"This is a city where people make things happen."

2010 Campaign

Entries relating to Don Iveson’s 2010 campaign for Edmonton city council.

Read some of Don's previous blog posts on this topic:


Station at 40th Ave Feasible, But Shelved posted July 9th, 2012 in 2010 Campaign, 2010-2013 Term, Smarter Planning, Transit

Closing the loop on a campaign promise (and two previous posts from October of 2010 and February of 2012) I can report a mix of good and bad news after today’s Transportation and Infrastructure Committee discussion of the merits of adding a station between Southgate and Century Park.

From the report: land use around potential future LRT station at 40th Avenue. (Apartments in Blue, Petrolia Safeway site in Red.)

The good news: the report responding to my formal inquiry indicate that it is feasible to build a station at 40th Avenue while continuing to operate the LRT between Southgate and Century Park; Transportation also agreed that current Council policy on LRT design would call for more frequent placement of stations; and, the report confirms that a station would be relevant to a number of possible redevelopment sites in the neighbourhood.

The bad news: my fellow committee members did not support my motion to allow project to advance to budget to contend for conceptual design funding (roughly $100K) that would better nail down the costs of the project (estimated at $22 million ‘at the high end’ according to the General Manager of Transportation).

Sadly, the committee also nixed a motion to examine whether there are any other opportunities to add stations along the existing line. The argument was that they were unwilling to look at improvements to the current line until the rest of the LRT network is finished; I can see that point, but my vision is to make LRT work for as much of the City as possible, including allowing for enhancing our existing billion-dollar investment with a modest upgrade to make it relevant to areas it already travels through.

To be clear, I wouldn’t for a moment want this to come at the expense of LRT expansion elsewhere in the City. Instead, I suggested we might be able to piggy back this on a future expansion of the high-floor line for some cost efficiencies.

One other point worth flagging for future consideration is that the station, if and when one is built, would come with the expectation of changes in zoning and expanded development opportunity near the station and perhaps along 40th Avenue. There is a chicken and egg question in the distance, however, about how redevelopment will occur when this 45-year old area begins to turn over in future decades: with a station, it will evolve towards Council’s vision of modest increases in density, increased transportation choice, more opportunities for walkable neighbourhood businesses, and better city-wide access to the high schools and recreation centre. Without a station it will remain much the same.

But these questions, and which order to tackle them, will fall to a future Council.

Station at 40th Avenue: Formal Inquiry posted February 7th, 2012 in 2010 Campaign, 2010-2013 Term, Smarter Planning, Transit

The dark blue circle is 400m and a 5 minute walk; the light blue is 800m or 10 a minute walk. This is the generally accepted walkability radius for LRT. Notice that it reaches from Petrolia mall to 106 Street, both high schools and a bunch of older walkup apartments that could be redeveloped over time. I've centred it on the intersection but exact location would require further study.

Following up from a campaign promise (see previous post here) to look into the possibility of a station between Southgate and Century Park, I advanced a formal inquiry today at Council’s Transportation & Infrastructure Committee. I believe it will come back for discussion at the May 8 meeting of the Committee. The text of the inquiry is below:

During the concept planning of the South LRT in 2005 there was some consideration given to including a station between Southgate and Century Park. I believe there is still interest in looking at a station to serve communities and institutions in the area of 40th Avenue. Therefore, I would like Administration to comment on the following:

1. Given that the LRT Network Plan and Design Guidelines have changed since 2005, would an additional station be consistent with Council’s more recent direction from 2009 on LRT design?

2. Could construction of a new station be accomplished while maintaining LRT service?

3. Given that the LRT runs in the median, what special considerations would be required to accommodate safe pedestrian access to the platform from adjacent communities?

4. What would be the rough cost of constructing a community station similar to McKernan/Belgravia in 2012 dollars?

5. From a Land-Use perspective, are there medium- to long-term intensification opportunities in the area that could benefit from the presence of an LRT station?

6. What parking restrictions are available to control parasitic parking issues in adjacent communities that often accompany a new station?

7. What would be the next steps Administration would recommend to committee should there be a desire to explore this further?

Many Thanks posted October 26th, 2010 in 2010 Campaign

[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

The ‘Big Push’ This Weekend posted October 17th, 2010 in 2010 Campaign

These campaigns are won and lost on the ground. Despite what people say about evolving on-line campaigning, there is still no substitute for knocking on as many doors as possible and stuffing every mailbox with thoughtful campaign literature. Social media, like campaign literature, has to be about the content, not the medium. We pride ourselves on the use of complete sentences, for starters.

Get out the Vote!

The number of people who say they base their vote on who comes to their door still astounds me, but more importantly if you want to do the job effectively you really do need to have listened to a good sample of the people you want to represent. And you need to meet them on their terms, which usually involves a great deal of walking or running up front walks.

So that’s what we’ve done since July, and this past weekend we went back to basics and visited every doorstep with a final piece of literature and knocked a good number of doors to put them right in peoples’ hands. Also, last week we sent something to all apartments that Canada Post can serve.

How? Dozens of people from across the city and across the conventional political spectrum came together and offered more than 400 hours of volunteer time this weekend alone. (It helped that we had waffles from Eva Sweet and sandwiches and muffins from Elm Cafe.)

I cannot say thank you enough to each of them for their support, and to all the others who’ve supported my campaign in one way or another. I don’t think there’s much more that we could have done.

Disclosure of Contributions: 2010 Campaign posted October 15th, 2010 in 2010 Campaign, Campaign Reform

I’m proud of my record on pursuing municipal campaign finance reform (see here, here and here). In Calgary, a good number of campaigns have agreed to disclose their funding in advance of the election, and I expect this will become common practice here in the future.

I see value in being transparent about the donations we’ve accepted prior to election day, so my team and I have decided to close off donations today at noon (the last business day of the campaign) and post the tally. We believe it is accurate, but reserve the right to amend it if we discover an error prior to filing our official disclosure statement.

I think it’s important to disclose where the funds came from that helped run this campaign. By law all candidates must do this, win or lose, but not until long after election day.

Other than selling tickets to fundraising events, none of these contributions were solicited. These are simply people and groups who support my vision and would like to see me re-elected.

Consistent with the recent changes to the Local Authorities Election Act, donations $100 and greater must be identified; donations less than $100 need only be totalled together. We have presented the information in this format. It is downloadable as a pdf here.