Donate to the Mayor's Annual Christmas Food Drive

Today, I joined with The Calgary Food Bank, my City of Calgary colleagues, Canada Safeway, many local media personalities, and representatives from every organization in this poster to launch the 26th Annual Mayor's Christmas Food Drive.

While I'm proud that Calgarians come together (whenever the need arises!) to help their neighbours, I'm sad to say that the need has not gone away. Too many of our fellow citizens still go hungry. Over the last year, 129,948 families and individuals had to use the Calgary Food Bank, and 42 per cent of them were children.

The holidays aren't an easy time for a lot of our fellow Calgarians--especially following the heavy September snowfall and power outages in the core in October. And the Calgary Food Bank knows the need for food hampers is about to jump (as it always does in December) by 70 per cent.

Last year, Calgarians helped raise over half a million dollars worth of food and cash donations through the Mayor’s Christmas Food Drive. Please help me to beat that amount this year. Together, we can make our community hunger-free.

You can donate food at any of our partner locations (indicated in the poster) or make a cash donation online.

Thank you!

- Mayor Naheed Nenshi

Survey says: We love our city!

I love good data because it leads to good decisions. The release of today's annual citizen satisfaction survey gives The City an excellent, quantifiable snapshot of what Calgarians are thinking.

The data show what most Calgarians already know: we live in a great city with a high quality of life. We are proud to live here and, for the most part, we get good value for our tax dollars. Plus, we're optimistic that, as a community, we're on the right track. I’m proud that the citizen satisfaction survey has consistently shown this since I've had this role.

You can review all the findings at www.calgary.ca/citizensatisfaction, but here are a few highlights:

• Quality of life perceptions remain very high, and much higher than in 2010.
• Satisfaction with city services remains high.
• When it comes to the big issues, infrastructure, traffic, and roads remain at the top, followed by transit.
• Nearly two-thirds of people perceive good value for their municipal tax dollar.
• There's broad consensus asking for more investment across city services.

I encourage you to dive deep into the study, which was conducted by respected research firm Ipsos Reid.

As we get closer to budget decisions over the next two weeks (www.calgary.ca/actionplan) the opinions of you and your fellow citizens will continue to be very important.

- Mayor Naheed Nenshi

Huge improvement at Calgary Transit: Real-Time bus information!

Really big news out of Calgary Transit! Starting immediately, you can get real-time bus information using www.CalgaryTransit.com, the mobile site, Teletext, and Teleride--that means no more waiting for the bus in -27 degree windchill! Instead, you can check for the next bus and find out exactly how many minutes away it is based on its GPS location.

This revolutionizes the way we use Calgary Transit, and it is a dramatic step forward in making transit much more customer-focused. The new website is also much better (and mobile-friendly!) so it can be your best source for next ride information and route planning.

As we created the RouteAhead (Calgary Transit's first long-term strategy), we often heard from customers about what we could do to improve customer service. The new website, improved trip planner, real-time data, and multi-language supports are in direct response to what we heard.

To learn more about the improvements of www.CalgaryTransit.com, check out the video above.

Mayor Nenshi Reads: The Change Your Name Store

In this latest edition of Mayor Nenshi Reads, the Mayor Naheed Nenshi reads The Change Your Name Store by Calgary author Leanne Shirtliffe with illustrations by Tina Kugler.

This is one of a series of children's books read by Mayor Nenshi to encourage literacy and reading time with adults and kids.

Enjoy!

Action Plan is The City's budget, and it needs your feedback

Today, The City of Calgary released its four-year business plan and budget--Action Plan. Unlike other orders of government, there are no surprises in this $22 billion plan. It was created starting with the input of citizens and public direction from City Council. Now that we have this comprehensive budget, we are looking for your feedback on it (by phone, online, or in person). And, in the coming weeks, City Council will debate, line by line, the Action Plan that will guide our municipality for the next four years. It's important stuff, so I hope you have an opportunity to check it out.

Here's my letter that appears in the beginning of Action Plan...

Fellow Calgarians:

Business plans and budgets are some of the most important documents we can create for our city. They provide a detailed roadmap for Calgary over the next four years—direction to over 15,000 City of Calgary employees and many community partners to deliver important daily services, programs, and infrastructure to 1,195,200 Calgarians. 

This is your document. Action Plan is based on a month of engagement, and discussion with thousands of Calgarians. You told us about your priorities and Council, in turn, based its priorities on what we heard from you. From there, our colleagues in The City of Calgary produced a very thorough set of business plans and budgets.

Our biggest issue is managing growth. This is certainly better than the alternative, but it means we have to make smart decisions about how we grow to ensure prosperity and opportunity. In fact, since I've been your mayor, we have experienced three of the five largest annual population increases in our history. We have added an entire City of Red Deer two times over! 

I’m proud that, together, we've produced an Action Plan that provides the services and infrastructure Calgarians need while keeping our property taxes among the lowest in Canada. Of course, we have a lot of work ahead of us, but we now have a solid foundation from which to start.

Sincerely,

Naheed K. Nenshi

Mayor