Shay Spencer said the biggest surprise to him was the enormity of the mayor’s job.
Spencer, a Grade 11 student from EP Scarlett in Calgary’s southwest, was the Mayor for a Day after winning an essay contest run through Youth Central.
He tagged along with Mayor Jyoti Gondek to meetings and other events – including the noon media scrum – learning more about the role of the mayor, and the municipal government in general.
“I think it’s just the expanse of it all, the actual city itself, there’s a lot of moving parts,” Spencer said.
“I don’t think that many citizens in Calgary just know how many people are actually behind the city itself and how many people are committed to making their lives better on the daily. I think that probably surprised me, the size of the operation.”
Spencer’s essay was selected along with four others by a peer committee. Those top five were then reviewed by Mayor Gondek before a final one was selected. The Mayor for a Day’s essay tackled the tough topics of housing, improving park spaces by involving community volunteers, and improving transit by creating small regional nodes of transit within communities.
“People in that community can use those and wouldn’t have to rely so much on the car infrastructure, and they would have the ability to use public transport and make that more accessible,” he said.
Longstanding program engages Calgary youth in municipal issues
Michelle Hodgins with Youth Central said that they’ve been running the Mayor for a Day contest for more than 10 years, but they’ve been working with city youth for more than 31 years.
The Mayor for a Day contest is pushed out through their social media channels and within junior and senior high schools in Calgary to encourage youth to get involved in their community.
“This is an easy way for you to connect with your city, and you can submit it online, share your ideas, share the things that you see as important issues for the next generation of Calgarians,” Hodgins said.
Post-Covid, Youth Central has seen its numbers swell. Before 2020, they had 472 registered volunteers. Now they’re at more than 1,700.
“I think youth are really feeling that that loss of connection that we all felt during those years, and now you’re seeing them coming out and trying to find different ways that they can get involved,” Hodgins said.
She said the Mayor for a Day contest is a great way to put ideas together and find ways to take action on them. Having students come through the Mayor’s Youth Council program – run by Youth Central – ensures that there are new ideas every year.
“It keeps it relevant to the youth in our city and it changes with the times in Calgary, so it’s not surprising to see housing and transportation on the radar because as we know, for all Calgarians of all ages, what are some of the biggest issues affecting us right now,” Hodgins said.
As for Spencer, while he has an interest in politics, he said he leans more toward the policy side of the equation. A run for office may not yet be in the cards.
“I would say that I do not want to be mayor of Calgary,” he said.
“It seems like a pretty expansive job. You have to run the city. It seems like a pretty especially stressful job, I say, just having to deal with all these local issues around our communities.
“I do appreciate Ms. Gondek’s contribution to the city, just seeing how much work she actually does put into making our city a better place and how it actually runs.”
