Brian Pincott blasts colleagues for being ‘no shows’ at Calgary Arts Development meeting

An outgoing member of city council is blasting his colleagues for not showing up to the annual general meeting of a civic partner.

Councillor Brian Pincott said it was “embarrassing and frustrating” after the annual general meeting of Calgary Arts Development (CADA) was cancelled because not enough council members were in attendance.

The meeting was set for a couple of weeks ago, but it was called off because of a lack of quorum after only three members of council showed up.

“It’s frustrating for the organization that is sitting there because the message they get is that council doesn’t care” Pincott said.

CADA receives municipal funding and makes investments, allocating dollars to hundreds of arts groups across the city.

Mayor Naheed Nenshi said he was frustrated as well, especially since council set the date for the meeting.

“You should be booking them like you book council meetings and there’s really no good excuse to book over them, unless you’re at an Alberta Urban Municipalities Association (AUMA) meeting or an Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) meeting and you’re out of town,” he said.

Councillor Joe Magliocca, who believes he was getting the hairy eyeball from colleagues for missing the meeting, said he followed the rules and procedures.

“I did send in an excuse note about a week and a half to two weeks prior to it because I was occupied in my community; we were opening up some new playgrounds and a new school,” he said.

Nenshi said he understands there are times when a councillor will miss a meeting, but council events take priority. He added politicians can ask the community group to reschedule an event because the councillor is at a meeting.

“We have volunteers who do this work, schedule this time, who take days off work so they get one opportunity to tell council what they’re doing.”

Nenshi said there’s hundreds of million dollars of council funding and capital funding in all of the arts funding.