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.

Candidates in other communities don't have such entertaining street names to work with.  Look at that list -- you could write a whole Beatrix Potter book with that cast of characters.

Another crisp fall day, great for walking.  I had interesting conversations about debt, about rules for municipal grants, and about sidewalk replacement.  Along Marten, I met lots of cheerful young Aussies -- they can't vote, but they all tell me they're having a great time working and visiting inCanada.

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.

In spite of the heavy snowfall warning this morning, it was a sunny and pleasant late afternoon when I went door-knocking in the Marmot/Porcupine area.  I'm so impressed with how many people have been able to keep their flowers going -- everything from gorgeous hanging pots of petunias to a spectacular bed of snapdragons.

Lots of interesting conversations, including one about making it easier for citizens to have input into decision-making. 

 The person I was chatting with mentioned how much she had enjoyed the first open house of the Community Plan process, but found it difficult to have other, similarly meaningful opportunities for input.  We talked about how busy everyone is, and how hard it is for the average citizen to follow all the activities of the various levels of government and stay informed. 

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I think the town of Banff is doing an amazing job on its website these days -- it has become a tremendous resource for interested citizens.  We can supplement that with a range of information and opportunities to get involved, so that people who like using paper, people who like to respond online, and people who enjoy face-to-face meetings all have a chance to get involved with the town in their preferred way.

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.