After roughly a year of playing coy, Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi finally announced he will not be running for re-election. I’m sure it was a tough decision for him. If nothing else, Nenshi is a vain man. He did not want to go out looking as if he was running away from his political nemesis, Jeromy Farkas, who is gunning hard for his job. Nenshi also would surely have liked to entrenched a solid legacy of sorts after having served over a decade as Calgary’s mayor..Nenshi’s fear of potentially losing at the hands of an upstart won out over his desire to try and serve one more term as mayor and leave a lasting positive legacy. As it stands now, there’s little positive of which to speak..Despite running, and being hailed as, a pro-business candidate for mayor, Nenshi’s term in office was markedly anti-enterprise. Massive year-over-year increases in business taxes led to a business revolt which brought even some of the most progressive of Calgary business owners to the steps of city hall in protest in June of 2019..Meanwhile, city hall gave a $100 million fund to Calgary Economic Development (CED) and tasked them with using the money to draw new enterprises into the city. While CED has burned through more than $40 million of that money so far, their record of actually drawing new ventures into Calgary has been well short of successful. Calgary has been driving existing businesses into insolvency through tax increases while taking those tax dollars to try and draw in competitors to the remaining businesses..Nenshi’s disdain for business leaders has gotten him into the legal trouble more than once. Taxpayers were forced to front the legal bill for a period of time while Nenshi was being sued by Calgary home builder Cal Wenzel, after Nenshi called him a “godfather-like figure.”.Nenshi embarrassed the city in a bizarre 2016 recording when he referred to the CEO of Uber as a “dick” and falsely alleged that the city had slipped known sex offenders through the uber screening process for Uber. This almost certainly flowed from Nenshi’s hostility to Uber’s challenge to the taxi monopoly, which has been a strong backer of his.Now Nenshi is now being sued by Calgary businessman Mike Terrigno for defamation. Again, for allegedly insinuating that he is involved with a certain Italian criminal enterprise..Nenshi took it upon himself to turn Calgary’s downtown into a “world-class center.” The mayor made it no secret he didn’t care for the corporate and Western culture that built Calgary’s core. Millions and millions of tax dollars were poured into the city center, particularly in the East Village where a massive new library and music centre were built along with condo developments that had no parking available. Bike lanes and tracks took up valuable road space while city-controlled parking rates remained some of the highest in North America. The goal was to create a pedestrian hipster’s paradise in downtown Calgary. It was expected that people would come from around the world to walk around and admire Calgary’s hip and artsy, car-less core..While Nenshi did indeed radically change Calgary’s downtown, few will claim that it was for the better. The atmosphere in Calgary’s core is ghostly as empty office towers stand over parks that have been taken over by addicts and the homeless. High taxes and parking costs drove downtown corporate businesses to outlying developments such as Quarry Park , while businesses on the street level simply went broke for lack of local clientele and accessibility. This trend has been ongoing for years. The pandemic and energy price crash only sped a process that was already underway..Public art could have been a draw to Calgary’s core, but under Nenshi’s stewardship instead we saw expensive, ugly creations springing up on overpasses and in industrial areas. It became an almost annual tradition for the city to become enraged over some ghastly art project. Nenshi would condemn it and then repeat the cycle with a new eyesore somewhere else. He can’t point to fine art installations as his legacy..Nor can His Worship be able to point to a unified and productive city council as a legacy of his leadership. While he promoted himself has the great renconciler, we have seen the most vitriolic and dysfunctional city council in living memory under Nenshi’s leadership. Nenshi even hired a psychologist in 2012 to manage a closed-door meeting to try and maintain order among council members..While Nenshi promised a more transparent government since he became mayor, Calgary’s city council has spent more time hiding behind closed doors for meetings than any major city council in Canada. The meeting room where the council retreats for in-camera meetings has been labeled “the chamber of secrets.” The room has literally been equipped with lazy-boy style recliners so council members can stay comfortable during their extended sessions in hiding..The Green Line LRT expansion has been in the planning stages for years, and seen its scope cut in half while the price continues to soar. The entire project is now at risk as people question the need to spend billions of dollars to increase transit services to an empty downtown..Nenshi was outright giddy at the prospect of Calgary hosting the 2026 Olympic games. It was his chance for a lasting legacy. He would be able to cut ribbons for years and hobnob with top athletes from around the world. Tens of millions of dollars were spent in promoting the pursuit of the bid. Mary Moran of Calgary Economic Development was hired to promote the bid to Calgarians. To her credit, then-premier Rachel Notley told Nenshi no provincial money would be dedicated to holding the Olympics unless Calgarians got the chance to vote on the bid in a plebiscite. Calgarians overwhelmingly told Nenshi to put his Olympic dreams away..More recently, the new arena deal with the Calgary Flames is at risk of falling apart. A hasty agreement for a facility was hammered out behind closed doors where taxpayers would be expected to foot nearly $300 million of the bill for the new arena. Now all work has been paused as the Flames organization has demanded another $70 million from taxpayers along with more land for the project. The cupboard is bare and citizens will be strongly reconsidering just how much they need an arena while we try to recover from the pandemic and the economic devastation wreaked by the lockdowns championed by Nenshi..Now all that Nenshi can hope for in a legacy is that he hands off the role of mayor to his preferred successor. Jyoti Gondek has proven herself to be a close Nenshi ally during her term on city council, and with her mayoral campaign being managed by Stephen Carter, it’s not hard to see who Nenshi hopes will replace him in next fall’s election. It’s widely speculated Nenshi held back on announcing his intent not to run for re-election as a favor to Gondek. It is a form of running interference as contenders who didn’t want to take on an incumbent mayor stayed out of the field while Gondek worked to establish her campaign..Despite a decade in power and having the combined forces of the progressive media celebrating him throughout his tenure, Naheed Nenshi never managed to accomplish much that could be considered a positive legacy. Calgarians will have an opportunity to bring in some fresh blood in the mayor’s chair and on council this fall. If they want to see a period of vision, growth and lasting legacies created, they will vote to turn over council..Cory Morgan is the Alberta Political Columnist for the Western Standard
