted to delivering the services that Calgarians need and want. Our current problem is we are not getting the best value for our tax dollars.
The solution to this problem is simple. The City needs to move from its current and unsustainable role as the sole provider of all services, to a more “high-performance” role as contractor of City services.
I’m not talking about privatization, but contestability. Contestability, would open up City services to competitive bidding in which the City would consider the real cost of providing a service itself, and compare that with the cost of contracting that service to local businesses. After the cost of providing city services is known, and compared with other options, City Council can make an informed decision about the best value for our money.
The City would remain in control of the delivery of services, and would monitor all service providers to ensure that core services are being delivered effectively.
The result of contestability will be that we find the City is best able to provide some services, and that local businesses are better able to provide the City with other services. But what can be guaranteed right from the start, is that the City will be sure to get the best value for tax payers.
Contestability is good for business, good for tax payers, and good for citizens. All we need is to elect the Aldermen with the political will to take some bold action.
Link: City tax hike set at 3.9%; average bill goes up $82 (Calgary Herald)
I was recently directed to a commentary made about campaign fundraising on Werner Patel’s Blog that made it clear that municipal campaign finance rules are not well understood. This has created an environment ripe for abuse by our elected officials.
Council currently has control of the campaign finance bylaw (35M94) which sets the rules of the game for political fundraising in a municipal election campaign.
This has led to the following unethical schemes among members of council in recent memory:
• One Alderman brought forth a notice of motion requesting funding for a charitable organization which council approved and then accepted a campaign donation from the same organization.
• Several candidates accepted campaign donations from institutions or organizations wholly owned by or under the control of Calgary City Council such as ENMAX.
• Several Aldermen made campaign donations to each other and reported those donations as campaign expenses.
• Several Aldermen received tens of thousands of dollars of donations where the donor’s names were not disclosed.
• Candidates are only required to report the net proceeds of a fundraising event, rather than a full disclosure of every donor and expense pertaining to that event.
• At the conclusion of a political campaign and or political career a candidate can keep any surplus from campaign fundraising as personal tax free money.
• After filing campaign returns, there is no independent audit of those returns done by the City Auditor.
There have been minor tweaks meant to hold off the inevitable public outcry, but the new rules council has created for itself are a superficial joke, with a heavy reliance on voluntary compliance.
Council’s half-hearted solutions to this mess include a $5000 limit on campaign contributions, a request that institutions, organizations or agencies “wholly owned by the City of Calgary” not contribute to campaigns for election to Calgary City Council, asking candidates to voluntarily disclose contributions of $100 or more on nomination day and asking candidates to voluntarily agree to donate any surplus to charity.
Looking at the list of financial shenanigans our Aldermen are involved in, I’m confident that any voluntary solution is destined to be ineffective.
What we should be pursuing is a major overhaul including a push to the Province to make donations tax-deductible political contributions subject to audit, as opposed to the current categorization of “personal gifts”. A bold move like this would have significant implications for accountability and transparency of contributions.
The campaign finance rules (bylaw 35M94) can be found here
Another great source of information is an article from FFWD Weekly found here
Meeting Lanny MacDonald in Kandahar Afghanistan.
