Calgary councillor tells Gondek and council — ‘Cut the B.S.’
[Excerpt] By Rick Bell
The Stampede is over but at Calgary city hall there are fireworks.
One Calgary city council member tells some others on city council to start doing their jobs.
“Cut the B.S. Cut the nonsense.
“They pontificate on whatever they want. Everyone is tired of that. Everybody is tired of the B.S. People just want you to do your jobs and that’s providing services to Calgarians at a reasonable cost.”
So says Sonya Sharp, who speaks out on this day knowing she could get a mighty cold shoulder and lots of dirty looks at Wednesday’s city council gabfest.
Such is the price you pay for speaking truth to power.
For raising the curtain and revealing what goes on at city hall, where it is often like going to a strange circus and you don’t know what the next act will be but it won’t be entertaining and it will cost you money.
Some members of city council don’t have to focus on doing their jobs when they can cook up … and these are some of Sharp’s examples … a bag bylaw , declaring a climate emergency amounting to the square root of squat, pushing to allow permanent residents who aren’t Canadian citizens to vote in city elections , the list is endless.
Anyone for another city brand, another city logo. Blue Sky City. It’s a flipping punchline. And the folks who created it don’t give two cents about what you think.
For Sharp, council is grunt work.
City council is about stuff like roads and transit and the fire department and public safety and infrastructure and picking up garbage and filling in potholes, and yes, providing a normal flow of water.
“This is municipal politics. Water. Sewer. Garbage. If you can’t wrap your head around the fact that’s part of your job then don’t do this job,” says Sharp.
“If you want something more, go find it.”
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