A Merry Councillor Christmas

Right. It’s settled then. That ringing in my ears? Definitely Christmas bells. Or, Jingle Bells, to use the more folksy vernacular.

I know it’s only Thursday, still five days to go before the actual statutory holiday but… [insert mayor in Florida/Budget Chief in Rio joke here.]

Now, I’m not saying we’re done here for this year at All Fired Up in the Big Smoke. You never know what might set us off, piercing our already egg nog & rum induced haze, and sitting us back down to write over the course of the next couple weeks or so. All I’m saying is don’t expect much, if in fact you ever really do when clicking on these wire and tube based pages.

What you can expect (fingers crossed, knock on wood) between now and into the early days of 2013 are some words from our very own city councillors. Earlier this month, we sent out RFIs to all 44 and – full disclosure here, not the mayor but only because it’s really a hassle to email him. You can’t just fire off a message. You’ve got to fill out a form and we thought it best not to give the mayor’s office our address. No good could come of that. Prank called pizzas delivered and all of that stuff.

We asked two of the corniest questions we could come up with because, well, that’s the nature of this season, isn’t it? Rich food and cheap sentiment. And we promised to run them as is, intact, untouched by us.

How corny?

You be the judge.

1) The Gift of Councilling: What is the one moment in 2012 that struck you as the best example of why it was you became a councillor.

2) Going Forward: In 2013, what is the one aspect you would like to see happen that would help develop better civic discourse?

We were going to ask what their favourite holiday movie or TV special was but this is all about peace, harmony and good will, and how many family fights have you witnessed that started over this statement: It’s A Wonderful Life?! That’s not a Christmas movie. It’s so sad!

We put no word limit on, suggesting anywhere from a single word to paragraph but left it entirely up to the councillor’s discretion. So far, there’s been a trickling in of responses, quite a few positive expressions of interest and only a couple polite and curt Up Yours, Buddy.

We’ll just wait, sit back, see what happens and post accordingly.

What we will ask of our readers is to keep any thoughts they may have in the spirit of the season. We will not look kindly upon any comments that do not reflect the better angels of our natures. Keep it civil, is what I’m saying. We can go back to bashing each other on January 7^th, 2013. You know, if there’s a 2013 and all that.

Until then, the best of the season to y’all and to y’all a good day. I said, Good Day.

— almost solsticely submitted by Cityslikr