Calgary's next MAYOR...... Ric McIver???
McIver coy about mayoral bid
'I'm getting a lot of pressure to do it,' says three-term alderman
By Joel Kom And Kim Guttormson, Calgary Herald
January 13, 2009
Ald. Ric McIver recently turned heads at a charity hockey game. But it wasn't a highlight-reel goal or crushing hit that set tongues wagging at the game featuring current and former aldermen and MLAs.
It was his jersey. Specifically, the number on the back: 2010.
Those at the game thought the implication was obvious. They saw it as the latest sign McIver, a three-term alderman, is plotting a run for mayor in the next civic election.
"I think it's pretty clear what it means, don't you?" said one person who was at the game, which benefited Kids Up Front, a national charity.
Keith Brownsey, a political scientist at Mount Royal College, agreed.
"He did it deliberately," Brownsey said. "He wants to be mayor. He's showing people. It alerts people who would support him of his intentions."
McIver, for his part, was coy about why he had 2010 on his back, first saying he chose it because it was the year of the next Olympics.
"It was a fun hockey game," he said when asked if he was trying to send a message. "I was having fun."
Asked if he's running, McIver would only admit he's considering a bid for the mayor's chair.
"It's a decision that needs to be made in the future," he said. "I'm getting a lot of pressure to do it, and we'll see what happens."
McIver trotted out the jersey the same day Mayor Dave Bronconnier told the Herald that, barring any change in plans, he will run for the city's top job a fourth time.
If both men do enter the race next year, it would mark the ultimate high-stakes battle between two politicians who already butt heads on council.
The latest clash came during heated city budget talks in November, which sparked one of the loudest public outcries over municipal politics in recent memory. Bronconnier argued proposed compounded tax increases of 25 per cent over three years were needed to keep the still-growing city moving forward, while McIver was one of the key players who tried--and failed--to galvanize enough votes to send the budget back to city staff to bring the hikes closer to inflation.
Four days of tense talks reduced the increases to around 19 per cent compounded over three years.
But the larger impact for those on council was the two factions that arose out of the debates. One featured Bronconnier. The other, spearheaded by McIver, included aldermen Andre Chabot, Joe Connelly and Diane Colley-Urquhart -- who some have speculated is also considering a mayoral run, although she dismissed those rumours last month.
Some aldermen, who wouldn't speak on the record, are concerned pre-election positioning will have a negative impact on this council's ability to get things done over the next 19 months.
The fact McIver wore the jersey in public is likely a sign that city council's agenda will be increasingly influenced by political gamesmanship the closer the next election gets, Brownsey said.
"There will be a lot of publicity-seeking," he said.
McIver recently made the unusual move of attending the meeting of a community association outside his ward, a meeting he said he was invited to for discussions on transit-oriented development.
Several letters to the editor and Herald website comments have been urging him to run for mayor, which he said are not part of a co-ordinated effort to bolster his base.
McIver came to city council after two failed local election bids. In his first win to represent Ward 12, in 2001, he was backed by the Progressive Group for Independent Business, a right-wing lobby group for which McIver once sat on the executive.
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Originally Posted by JRSC00LUDE
