Nenshi says city charter needs more time
Mayor requests more input from Redford
Calgary’s mayor says there is “no way” a big city charter will be ready for enactment for the spring sitting of the legislature.
Charter negotiations that launched in June between the province, Edmonton and Calgary simply need more input from the premier, said Mayor Naheed Nenshi.
“I’m not optimistic we will have a city charter done by spring, but I want to make sure there is some significant political action to move forward on this,” said Nenshi, after council met Monday to discuss updates on the development of a new relationship with the province.
“To me, this foundational stuff is the most important stuff we can do.”
Nenshi has long said he thinks the province could grant council the right to new tax powers in a city charter.
The memorandum of understanding the minister and mayors of Calgary and Edmonton inked to start charter talks aims to “create the conditions to allow Calgary and Edmonton to sustain increasing demands for urban services and infrastructure determined by their respective elected council to be necessary and appropriate.”
“I think what we need on these negotiations is a little more political leadership,” said Nenshi.
He said Premier Alison Redford, Municipal Affairs Minister Doug Griffiths and the mayors need to have “high level political discussions.”
“I think that perhaps we’ve left it a little to much to the realm of adminstrations to hash out the details,” Nenshi said. “I think they may be suffering from a lack of political direction, and that’s something that I’d like to fix.”
“This one really is about the devil being in the details. And it’s tough to sort these details out in time. I remain aggressive on timelines and remain committed to push this forward and put whatever resources we need behind it.”
Nenshi said although Redford and political rivals were discussing the issues during election time, he hasn’t yet spoken with Redford directly.
“I think it’s probably time for her to come back to these discussions.”