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Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier - Colin Powell In the first of my many interviews, this is Mike Pal, the University student who ran for Mayor in our latest civic election. Take a look at his answers... this guy just might have been a better choice for Mayor.Q: Considering the mean age of Calgarians, and how you're, well, quite frankly, you're way below that- were you in any way worried that you might come across as leading some kind of youth takeover? A: I don't have the actual demographics with me but I have taken a brief look at them. Calgary is a relatively young city. I acknowledge your point however, and I see where your question is going. I found a number of people didn't take the campaign seriously. I suppose they either had some stereotypical view of young people, or they were reliving their own experiences. After all, most people our age aren't running for political office. Whatever the reasons, the backlash was mild. I had an older guy laugh in my face at his door one night, and I got a few emails telling me I didn't have the ?life experience' they thought was necessary. I definitely had many more comments and emails urging me on. Ironically, most people placed some value on my fresh approach to local government. Q: Were you surprised by the voter apathy? Could you use that next time? Secretly win only 12% of the voters and effectively capture 55% of the popular vote? A: I wasn't surprised, but I was disappointed. With the low turnout and now the allegations of mail-in voting irregularities, democracy is certainly not healthy in this city and we aren't headed in the right direction. Without trying to finger point or be a sore loser, which I am not, I attribute the apathetic attitude of Calgarians to the media. They would lament about voter apathy on one page, and on the next page tell people the local election was 'a snooze'. You raise an interesting angle, and I think it's one Dave used in his campaign. It seemed to me that his entire campaign strategy was to ride our apathy all the way back to city hall. I don't think that would work for us. We wanted people to learn the facts, to compare the candidate's apples to apples, and to vote accordingly. Our team outsmarted Dave Bronconnier, but not many people knew about it because we couldn't generate the enthusiasm in the media, and we didn't have the money to tell everyone ourselves. Q: What does Calgary need to do to avoid becoming the sort of tangled ball of dysfunction and anarchy that Vancouver at least seems to be? We've got a million people driving on a map that was drawn up for 300,000 people. A: The question that needs to be asked by Calgarians is who runs city hall? It's not any of the obvious choices - the mayor, city council, or the civil service. If we take a look at Dave Bronconnier's financial disclosure of his 2001 campaign, we see that all the major housing developers are contributing thousands and thousands of dollars each to his campaign fund (and I expect to see more of the same in February). We can also easily figure out that the majority of the land surrounding the city is owned by these same developers. What do they want in return for their contributions come election time? Urban sprawl. As long as developers are padding the pockets of the mayor, the city will continue to grow outwards, and the associated transportation and infrastructure problems will grow along with it. Q: How do we talk so many SUV and luxury sports car drivers into climbing on a bus or a train to get to work? A: Invest some money into Calgary Transit to make it a feasible alternative to driving. No one wants to wait 45 minutes in the cold to get on the bus, and no one wants to squish onto an overcrowded train and ride to work 2" from their neighbor who has a cold and can't stop coughing on you. Public transportation needs to be a priority in the mayor's office and it isn't right now. Best example being Dave's 'tourist attraction' agenda for the $100M in federal GST rebates. In the same week as he announced his plans for the money, council had to reject a contract to purchase $57M in new LRT cars which would have significantly eased the congestion because they didn't have the money. Q: Are young people really optimistic? A few years back when the G8 rolled into town it seemed like everyone under 20 at least dressed up like the disillusioned and the disenfranchised. Are we all closet keeners or one big write-off pile of slackers, or something in between? A: Colin Powell said that "perpetual optimism is a force multiplier." Those are the words I lived by throughout the course of the campaign. More often than not I would encounter young people who didn't care about the election, but I also met a number of young people who were completely engaged, and many of whom ended working closely with me on the campaign. Q: There's a seniors home by Millennium Park who want to close that site down. It's sort of symbolic of the real differences in values and agenda of the next wave of voters vs the, well, frankly, outgoing wave. How do we get them all to share Calgary? Besides flowery blab about caring community and happy bunny posters and choirs. What POLICIES can the civic government really put into action to change that? Or can they? A: I don't want to sound too idealistic, but municipal government needs to involve all Calgarians in the decision making process. Young people are just as "Calgarian" as the older folks, and vice versa. In terms of specific policies, a few of the things I proposed were involving the communities including young people, in identifying problems, issues, and solutions for their problems and getting their participation in planning, implementation, and evaluation of city programs and policies. Q: Four or five years from now there's another election. Could you, even against the rules, start some kind of a grassroots campaign now? A: I was lucky to have been surrounded by the fantastic team we assembled. At our election night party, when it began to become quite apparent we wouldn't be catching a cab straight to city hall, the planning for October 22, 2007 started. I have also been urged on by a flood of emails from ordinary Calgarians. One read: Mr. Pal, I want to offer my condolences on your recent defeat. I also urge you to start preparing for the next Municipal election now. I suspect that there may be some significantly different numbers next time. I was truly disheartened by the complete apathy that Calgary had for this past election. You had my support as well as my wife's and I think you would have been a good Mayor so I challenge you to stick with it. I'm not entirely sure if municipal government is where I want to be in three years, but I do know that if it is decided, there will be a solid team waiting for me and at least 5000 dedicated voters. For now, I'll keep a close eye on Dave Bronconnier and make note of every controversial misstep. Q: Favourite Coffee Shop in Cowtown? Planet Roasters 2212 4th Street SW http://www.planetroasters.com/ Q: Favourite Shopping Mall or place to shop? A: I don't do much 'pleasure-shopping' but I do like to go shopping at the TD Square mall downtown once in a while. Q: What street do you really not like driving down and why? A: I hate driving down Memorial Drive. That's where I saw the first "Join Dave" billboard this year and whenever I pass the spot I relive the horrifying experience of seeing a 30' Dave Bronconnier. During the election I didn't like driving down my own street either. Dave had a 3.0 square meter (the largest allowable) sign on my neighbor's lawn. It was quite an eyesore, made of rebar and a 2x4 superstructure frame. I didn't tear it down but I certainly thought about it more than once. I had a feeling they might guess what happened to it? Q: A day in the life of you would consist of? A: - Reading the news (skipping the entertainment section) - University lectures - Answering emails (I still get about 10 every day) - Writing papers, doing assignments, studying for midterms, etc. - Sleeping Q: Favourite thing to do in your spare time? A: What spare time? ;o) Q: Where do you want to be 7 years from now? A: Somewhere much warmer. Q: Response from students since your run for Mayor? Has it been positive or have you received any ass comments? A: I stopped short of gaining celebrity status on campus but there are at least a couple strangers who recognize me and say hello every day. If you want to see some of the emails I received let me know and I will share. I did get one email that was a bit 'ass-ish' after I politely answered someone's email question about what political party I belonged to: We don't need any more CONSERVATIVES!!! Why don't you join the US army and go to Iraq instead of the typical social conservative thinking right now of sending others to kill innocent civilians and also discrimination of gay Canadians. Why do conservatives claim they want less government on our back but they want to control peoples lives right down to who they can marry??? Civil politics do not need conservatives We have plenty in this area of the country. If God wants war and this is what you must believe then seriously, don't waste your time debating me or loosing badly in a civil election, join the U.S. army. It's what your God wants from you. do it. Don't be a coward politician, you tried that and have lost badly. Don't use school or family as an excuse like the vice president or even that you're a Canadian citizen. If people like you ran this country we would be sending our army to Iraq as well, so you have no excuse, join the U.S. army now! What are you waiting for? Don't finish reading this e-mail, don't waste any more time. Do what God wants from all of us; go risk your life to kill others. Oh, if you are still reading this, why? brilliant. wow. Definitely words to be taken with a grain of salt, and certainly not a member of the majority of thinkers. I'm not sure if he was a student but he was a terrible speller. I actually got good reviews from Gay Calgary Magazine. Go figure? Q: Was there anyone in particular who helped you out financially with your campaigning? A: We didn't get one single contribution from a business throughout the entire campaign. Not from a lack of trying either. We sent out CD-Rom contribution packages to all of Richard Magnus' 2001 biggest contributors. We did manage to collect about $1200 from the grassroots citizens, mostly in contributions of $10 or $20. Q: Secretly, deep down inside, why did you run for Mayor? A: I had a friend named Aaron Shoulders who was killed in front of a nightclub on 1st Street SW in the summer of 2003. It was a known 'problem area.' There had been many killings there before, and there have been many killings there since. The mayor still won't admit there is a problem. The day Aaron was killed was the day I realized that local government does more than erect streetlights and collect garbage - the decisions made by the mayor affect people's lives. I knew Dave Bronconnier wasn't smarter than me, and I knew I could do a better job. Q: If you could do it all over again, what would you do differently if anything? A: Although they will vehemently deny it if you ask them, I think privately Canadians are fascinated with American style campaign mud-slinging. It's what makes the news headlines. We had a number of credible 'bits of information' passed along to us, one documented a blatant conflict of interest, that we choose not to utilize in our effort to take the moral high ground. Next time I would play no holds barred. Q: What do you think you had more of than any other candidate? A: I'm tempted to give my standard answer - heart, but I think I was also quite a bit more intelligent than the other candidates. I was the only opposition that had actually thought through a logical plan to govern that didn't have anything to do with Jews, or Nazis, or jet engine turbine power generators. A reporter emailed me a sound clip of an interview with another candidate who was asked about fluoride in Calgary's water. He said we needed it because "things like the slaughterhouse would put milk and blood into our drinking water." Q: Favourite song and band at the moment? A: Favorite Song: Jet - "Are You Gonna Be My Girl" Favorite Band: Simple Plan Q: Anything else you want to tell me? A: Anything you want to know. Posted by Bella at 9:39 AM# 3 Comments: This comment has been removed by a blog administrator. By If you don't want to read it, then don't. NO one is asking you to James. By Well in fairness Megan, there's no pictures and you used big words. By
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