Committee rejects billboard ban

Ward budget-funded greetings are `poor use' of tax dollars: councillor

A City of Calgary committee rejected a bylaw amendment Thursday to prohibit councillors from using their ward budgets to fund personalized holiday greetings on billboards — a practice one committee member argued is a subtle way for councillors to campaign on the public dime by boosting their name and facial recognition.

But even though her proposed amendment failed in a 3-3 tie, Coun. Jasmine Mian said she plans to bring the same discussion to council later this month.

At the tail end of Thursday's council services committee meeting, Mian moved to amend councillors' budgets and expenses bylaw, preventing councillors from using their taxpayer-funded ward budgets to advertise personalized holiday greetings on billboards.

“Using billboards this way is a tactic employed by provincial and federal representatives to increase name and face recognition, but the difference is those representatives have constituency associations that fundraise money to support those initiatives,” she said.

“Municipal representatives only have ward budgets, and members of council, in this term, have received public criticism for spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars on these billboards, because it's seen as a poor use of taxpayer dollars by citizens.”

The amendment ultimately failed 3-3, with councillors Raj Dhaliwal, Dan Mclean and Sonya Sharp voting in opposition, while councillors Terry Wong, Andre Chabot and Mian voted in favour.

During debate, Sharp argued the wording of Mian's amendment was too vague, as it didn't define “billboard” and didn't exclude the same practice for using mailouts, brochures, or other public signage.

It would also be relatively easy to find loopholes by attaching some other message onto a holiday greeting, Sharp pointed out, such as advertising an upcoming town hall or adding a web link for a city service.

Mclean agreed the amendment was “nitpicking,” and added that as elected officials, councillors have a responsibility to communicate well wishes to their constituents.

“MLAS, members of Parliament, they do this out of their constituency offices and out of their budgets,” he said. “We're elected officials as well (and this) just comes with the territory of the job.”

Dhaliwal pointed out that Calgarians who observe religious holidays, such as Ramadan or Diwali, feel more included when they see public well wishes toward those celebrations from their council representative.

He also said it's up to councillors to abide by the code of conduct bylaw and answer for how they spend their ward budgets.

“I think we're trying to fix something that is not broken,” he said.

`NOT AN APPROPRIATE USE OF MONEY'

Wong suggested tweaking the amendment further by altering the language to prohibit funding billboard greetings with ward budgets in an election year, but Mian said she wasn't interested in that suggestion.

“It's something the public has raised as an inappropriate use of taxpayer money and it should end,” she said during her closing argument.

Even though the item was rejected at the committee level, Mian said she still plans to introduce the amendment at the regular meeting of city council on March 19.

“This is not an appropriate use of money and it does have a benefit to the incumbents, (who) already have a very significant advantage,” she said, referring to the arguments against her motion as “mental gymnastics.”