When Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek was asked to describe 2023 in one word she said “dynamic.”

“Everything was on the move,” she said.

“Things were shifting and morphing as we were going through them.”

The mayor sat down and talked with LWC in a year-end interview on Dec. 20 to discuss some of the highs and lows of the past 12 months.

Mayor Gondek said that in 2023 one of the big successes was reforming the City of Calgary’s budget process. This was sparked by a Notice of Motion from Ward 3 Coun. Jasmine Mian during the 2023/26 four-year budget discussion. At that time, the desire was to have ongoing dialogue throughout the year to determine the city’s budget priorities.

The mayor said in past years they would receive a budget package in early November and would ask why certain things weren’t in there.

“Then, we would get to the floor of council during deliberations and duke it out to see whose ideas would fly. And we’d ask, well, how much money do we have?” Mayor Gondek said.

She said they would scramble at “the last minute” to make sure they have one-time cash to pay for any additions.

“This year, we stopped and took a breath and said to administration ‘in all the years that you’ve seen cuts, what’s the impact really been?’” the mayor said.  

“That’s when we found out that playgrounds were on a 100-year lifecycle because of cuts. That’s when we understood that we were not completing mobility corridors because we didn’t have the money. We realized that there was no maintenance dollars for facilities and that the state of disrepair was pretty grave.”

City councillors, along with administration, worked over 10 months to set priorities, the mayor said. For the first time, the public saw the proposed areas for investment in September, along with the cost.

“That’s what we deliberated. There was no big reveal,” she said.

“It was a process by which we collaborated, and work together, taking feedback from the public, looking at citizen surveys, and really delivering on what Calgarians were seeking.”

The mayor also noted success with the City of Calgary’s housing strategy and working with the province to demonstrate the need for a better transit network. The latter resulted in conversations on a Blue Line extension, a potential tie-in to the airport and work on a north Central bus-rapid-transit corridor.

Speaking the same language

When talking about the initial rollout of the housing strategy, Mayor Gondek said that many of her colleagues didn’t understand what the city and council were trying to do.  That forced a reconsideration of a defeated motion, and then eventually the document’s approval.

She cited that the language that city admin or council uses to describe certain operations or directions isn’t as clear as it needs to be. The mayor used the recent Local Access Fees conversation as an example.

That question came up initially last December, she said. They had a briefing in January and a presentation in March. At that time, they decided to maintain the status quo. (“Not all of us,” the mayor said.)

“Now here we are at the end of the year when we’ve seen what the impact was of our existing formula and we are now hampered in making a decision because the province is reviewing the regulated rate option,” she said.

The mayor tied it to other conversations they have had at council.

“So, not getting the communication right and not getting the information we need and this continual desire by some members of council to just wait – now’s not the time – on virtually everything,” Mayor Gondek said.

“That’s why we are so backlogged and that’s why we had to make the decisions we did in this year’s budget. There was too many councillors that said, ‘now’s not the time. Let’s wait and see.’”

The communication challenges could have influenced public approval of this city council as well. A December ThinkHQ survey showed approval ratings for both the mayor and Calgary city council at all-time lows.  Mayor Gondek said that polls are a snapshot of how people are feeling at a particular time.

“I think we need to, we need to take responsibility for the fact that people aren’t happy,” she said.

She said they made some difficult decisions on where and how to invest in the city this year – adding 7.8 per cent to a typical single-family homeowner’s property tax bill. Not everyone will be happy with these decisions, she said.  But, not everyone is being represented in the polling, the mayor said.

“Sometimes we have to make incredibly tough decisions that play out through polling numbers that are not high. Are we disregarding the polls? Absolutely not,” she said.

“We work harder, all of the time, to make good decisions on behalf of our citizens. But it’s not easy. We are in an environment that is unlike any other in the history of the city.”

Outside influences in 2023

One major event near the middle of 2023 was the Alberta provincial election. Mayor Gondek said provincial elections can be a challenge for municipalities because “everything’s on hold.”

New leaders, new ministers, learning curves – a lot of disruption, she said.

“We deal with the hand we’re given. We did our best to work with the governments that were in place while we’ve been here,” she said.

“In many ways, it’s worked well and in others, it’s incredibly frustrating.”

One thing that didn’t get put on hold during the run-up to a provincial election was the approval of a new, $1.2 billion Calgary arena deal. The arena deal was announced April 25, 2023 and a provincial election was held a month later. 

When asked if the City buoyed the UCP’s hopes of forming government with the ideally-placed, pre-election announcement, Mayor Gondek said people will often want to hang election wins on one particular thing.

She said a sitting government had $330 million they were willing to put in – money the City of Calgary would have had to pay for infrastructure improvements, and money the City didn’t have.

“Did it give the UCP the ability to put a feather in their cap so to speak, it may have. I can’t speak to the motivations of people who voted in Calgary the way that they did,” she said.

“But I can tell you that it would have been incredibly irresponsible for a local government to turn down $330 million in the name of politics.”

Protests have also played a significant role in the city’s civic landscape in 2023. Housing protests and geopolitical protests dominated this year in Calgary. Mayor Gondek was also caught up in one, as she leaped into the conflict between pro-Palestine and pro-Israel groups when she withdrew from the annual menorah lighting at city hall this year.

“I think the most important thing that we all need to take away from what we’re going through is that there’s a lot of people in a lot of pain,” she said.

“A lot of people have experienced extreme suffering through the loss of friends and family members in a conflict that’s going on halfway around the world. That pain makes people not only sorrowful, but it makes them feel isolated.”

She said she’s been bringing together different faith groups for “incredibly difficult conversations.”

“We’ve learned that calling out anti-semitism and Islamophobia has been the norm. But we never called out anti-Palestinianism,” she said.

“That is something that’s completely different for that community. So, we are learning many things about how people in Calgary are feeling about a conflict that’s happening somewhere else, but it’s impacting them deeply at home.”

Looking ahead to 2024

In the interview, the mayor was asked about water. This year, the City of Calgary implemented its first-ever drought-related water restrictions. There will likely be water restrictions in 2024, and the City, as prescribed in its drought resilience strategy, may call for mandatory Calgary water restrictions between May and October every year.

The mayor pointed to work being done in Okotoks – where there are annual water restrictions – by Mayor Tanya Thorn. Mayor Gondek said her southern colleague has been firm that water restrictions are needed for the region.

“I think she has been a leader in the region about saying we’ve got to do something about water consumption, and it starts with restrictions,” the mayor said.

“So, learning from her example, I absolutely believe that the City of Calgary needs to go in that direction as well.”

Beyond water, priorities for 2024 look similar to those of 2023.

Mayor Gondek said that housing, public safety and transit will be the priorities. Surely, ongoing downtown revitalization will also be key.

“Here’s the thing about strategies that are good,” Mayor Gondek said.

“They’re not accomplished overnight, and any council that switches its priorities every year is probably not going to deliver on them.”

They’re starting to see the results of investments in public safety, transit and housing.

“Good municipal strategies take time to accomplish and that’s why we’re staying focused on these three,” she said.