Calgary City Hall reaching new levels of idiocy on the way to 2013 elections.

While governments on all levels struggle with deficits and tough social challenges, Calgary city hall remains immersed in idiotic navel gazing and pie-in-the sky policies from trying to ban Calgarians from eating certain kinds of soups to closing lanes on roadways to accommodate a demand for bicycle lanes that does not exist.

While many of our city council members are members of the flakey-left, Brian Pincott never fails to take the cake in his stupid, intrusive and rather petty initiatives. Some of his antics have been covered here.

The looming dragon that Pincott is now slaying in city hall is his imagined issue of: LIGHT POLLUTION!

Backed by Richard Pootmans, Councilor Brian Pincott got a motion passed to work towards implementing massive regulatory changes to how we are allowed to light things outdoors.

The document can be found here.  This document is loaded with idiotic terms such as “light trespass” and “unchecked light egress” along with enough other vapid pap that one feels somewhat dumber for having read it.

Bullshit issues abound from “impacts to human immune function” (load of crap) to even worrying about our poor bug population: “behavioural changes in insect and animal ecosystems”.

We have millions and millions of unlit acres in Canada where our mosquitos can live without fear and moths can thrive without running into porch lights.

If left unchecked, busybody nuts like Pincott will have armies of bylaw officers checking everything from whether you packed your coffee grounds in the wrong bin to peeking over your fence to check the wattage of your porch light (assuming you are allowed to have one). This document also suggests that perhaps lights within buildings should be regulated in their use too!!

Yes people, screw emergency services! Who cares about those pothole loaded roads and overflowing sewers! What this city needs is discussion on porch lights, fire pits and coffee grounds!

We are still more than six months away from the municipal elections but the time is now to prepare to change some of the nuts out that we have on council. Pincott only won by default when Barry Erskine pulled his stunt of a last second retreat from the election race leaving no time for any sane candidates to enter and run in Ward 11. Let’s not let this flake (among others) get re-elected to Calgary city council. We can’t afford many more years of this kind of terrible city management.

A Record Month for Calgary City Council.

It has been some time since I have seen our intrusive city council get on such a roll of covering so many self-important, expensive and intrusive initiatives that we really don’t need and that really don’t fall within what I see as their mandate as a city council.

Below is a clip from the Alberta Municipal Government Act mandating what the role of a municipality should be:

Municipal purposes
3 The purposes of a municipality are:

(a) to provide good government,

(b) to provide services, facilities or other things that, in the
opinion of council, are necessary or desirable for all or a
part of the municipality, and

(c) to develop and maintain safe and viable communities.

Now the above statement is pretty broad and yes leaves a great deal open to interpretation. It greatly empowers council in that it allows things to be done “in the opinion” of council which pretty much lets them judge themselves empowered to do damn near anything (and it shows in their actions).

What is outstanding in the document is also that the mandate is simple. The complexities in city governance are grown and created by busybody city councils that feel that they should be mandating, regulating and banning whatever practices among Calgarians they please.

Personal special interest mandates are showing clearly as city councilors waste their tax funded time on petty issues while major issues languish by the sidelines.

Council extremist Brian Pincott is a specialist in pushing these foolish, narrow initiatives. Pincott wants the law to tell you how many lights you can have turned on and at what time. Pincott wants to ban your right to use fire pits on your own property and perhaps even ban your wood burning fireplace. Brian Pincott wants ban cutting of trees on your own property and now Pincott feels it is his right and obligation to tell you what you are legally allowed to eat! 

Yes, I do understand that the practice of shark finning is repellent and inhumane. That being said, is it the role of a municipal council to ban the consumption of a legal product? Where do we stop? Veal? Foie Gras? Meat altogether? Non-organic foods? Non free range eggs? The list is endless and the precedent has been set. Sorry, I am grown to the point where I no longer will even let my mother tell me what I can or can’t eat, I sure as hell will not let a gang of busybody clowns in city hall tell me what to eat.

Despite a lack of need or demand, city hall will be spending a fortune closing even more lanes downtown for bikes and has set a timeline to pursue the expensive and proven loser called “bike sharing” that has proven to be a catastrophe around the world. 

Now in a stroke of genius despite the City of Calgary’s $3 billion debt and constant tax increases, Nenshi and city council have happily decided to pour tax dollars into golf courses to subsidize green fees. Hey, I like golfing but I don’t expect taxpayers to keep the cost of my game down. Is golf a need? How many Calgarians are served in this move? Is there a giant hidden surplus out there?

What can we look forward to in the next month as these nuts work to control more aspects of our personal lives on private property?

It is past time to clean house on Calgary city council. The next election is a year away. I do hope that a good fresh slate of people come forward as we really can’t afford these fools much longer.