Many Thanks
[An open letter to the scores of people who worked on my campaign in one way or another.]
Dear [insert your name, you tasteful and stylish citizen, you],
On today, the occasion of my swearing in at City Hall, I need to say some thank-yous.
We did it. Again! And with a fairly commanding result. We already know that on a percentage basis we had the highest turnout in the city – quite an accomplishment for a race that was considered by some to be a snoozer. This is arguably attributable to the amazing efforts of scores of volunteers who came out to knock on doors (6,000 on the last weekend alone) and hand-deliver election literature (more than 50,000 pieces over the campaign). You can’t buy that kind of direct contact with voters and it definitely made a difference. So thank you all!
Specific thanks are due to Deputy Campaign Managers Leanne Brown and Dan Lazin for coordinating the volunteers and managing visual communications respectively. Both contributed an enormous amount of time, but also great advice.
Also, I feel terrible that at the victory party I forgot to specifically thank two key people whose special efforts deserve mention: Raffaella Loro, our campaign photographer and videographer, who did superb work. Secondly, Lisa Hagen reworked and refreshed this website and her efforts certainly helped raise our game from 2007. Thanks both.
My wife Sarah put up with the most grief and disruption of anyone, and to her for being such a great mom to our son generally but especially through the tumult of the campaign, I owe incalculable thanks.
And last but not least, Campaign Manager Chris Henderson. Nobody (with the possible exception of my wife) can know what it takes to both manage the logistics of the campaign and manage the candidate. It’s not an easy job but Chris exceeded already high expectations. Special thanks to him.
My compliments to challenger Al Slemko for working so hard (we ran across him and his flyer teams on many occasions, as you may recall) as well as for running a positive campaign focused on city and ward issues. He made sure that we had to work for the win, and you know we did. That, in part, is where the turnout came from.
Thanks finally to the people of Ward 10 for their strong support. I look forward to continuing to serve them and our great city.
Yours truly,
-Don
You’re very welcome. If you continue to do the exemplary job of building this town into a real city that you did during your first term, you can look forward to my support and no doubt that of many of my peers in the next election as well.
As a volunteer I want to that the same great people that you have already thanked for making the experience a great and memorable one! I am proud to devote time to a great campaign and a most excellent councillor. I know that our city will see a great benefit from your hard work on council over the next 3 years. Looking forward to the next campaign!
Don,
Do you agree with mayor Mandel that city hall needs to improve it’s communication with the people of this city? Personally. I found that comment very funny considering the effort he and most of the rest of city council (including yourself) put into *not* listening to the people on the ECCA issue. That is, you can hold all the public workshops and hearings you want, but unless you are going to be bound by the results, then you’re not really listening to the people, are you?
d: I’m going to suggest that your comment is off topic for this post but in the interests of listening to all voices, I’ll engage you on this. I’ll even provide a segue: I’m sure the volunteers would concur with what I heard after knocking on well more than half of the doors in the ward that roughly 4 to 1 people concurred with Council’s 2009 decision, were not impressed by Envision Edmonton’s antics, and wanted the airport closed. So I am quite confident that I was acting in accord with the views of an overwhelming majority of my constituents.
Don
You’re right. I thought I was responding to a different blog post. I’m sorry about that and appreciate your willingness to engage despite that faux pas. In the interests of not tangenting this thread further, I won’t respond to your points here, but will look for a different thread.
Thanks for your reply.