While 2024 had its fair share of wins and losses, Calgary had its own ups and downs that the mayor and council were trying to tackle.
From a housing crisis that led to a controversial change to default zoning, a feeder main break that forced over a million Calgarians to ration water for months, and now the salvaging of the Green Line LRT after the provincial government threatened to pull its funding.
Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek, who is heading into her fourth year at the helm, was front and centre during these events.
However, some decisions by council saw her face a recall petition early in the year, which translated to a small number of signatures, well below the legislated amount.
But these trials and tribulations, which saw intense scrutiny from the public, were a learning opportunity for the mayor.
“Communication is probably the biggest lesson of this year,” Gondek told CityNews.
Single-use bylaw, recall efforts
The controversial single-use bylaw, which called for additional charges for plastic and reusable bags to reduce waste in landfills, was scrapped after much scrutiny early in the year.
Restaurants and other food vendors would have charged customers $0.15 for a paper bag or $1 for a reusable cloth bag, which would have increased to $0.25 and $2 in the new year. Failure to do so would have resulted in fines.
Gondek says the city’s communication let Calgarians down.
“I own that,” she said.
“We did not do a good enough job setting Calgarians up for success and we also let businesses down because they’re the ones that bore the brunt of it.”
That bylaw was the straw that broke the camel’s back, becoming the major reason for the recall effort against the mayor, organizer Landon Johnston told CityNews earlier in the year.
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Gondek explained to 660 NewsRadio that she agreed to chat with Johnston after he showed up at city hall looking for signatures, though added he didn’t recognize her at first.
“When he came to City Hall looking for signatures, he didn’t know who I was,” she said. “I introduced myself, and he was quite surprised to know that I was the mayor.”
After meeting with Johnston, Gondek says he shared numerous frustrations about his financial situation in the city, including how the opportunities he and his partner were afforded are no longer there, igniting the petition to vocalize his frustrations with city council.
“And in speaking with him I think we could have had that conversation; I could have explained to him where we have the ability to make change happen and where he should be probably talking to the provincial and federal governments as well, so it was a great opportunity to understand what was behind the petition,” she said.
But what was it like being the first mayor to face a recall petition?
“I’m not gonna lie, it was hard to take,” Gondek said.
“It was really tough on my family and it’s—it was also something that was not thought out in the legislation. I understand that there’s a lot of changes that need to happen, and so at least those changes are going to happen now,” she said.
Johnston also explained he wasn’t going to recall her at first, according to the mayor.
“He just figured that more people knew my name, and so it would be a more effective process to use me for recall,” Gondek said.
Tribulations with Calgary’s water shortage
After the recall finished, the city faced another crisis: a feeder main break that led Calgarians to ration water for months.
Gondek apologized amid the water main break after the public expressed frustration with the city’s communication during the crisis. She said during a news conference that the city’s communication with citizens was much better in 2013 during the devastating flooding.
She tells CityNews the city realized “very quickly, early on” that information about the break had to get out to the public.
“It was really when I went to Bowness that I really realized there were a lot of folks waiting for information. They need to know that they’re going to be okay. If they’re not going to be okay, they need to know what that looks like,” she said.
After she apologized, she and city officials spoke to the public in plain language every day until it was complete, and the city provided visuals to understand the situation.
“We didn’t have a firm solution, but we knew enough about what was happening and I felt it was important to get that information out to the public,” she said.
Watch: 2024 Year-In-Review: Talking with Francois Bouchart on Calgary’s water crisis
She also thanked Calgarian’s efforts in reducing their water use, adding it would have been difficult for the Glenmore Water Treatment Plant to keep up and supply everyone.
“What everybody did and the way they reduced their use was enough to keep us going,” she said.
“If we didn’t have that backup system, and that feeder main break happened when it did, there was a good possibility that there wouldn’t have been any water reaching anybody.”
The City of Calgary’s chief administrative officer says the current estimate for repairs is being pegged at $15-20 million, despite being a much larger repair. The initial water repair to the feeder main in June is estimated at $20-25 million.
Preliminary findings about the city’s water system were revealed in November. A third-party review is also being conducted.
Community spirit and collaboration amid scrutiny of council decisions
The controversial zoning bylaw that council approved 9-6 in May has been a major sticking point for Calgarians against the change.
Council voted for it despite the majority of the 736 speakers at the hearing not wanting a change, with 62 per cent opposed and 30 per cent for it. It took over 100 hours for all the speakers to share their concerns.
And then there’s the Green Line, and the back-and-forth with the province after it essentially killed the deal for a time when it threatened to pull its funding, and the new event centre that has drummed up concern from Calgarians about how the city is spending.
While the mayor admits she and the city have made some flubs communicating various issues and decisions in 2024, needing to walk a couple back — along with her approval ratings taking a hit, she says those experiences also brought up a desire to collaborate with Calgarians.
“What we did to get through the emergency in June when the feeder main broke, was a lot of work, and everybody banded together, and we showed the world that we have a lot of determination and a lot of grit in our city,” she said.
“When the chips are down, we stand up and we do the right thing for each other.”
With files from Jillian Code and Dione Wearmouth