Pt. 1:”…so it’s like Footloose, but with vegetables?”

(Two things before we delve into my experience at last night’s public consultation meeting at City Hall:

1) This is the first of a series of posts targeted at people who don’t understand or care about civic politics. If you don’t fall into that category and are looking for a point-by-point account of what happened, check out the article in this morning’s Edmonton Journal.

2) My account of last night’s meeting is going to be posted in several parts throughout the next few days, so if you’re interested check back regularly or follow us on Twitter.)

Okay. This is more than a little embarrassing to admit, but at 29 years old, I don’t know or understand anything about City Council.

Maybe it’s because I went to technical school instead of university, or maybe it’s because I’ve done my best to emotionally repress most of junior high and high school, but when it comes to the specifics of how government operates (at any level) I’m pretty much Simple Jack over here. My attempts to understand politics, whether through hearsay, the media, or even political science books all end the same way – with me wanting to beat my head against a wall, because I sort of understand what people are talking about, but then I also sort of don’t.

It’s like I’ve missed some pivotal plot point that everyone else around me caught; think of seeing “The Sixth Sense” and not getting that (uh oh, 1999 spoiler alert!) Bruce Willis was a ghost. The credits roll, and you’re looking around, and everybody else is nodding excitedly and talking about what just happened, and you’re totally lost. And I, personally, hate it. I want to be informed, and it has long been my opinion that more people would be engaged in civic politics if it didn’t just make them feel so incredibly stupid.

So what can I do about this? I consulted my thinktank:

What can I do about it, hipster?

Fry cook?

Toddler?

Hmmm. You raise some good points.

Upon reflection, I decided a good first step would be to attend a public consultation meeting. Because, as I always say, “when in doubt, attend a public consultation meeting.”

Now, let me set the scene a bit here by telling you that I was absolutely terrified to go to this meeting. Not only because of the obvious fears that come with walking into a room full of strangers (that I would arrive late, trip, knock something expensive over with a loud crash, try to pick it up before anyone noticed and have my pants fall spontaneously down, all in one fluid motion) but also because for all my attempts to understand what I was going to (I read archived articles online, a few blogs and websites, and the city’s draft municipal development plan overview), all I knew was:

- that I had heard the Greater Edmonton Alliance (GEA) citizens’ group wanted to get asses in the seats at City Hall to support local food economy and local food security.

- that I had a vague understanding of what the GEA meant by “food economy”(turning local food into a part of the local economy in a meaningful way) and “food security” (growing enough food locally to feed the entire city of Edmonton).

- that I was pretty sure the debate was about plots of land on the outskirts of town that some folks thought should be protected for agriculture, specifically in the context of building a local food economy.

- that I was pretty sure the City’s draft municipal plan wanted to keep the door open to using that land for housing instead of taking steps to protect it for agriculture.

All in all, if I’m really honest, I naively assumed this was going to be a movie cliche: Kevin Bacon wants to dance but the town elders say no! Citizens want land to grow vegetables on but City Hall says no! ZOMG the drama!

But when I got there, I was pretty bowled over by a number of things (I’ll get into specifics in my next post). What really knocked my socks off, though, was just how genuinely pleased the councilors were to have so many citizens on hand for the discussion (council chambers were over capacity).

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I want to be BFFs with the Mayor or anything, and I probably won’t be inviting the council to see the new Transformers movie this weekend – but I thought it was great that they were so happy to see a big gang of people who likely just wanted to argue with them. I was pleasantly, sincerely surprised they weren’t the villains I think they’re sometimes made out to be.

So: if you’re interested in local politics but feel like you don’t have the smarts to get involved, here’s the first thing I’ve learned: City Hall isn’t a Roman Colosseum. It’s not a battleground, or an “us versus them” thing, which – after a lifetime of hearing political news boiled down to “for” and “against” arguments – was NOT what I was expecting. City council, not unlike soylent green, is just made up of people – elected people – who are trying to find some common ground between citizens, businesses, and other interests.

Granted, they’re not all perfect. Just like anywhere else, some people are driven by their conscience and some people are driven by their ego. Some people are nice and some people are dicks. But is that exclusive to politics? Hardly. And as soon as I started thinking about politics in terms of people, and stopped thinking about it in terms of absolutes and arguments, it got really interesting.

Yes, seriously…?

(For more details, photos and audio from the meeting, check back or follow our updates on Twitter.)