Barely a week after submitting thousands of signatures from his campaign to recall Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek, the petition organizer is taking aim at his next target — Ward 14 Councillor Peter Demong.To that end, council crusader Landon Johnston took his latest campaign to the streets on Tuesday, leading a rowdy public meeting against blanket rezoning.A crowd of several hundred showed up at an open house in Lake Bonavista to express concerns over both the blanket rezoning plan and Demong himself, whom Johnston, in an interview with the Western Standard, called “an example of everything that’s wrong” with Calgary council..“We’re fed up with this administration and council shoving their agenda down our throats and telling us to take it, and I think it shows that people are going to stand up and fight back against this.” Landon Johnston.“We’re not happy with you,” he told Demong at the meeting. “You’re supposed to be a leader, you’re supposed to be fighting for us every single day in office.”“We’re fed up with this administration and council shoving their agenda down our throats and telling us to take it, and I think it shows that people are going to stand up and fight back against this.” Rather than mount a formal recall petition — Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has said she won’t change the recall legislation while there are active petitions — Johnston said he plans to apply enough pressure for Demong “to take the hint and resign and save us the trouble” of having to formally recall him.The four-term councillor happens to be Johnston’s representative. Apart from the rezoning, the final straw — pun intended — was Demong’s support for a reconstituted single use fast food bylaw..That said, he’s finding plenty of extra ammunition with the zoning proposal.The city is proposing to boost density in many neighbourhoods that currently only allow single-family housing. The proposed change is based on recommendations from the housing strategy approved in September — another Gondek pet project.A formal public hearing into the proposed changes starts on April 22.Johnston noted that Demong has voted lockstep with the mayor on virtually every single unpopular policy she’s supported against the majority of Calgarians’ wishes, including the single use bylaw. Even though he’s not expected to gather enough signatures to force out the mayor, he wants to make sure nobody will support her policies after the final count is tallied.“They say we have a say in it (but) it’s already going to pass,” he said. “There’s nothing we can do about it, except we can get rid of councillors that aren’t going to fight for us.”
