Yesterday was an extremely busy day. 

We had a morning candidates forum at the high school -- kudos to candidate Erich Mende and new socials teacher Mr. Skinner for organizing this.  The students were extremely well-prepared with thought-provoking questions.   As always when I am at BCHS, I was impressed with the attentiveness and courtesy of the students.  I have spoken at other high schools, and I know that the atmosphere at BCHS is something special.

After a few hours of my normal work (with a pleasant break chatting with Stavros Karlos, as he was door-knocking on Grizzly), I went door-knocking on Muskrat Street.  Lots of people were home and I had some great discussions focussing on affordable housing, the rec centre, and even the interesting joys and perils of re-visiting an earlier career. 

One householder made the very good point that affordable housing is even more of an issue for single people who wish to remain in Banff throughout their careers and then retire here.    She pointed out that ownership of even a small apartment-style condo is challenging with one income, and felt that the Housing Corp has concentrated on families, to the exclusion of the large group of singles and childless couples who make Banff home.  This is a point related to a discussion at the Forum, so it's definitely coming from more than one source, and we have to incorporate this viewpoint into our thinking about the future. 

I also had a discussion with another householder about potential barriers in the development process to the creation of affordable housing by private developers, and also about the astonishing lack of maintenance and upkeep on some of the rental properties -- something that I have certainly observed firsthand and up close over the past few weeks.

A really original idea that I heard yesterday was the idea of "community bonds" -- borrowing by the municipality from its own citizens, to be paid back with interest.  Of course I'm familiar with federal government bonds, and I knew that big cities have issued bonds, but I had never thought of it in conjunction with Banff.  I love the idea of people being able to invest in their community.

I had 10 minutes to get changed after door-knocking and I was off to the HooDoo Lounge for the candidates' meet-and-greet.  I really enjoyed the opportunity to discuss the proposed parkade, the pedestrian bridge, my paperless campaign, LEEDS building standards, tourism marketing and the visitor experience with the folks who turned out.  Huge kudos to Jeff Hines and Mike Mendelman for their hospitality and their commitment to encouraging the younger voters.

A lively night at the BPL last night, with good speeches, good questions, and lots of audience participation.  Huge thanks to the Banff Lake Louise Hotel Motel Association, and especially Darren Reeder and Eric Harvie, for organizing and promoting this event, to the Banff Park Lodge and Frank Denouden for generously hosting yet another key community event, to Ted Hart for a super job of moderating, and to the audience for hanging in there.  The format of the evening was the best-planned of the forums I have watched and participated in.

There were generally positive reactions from all the candidates for support for the day care and the library, which was very heartening to see.  There was an interesting discussion of late night noise, which pointed out the good progress that has been made, and explored ideas that can help even more.  An impassioned plea was made for the needs of the 18-35 year old service workers.  Candidates were quizzed on affordable housing, and some offered concrete ideas.

I found the discussions on the rec centre and on the commercial growth cap to be particularly interesting.  Almost all the descriptions of what types of events would be hosted in the new rec centre focused on national and international events, tournaments, etc.,  leaving me wondering where there will be room for the community that this centre is supposedly for.  A few candidates proposed "revisiting", "reworking", "rethinking" the growth cap, while assuring us that that didn't necessarily mean attempting to raise it.

Here are a few words from my closing speech:

Council elections are about ideas and values.  More than higher levels of government, a municipal council stays close to the people it serves, a municipal council can really get things done, and the ideas and values of the councillors you vote for will have a noticeable, meaningful effect on our community in the next three years.  ...  In a small town, we are very fortunate.  We don’t just hear about our council candidates at election time.  We know them in their day to day lives, and we see how they interact with their families, their neighbours, their work, their community.  We learn their values as they live them.

After listening closely to the candidates last night, I would say that we have some very different sets of values represented among the ten people who are running.  It will be interesting to see which values the community wants to have reflected in their municipal government.

Yesterday, I visited the rest of Marmot, Pika Place, then Cougar and most of Squirrel.  It was a great day, with piles of crisp yellow leaves to shuffle through and lots of people doing yard work.

I was actually geared up and walking out the door this afternoon when I decided that it was not a good idea.  Although I thought that I was early enough to miss dinnertime, I could also imagine some people having an early Thanksgiving dinner, or being busy in the kitchen, and being interrupted by the campaign knock on the door.  I knew people would be polite about it, but I didn't think they'd be pleased!  This squeezes the schedule somewhat, but I'll hit the trail again tomorrow.

A pleasant evening stroll along the second half of Cave gave me a chance to chat with a lot of people about the council campaign and the issues.  I'm really delighted at how many people are pleased to see a paperless campaign.

The second half of Cave is such a lovely example of what a Banff street can look like -- so many properties have been careful to keep their mature trees across the front of the lot, so that when you look along the street, you just see trees, and don't realize how many housing units there are tucked in behind.  Right now, with the mix of dark spruces and brightly coloured deciduous, it's absolutely gorgeous.