The first meeting of Calgary’s new city council was a closed-door session on Monday, during which councillors were chosen to sit on various city committees.
Why that procedure requires confidentiality, I'm not sure.
Perhaps they’re scheming to declare a climate emergency? Maybe to introduce legislation infringing further on Calgarians' private property rights? The elimination of single-use plastic bags and straws? Looking for busy streets in established communities where they dig up the roads and close down businesses?
Not likely. Been there, done that.
This council is comprised of 10 new councillors and a mayor who watched the previous bunch from outside council chambers. They saw the mistakes. They saw the takeover of council by DEI and woke ideologies.
And they likely heard about those mistakes while campaigning door to door; hearing from Calgarians that they want the city to do what it’s supposed to do: keep taxes low, repair potholes, clear snow off the streets, and make the city run more efficiently.
Council needs to manage with common sense, plus dollars and cents at all times.
To that end, in his first public speech after the election, Mayor Jeromy Farkas spoke to a gathering at the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, promising the first order of business is the city budget, adding city administration would be “getting some strong direction from this new council in terms of containing costs and the overall burden."
He said council will “sharpen our pencils” in the upcoming budget review, while signalling a desire to reduce the proposed tax increase, which for property owners is “far too high.”
The draft budget proposal for 2026 anticipates an overall property tax increase of about 5.4% for residential and 1.3% for commercial properties (on average).
Councils’ hands may be somewhat tied, said Farkas, saying the 2026 budget is less flexible since it’s “year four of a four-year process” and while wholesale changes are more difficult, “we’re not going to wait to make meaningful adjustments.”
“We need a significant reduction in the amount of increase. I’m very keen to work with my council colleagues and hear their ideas for areas of operational efficiencies.”
“With a year four of a four-year process, there’s less ability to make changes than a completely new process that starts next year, but we’re not going to wait. We’re going to get it done."
"We’re going to advocate for residents, and we’re going to make sure that the spending is reasonable, that the tax burden is reasonable, and that Calgarians see movement on those important files around housing, around affordability, public safety, and infrastructure.”
Other hot-plate items facing this council are the blanket upzoning bylaw, which is now mired in legal entanglements, which may delay a motion to repeal the bylaw, possibly stretching into 2026.
Council also needs to take a long, hard look into how the city interacts with Calgarians.
The number of complaints filed by Calgarians about administrative staff not taking into account their input on issues, primarily new developments, the addition of bike lanes where they’re not needed, and more is a long list.
Administration defends itself by saying it follows the rules of public engagement, and if that’s the case, the rules need to be changed.
Getting council to work for the betterment of Calgarians and the city with common sense in mind is one thing. Getting city administration to march in tandem is another.
Administration is the largest bureaucracy in the city, with staff estimates of upwards of more than 13,000 and it is in Farkas’ sights when it comes to budgets.
“We need zero-based reviews in key departments so every line item has to be justified from the ground up,” he said. “We need plain-language quarterly reports so families can actually understand where their tax dollars are going. We need full disclosure of reserves and debt, lifecycle costing for capital projects, and long-term forecasts that show how today’s decisions will affect us tomorrow.”
Another area of administration that needs a review is its actions and policies that too often lean toward ideologies and wokeness. From the renaming of Fort Calgary to The Confluence, to the Calgary Plan (a road map to becoming a 15-minute city), this new council must make administration more accountable for legislative items it brings to council.
And so, Farkas says all the right things, and the honeymoon begins.
How long that honeymoon lasts is completely up to the new council and with 11 new members on board, it should be easy to distance itself from the old council.
