Woolley says he won't be running in the fall election
At least five newcomers will now occupy city's 15 council seats after the vote
Coun. Evan Woolley says he won't run for re-election this year, adding his inner-city Ward 8 to one of five open races in Calgary's fall municipal vote.
In a statement released Friday, Woolley said he's “keen to return to the private sector” after two terms on council. He was the youngest member when he was first elected in his early 30s in 2013.
At the time, Woolley defeated incumbent John Mar for the Ward 8 seat, a rare feat for a council race, where incumbents often have a major advantage.
Woolley said the choice to step back wasn't easy, but after spending time reflecting on his future, he's ready for a change.
His second term brought a series of personal challenges and changes: his son was born in 2018, but Woolley also lost his brother to a fentanyl overdose that year, and in 2019, his mother died from brain cancer.
Ward 8 includes the dense inner-city Beltline communities, and it stretches south to Lincoln Park and west along the Bow River to Wildwood.
In an interview, Woolley said the next person to take his seat will be taking on major challenges, working through the economic upheaval in Calgary as the energy sector continues to struggle. And his ward has a part to play on that issue, too.
“There's a ton of economic, social and ethnic diversity. And there's also an incredible amount of aging infrastructure,” he said.
“I think the next ward councillor needs to work hard to gain the trust of these diverse communities and deliver on the inner-city's aspirations and needs. A lot of that is related to how do we manage growth and change and continue to advocate for infrastructure.”
Woolley currently chairs the city's audit committee, which is tasked with much of the heavy lifting around financial oversight.
He also chaired council's 2026 Olympic bid assessment committee when Calgary was looking at bringing the Games back to the city. A 2018 plebiscite squashed that effort.
Open races could mean potentially dramatic effects on council makeup. Woolley's decision means at least a quarter of Calgary's 15 council seats will be up for grabs this year.
Ward 12 Coun. Shane Keating announced last year he wouldn't seek another term, and Ward 10's Ray Jones — formerly the longest-serving councillor with nearly three decades under his belt — retired last fall due to health concerns. He stepped down too close to this year's municipal vote to trigger a byelection.
Wards 3 and 11 will also be open because councillors Jyoti Gondek and Jeromy Farkas are both planning to run for mayor.
University of Calgary political scientist Jack Lucas said that level of turnover could significantly shift municipal politics in Calgary.
“When you have these periods where a large number of councillors are being replaced, it can have these potentially pretty dramatic effects on what council looks like,” he said.
Coun. Jeff Davison said Friday that he intends to run for re-election in Ward 6. He's the third sitting city councillor to say he'll try to win back his seat, after Ward 13 Coun. Diane Colley-urquhart and Ward 4 Coun. Sean Chu. Other council members, including Mayor Naheed Nenshi, haven't publicly announced their election plans.
Mayoral campaigns tend to get the most scrutiny, and an open race for mayor has been shown to increase municipal voter turnout. But council makes decisions based on majority vote, where the mayor is just one vote like all the others.
Five newcomers in council chambers where eight is a majority can make a big difference.
Incumbents have been shown to almost always win in municipal elections in major Canadian cities, and they win by wider margins than victors in open races. Lucas said potential candidates see that too, so there are more people who put their names forward if they're going for an empty seat.
But winning against a sitting councillor isn't impossible in Calgary. Woolley and Chu both did it in 2013, and Peter Demong ran away with a win in Ward 14 against incumbent Linda Fox-mellway in 2010.
Ward 8 has also been an outlier for the incumbent advantage: Woolley beat Mar in 2013, but Mar himself defeated incumbent Madeleine King in 2007.
Lucas said Ward 8 tends to be competitive even with an incumbent, and the vacant seat will likely draw a large crowd of candidates.
With five open seats, Lucas said he's also watching for whether candidates start to co-ordinate, or more informal slates emerge in 2021.
“There can be real advantages for candidates in doing that because it helps them communicate to voters who they are and where they stand,” he said. “But there are also risks because municipal voters don't like the idea of political parties emerging, so you don't want it to look like a political party.”
As Woolley prepares to step away, he said he'd like to see more people on city council who better reflect the diversity of Calgary.
“There are huge barriers for women, queer communities and visible minority communities to get to this office, and this is an opportune election for this to happen,” he said.
This year's Oct. 18 vote is still nine months away. So far, only one candidate, Cornelia Wiebe, is officially registered to run in Ward 8.