I guess with our current crop of incompetents in city hall, this assault on basic democracy is not surprising at all.
For those not familiar with the term gerrymandering, you can be forgiven. The word is really not that much in use anymore as most developed democracies have gone out of their way to end that odious practice. The definition is below:
ger·ry·man·der
tr.v. ger·ry·man·dered, ger·ry·man·der·ing, ger·ry·man·dersTo divide (a geographic area) into voting districts so as to give unfair advantage to one party in elections.n.
It appears to be a trend for elected officials to ignore or fire electoral officers in Alberta. While Ed Stelmach, fires them for doing their jobs, Calgary city hall simply ignores them.
It is not enough for Aldermen to vote themselves large wage increases with no accountability, I see that they now want to meddle with the ward boundaries in order to assure themselves wins when we do indeed have a chance to hold them accountable in elections.
This practice is nothing less than disgusting. As I said, any real democracy will try and keep the determinations of electoral boundaries as impartial and arms-length as possible in order to avoid perceptions of impropriety. In their profound arrogance however, our Aldermen have not only ignored the recommendations of the electoral officer, they have boldly decided to take their deliberations into private discussion!!
This is pathetic and offensive. If you guys are going to be impartial, why would you fear having the public in on your deliberations? We do indeed employ you do we not?
The corruption in Calgary’s city hall has hit a new heights.