Clark says it’s been intense two years in mayor’s seat
The Starphoenix sat down with Mayor Charlie Clark to discuss the midterm point of his first term as mayor.
Clark and the current council were elected on this date in 2016 and were sworn in on Halloween night two years ago.
The first half of the term was marked by a surprise cut in revenue from the provincial government and some controversial issues.
Q What would you say is council’s most important accomplishment so far in this term?
A It’s hard to pin down one single accomplishment. We wrestled down the provincial budget situation that created, as I mentioned, a fiscal crisis in midterm early on in the term of this council. And the way everybody came together and worked together and then lobbied and rallied to at least get some of the money back from the province was, I think, a pretty formative moment for this council.
We had also already settled the (Amalgamated Transit Union) contract, which was the source of a great deal of anxiety and uncertainty in the community. That happened early on and that was very important.
I feel that developing the new leadership model for city council and creating the opportunity for councillors to, in a more strategic way, take on important issues in the community and help to work through them with the community and with our administration, has been a very important part of laying the groundwork for us to do the work that we need to do to position the city to succeed into the future. And, in a lot of ways, these first two years has been a lot of establishing the way to tackle some of these issues.
So those have all been part of, I think, what have been accomplishments for us, in addition to opening the Remai art gallery, to funding and then already seeing Merlis Belsher Place open, opening the two bridges and now two interchanges on time and on budget.
All to keep the community moving and to create quality of life for our residents.
Q What do you look forward to in the next two years?
A In the two years to come, on the planning side, we’ve got a regional growth plan in place that is the envy of the province and even, in many ways, the country. To get agreement with our regional partners on what we think the land use should look like for up to 500,000 people. And now there’s going to be some very important work in managing development and servicing into the region.
We’ve got the bus rapid transit plan, which is a key part of being the city that got it right in terms of our transportation system. As we add thousands of people on both the east and west ends of the city, having a transit system that can move people efficiently.
And we’ve also been working very hard on the downtown and making it more predictable, more certain, more streamlined for people to develop in the downtown and see more people living downtown, more businesses operating downtown and more investment happening, creating jobs for a vibrant downtown.
There’s going to be a conversation about an arena and an arena district.
And we know that and we’ve got the report. And I think how we have the conversation in the months to come about how does an arena — whenever it gets built — fit into a wider vision of a strong and healthy downtown. And what role does the city have in helping to have that vision for the downtown? And make sure all the different parts of it all work together well. So these are going to be some of the key conversations.
Q With some of the controversial issues, there’s a perception that this council has stopped listening to the people. How do you respond to that?
A I would say that these issues that we’re seeing, they are tough issues. And for sure nobody on council had the agenda that dreamed up one day that they wanted to put a restriction on firepits. That was a world of hurt for everybody.
But what we were responding to is, in fact, residents in the community who had been appealing for a long time to say that they need some relief from the situation that they find themselves in and we need to find a balanced approach to that.
Same thing with the speed limit discussion, which I think has kind of morphed into a situation where council has not said we want to lower the speed limits throughout all residential areas. We just want to figure out how to address the concern that many residents have in meeting after meeting after meeting in neighbourhoods about speed impacts in the community.
So in no way are these sort of agendas of council sitting around not listening to people and coming up with things that serve them. We are trying to address issues that are coming forward in the community that are controversial and, in some cases, are certainly challenging.
When it comes to the waste and our decisions around a waste utility, that is because there’s been a persistent and broken system of managing waste that has not been dealt with and we have a council that has said let’s deal with this in a responsible way and there are going to be some tough decisions.
But there’s no answer that allows us to just carry on with what we’re doing without raiding our reserves, filling up the landfill and putting a lot of significant cost onto somebody else.
Q There’s been some long council and committee meetings this year, including some that needed days. Is there a better way?
A I think about that a lot. I’m in the chair, and so I feel some responsibility for how and when we can find ways to tighten up our meetings and even in the case of, for example, the taxi situation. We changed the process because we have so many speakers that will both come to committee and to council so that we just do it all at once and not have as much repetition in the meetings and the discussions.
The reality is that we have a 10-member council and each has an opportunity to speak to issues and to question and to make sure that they understand as fully as they can the information so they can make as informed a decision as possible. And sometimes that takes time.
Our democratic process is different than a party-driven system where a party can come up with their legislative mandate and do it all behind closed doors and then come out and say, ‘This is what we’re going to do.’ And at the same time, I would put the amount of time it takes for us to make decisions up against the other levels of government, because at one council meeting, we’ll deal with 10, 11 or even many more issues and it takes the legislature quite a bit more time often to deal with them.
So the local democratic process takes time.
And would I like to shave some time off of some of those meetings? Absolutely. But would I do it at the expense of the democratic process? No.