Airdrie Politics

We get plenty of phone calls over at Mann for Mayor.  Most of them are to clarify Ross’ position on specific policies, or to give input as to what the city ought to be doing differently.  It’s great to know that Airdronians are really excited about the upcoming election.  The other day, I received a call that stood out.  A 12 year old girl from a local middle school called our number after receiving our flier at her door.  She wanted to let us know what she and her classmates would like to see happen in Airdrie.  The first was obvious: we need more schools.  Her school is already approaching fire code capacity, and classes are being held in unusual places.  I already knew this, since Ross’ wife Katy teaches at that same school.  Her math class takes place in a Home Ec lab.

While her first concern is one that is widely recognized, her second was somewhat less obvious to someone who isn’t a teenager.  There just isn’t enough for teens to do in Airdrie.  She pointed out that her and her friends enjoy going to the Cross Iron Mills mall, but it’s too far away.  Especially when you’ve got busy parents, who can’t drop everything to drive you to the mall.  It slipped my mind to mention that a certain local bus company wants to operate a shuttle to the mall from the city, but it did underscore a major concern that motivates our campaign: the city is not doing enough to attract businesses to Airdrie.  I don’t pretend to know exactly why the mall was built in Balzac rather than Airdrie, and I woudn’t be surprised if it was highly subsidized.  What I do know is that we need to find ways to attract more businesses here, so that there are more entertainment options that teens can take in without having to leave town.  One of the aldermanic candidates at the all candidates forum pointed out that there isn’t even a laser tag facility here.  Cochrane and Strathmore are both smaller than Airdrie, yet each have a lazer tag facility.  I can’t help but wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that both of those cities have lower non-residential taxes than Airdrie.

What struck me the most about this conversation was her comments about Genesis Place.  When she brought it up, I assumed that her comments would be entirely positive.  I was mistaken.  She said that the pool is great, but she and her friends are bored of it.  This is something that hadn’t really occurred to me.  The city put all of it’s eggs in one basket.  Plenty of people lament the fact that there isn’t a smaller scale version of Genesis Place within walking distance.  If the city hadn’t built one massive complex, this might have been feasible.  This is the trouble with the city getting involved in running businesses.  Instead of building modest facilities that fit the needs of local residents, they spare no expense to build impressive looking, though impractical facilities like Genesis Place.  I can’t help but think that had the city worked with a non-profit like YMCA to operate the project, different decisions would have been made.

The city needs to find more creative ways of ensuring that people–especially teens–have easy access to a wide variety of activities.  This shoudn’t mean putting taxpayers on the hook for a money sinks like Genesis Place.  Don’t let the city fool you.  It is a major money loser.  Not only do the “profits” it generates not take into account the capital costs of the facilities (or depreciation), but it also doesn’t take into account that 25% of it’s memberships are paid for by the taxpayers, since city employees and council members receive “free” memberships.  What I would like to see is the city facilitate the development of local community associations that can raise money for, and built recreational facilities.  This isn’t far fetched.  This type of thing is done in plenty of other cities.  When I lived in Toronto (please don’t hold that against me!) I was involved with my local community association.  One of the things they were able to do was acquire land, and funding for an off leash dog park.  That doesn’t sound too impressive, until you consider the cost of downtown Toronto real estate.  There’s no reason why we couldn’t do the same here.  I have heard from dozens of people that the city more dog parks, not to mention more rinks.  With a small number of motivated fundraisers, I am confident that the community could chip in to build some of these amenities without any funding from the city.  All they need is some land, and the legal status to oversee these projects.

This is not just my advice, but my challenge to Airdronians.  If you are discouraged by the lack of ammenities in the city, don’t lobby for the city to spend more money.  We can’t increase taxes any further, and expect private companies to race here to provide services.  If you are serious about helping to bringing a new dog park, skating rink, soccer field, or any other such facility to Airdrie, pick up the phone and give me a call.  You’ve got my number (it’s on the green flier that was handed to you or stuck in your door).  This offer stands regardless of whether Ross wins on October 18th.  Everyone on the Mann for Mayor campaign believes that the best decisions are those made at the local level.  If you share this belief, we’d love to hear from you.