Candidates take digs at Iveson over infrastructure woes at Edmonton mayoral forum

No debating.That was the rule at a mayoral forum Tuesday night, where 13 candidates were invited to tell the public why they should be Edmonton's next mayor.

Tencandidates and one candidate agentshowed up at the forum and were expected to be civil and "respectful" while answering questions from the audience, moderator Dave Robertson told the participants.

But at least two candidates took digs at incumbent mayor Don Iveson.

About halfway through the three-hour question-and-answer marathon, Robertson cut off Neil Stephens who was taking aim at Iveson on how the city has dealt with infrastructure projects.

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"Don's been on council for 10 years, some of the things he wants you to think he's going to fix tomorrow, he should have fixed yesterday," Stephens said.

"We discourage personal attacks in the forum," Robertson said. "Would you like to rephrase your remarks?"

"No, leave it as it is," Stephens responded.

Several recent projects in Edmonton, such as the Metro LRT and the Walterdale Bridge, were delayed by years.

"No one's more frustrated than us at cityhall," Iveson told the crowd of about 300 people.

He said attempts to hold contractors accountable were not effective untilcouncil made changes with staff and contractors five years ago.

"I'm fully confident that projects coming online two, three, four years from now that we started will be better," Iveson insisted. "We are fixing it."

"Mr. Mayor, haven't you been on council for the last 12 years?I don't understand why you haven't fixed it earlier," responded candidate Mike Butler.

Bouchier and Koziakno-shows

Accountability and transparency were raised by several candidates, with many vowing to have Edmontonians more involved in the city's decision-making process.

"City projects will be on time and on budget. Details of these situations will be made public," Steven Shewchuk said.

Fahad Mughal, a former employee at the city, said he knows where inefficiencies are and wants the city to be more accountable.

Absent were TazBouchierand DonKoziak.

Koziakmade headlines last week when he suggested the city revisit the smoking ban in public buildings.

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Tuesday's forum, the secondahead of the Oct. 16 election, was much more civil than the first on Sept. 26.

That forum started with a clash between Carla Frost and Rob Ligertwood, when Frost was caught on tape saying, "If you don't apologize to me, I'm going to knock you out," in response to Ligertwood allegedly calling her "sweetie."

No threats were heard this time, but Frost the only woman at the forum and one of only two women running for mayor joked in her opening statement that she's worked with many menover the years.

Infill an issue

Frost threw a fair amount of colour into the discussions with comments on issues like infillhousing.

"I call it the sardine house," she said in reference to infill housing. "I don't approve of sardines."

The majority of candidates said they would put a moratorium on lot splitting and infill.

"When an infill home is so expensive that most of the people can't afford it, why do we have infill?" Mughal said.

Instead of suggesting specific policies on ways to improve the city, the candidates spent most of their brief responses complaining about past decisions.

Bike lanes and transportation

Many candidates said the bike lanes were a waste in a winter city.

"It doesn't make sense," Butler said "Let's make separate corridors."

Butler has run for council, provincial and federal politics before. He's campaigning onfreezing property taxes and encouragingresponsible building in the city.

Iveson defended the lanes, saying similar approaches are used in other winter cities like Winnipeg.

"They are business-friendly," he said. "[The system] decongests our roads overall downtown."

Iveson said since the lanes opened in the summer, the city has seen a fourfold increase in people cycling from 1,000 to 4,000 cyclists.

"That is several thousandpeople who are not driving," he said.

Iveson's closing comments focused on the future of the city.

"The momentum is undeniable," he said. "We have to build like a city of a million people, cause that's just around the corner."

There will be a third mayoral forumon Wednesday, Oct. 11ahead of voting on October 16.