Calgary city councillors approved additional cash to help fund much-needed capital upgrades for eight city facilities, but it didn’t come without some early-season political drama.

Mayor Jyoti Gondek’s Notice of Motion to invest $20 million in excess Enmax dividend from 2024 into projects on the City of Calgary’s Facilities Management – Annual Investment Program, and $2.85 million for the Federation of Calgary Communities placemaking programs were approved 8-5 at the April 29 Regular Meeting of Council.

Among the projects being funded are an $8.5 million upgrade to the wading pool at Prairie Winds Park, along with the upgrade of a chemical storage facility at the Bowness wading pool and electrical upgrades at Shouldice Park, damaged by last year’s water feeder main break.

Mayor Gondek said they have the ability to redirect any excess Enmax dividend to other programs, as they did last year when it was redirected to the future reserve for capital by a unanimous vote.

“We know that our Facilities Management Annual Investment Program is vastly underfunded,” the mayor said.

“There are a lot of projects that are things like arenas, soccer centres, wading pools. There’s lighting, roofs, HVAC repairs that are needed.”

There was an unsuccessful attempt by Ward 10 Coun. Andre Chabot to punt the decision to November’s budget discussion.

He said that if it had been a request for funds from the Fiscal Stability Reserve, he’d be more inclined to support the mayor’s motion.

Chabot said he’d also like a clearer line of sight on the future of the Enmax dividend, as there are discussions on how future dividends will be allocated.

“This is an urgent need, but drawing from Enmax Legacy [Fund], for me, is the wrong source of funds,” he said.

“So, and because of that, I would prefer that we dealt with this matter at budget deliberations.”

That failed 6-7.

Electioneering accusation from Communities First

Early in the day, members of the Communities First municipal party who sit on council issued a press release saying that Mayor Gondek’s motion amounted to electioneering.

Ward 13 Coun. Dan McLean, who is also running for re-election in that ward, said he wasn’t opposed to any of the projects on the mayor’s list, just the timing.

“We’ve seen this movie more than once. Funding gets allocated for pet projects mid-year, then at budget time we’ll be told we don’t have enough money for police cars, fire trucks and C-Train [sic] cars, so we have to raise taxes,” the media release read.

“This is $20 million of electioneering, plain and simple. You have an unpopular mayor trying to sprinkle public money around to garner some goodwill before the election.”

Earlier in the meeting, McLean voted in favour of adding $60 million to replenish the Opportunity Calgary Investment Fund – a decision not made at budget time. That funding came from the Fiscal Stability Reserve (FSR).

During Question Period, McLean quizzed City of Calgary CFO Les Tochor on a recent city surplus, suggesting that the city was overtaxing citizens.

CFO Tochor said that the bulk of the surplus went to reserves, including the FSR. The FSR has also recently funded a $28 million Calgary police budget shortfall, a move spearheaded by members of Communities First. The CPS gun range is also being helped with funds from the FSR. 

Mayor Gondek bristled at the idea that this was being done for election reasons.  She said it was interesting that a party running a municipal campaign issued a statement calling out city council business.

“I’m not interested in responding to what a campaign is doing because that’s not what I’m supposed to be doing as the mayor, but I am here to listen to communities and to understand what their needs are,” she told reporters.

“I will also say that it’s incredibly ironic that the folks who moved a very similar motion last year to use the surplus that was available from the Enmax dividend to fund capital in our budget. These are the same folks that now this year, have forgotten somehow that this is something that we are able to do.”

Race to get funding

Politics aside (maybe), some councillors expressed frustration at the ad-hoc nature of one-off funding for city projects.

Ward 3 Coun. Jasmine Mian, who is not running for re-election, said she was frustrated with herself for not saying something earlier about a lack of strategic forethought with some of these funding requests.

“There’s nothing wrong with this notice of motion, other than I’m just frustrated that this is how we’re doing it,” Mian said.

“It’s almost like whatever [Notice of Motion] gets on the floor first is what we’re funding.”

Mian later suggested during debate that perhaps a first-come, first-served approach is best because “I don’t think this group is actually going to agree on anything.”

Ward 12 Coun. Evan Spencer, who also isn’t running for re-election, shared a similar sentiment. He supported the idea of properly funding maintenance for aging infrastructure, but not the process it’s being acquired.

“I hate one-time funding. I’m walking away from this term on council just really frustrated with the way in which we waste council time, and we waste so much with the politics around how we spend the one-time funding,” he said.

“Council, we’ve got to actually properly fund this city, otherwise we’re just going to be in this churn forever, and as the pain goes up, so does the politics.”

Ward 1 Coun. Sonya Sharp said that she supported the spirit of the motion but debated that they had no advanced notice of what they were funding.

“I think that’s a learning lesson for everybody, and if we’re going to be bringing Notices of Motion forward with money attached to things before budget, we as councillors and members of council better come armed and equipped with what we’re spending that money on,” she said.

In her close on the item, Mayor Gondek did note that she assumed councillors would have looked at the Facilities Management Annual Investment Program documents, which were presented in both September and November last year, to see the top unfunded projects.