A third Calgary city councillor is hoping for another term in the ward he’s been representing since 2017.
Ward 6 Coun. Jeff Davison announced his re-election campaign on Friday morning. He joins Ward 4’s Sean Chu and Ward 13’s Diane Colley-Urquhart in seeking re-election in their respective wards.
Davison’s announcement came via a pre-recorded video on social media.
Davison said the city is at a turning point.
“This is an opportunity for for us to think about who we are and reflect on where we’ve been, but more so reflect on where we need to go from here,” the Ward 6 councillor said.
According to his website, Davison has been trying to bring a “pro-business vision to city council.”
In 2017, Davison replaced an outgoing Richard Pootmans in Ward 6, winning nearly 45 per cent of the vote on a campaign of fixing traffic and congestion, fiscal responsibility and economic development.
Davison called his first term “an incredible honour.”
“Nobody anticipated a pandemic in your term and that has provided a unique challenge,” Davison told Global News.
“Going forward, I suspect a lot of the concerns are going to be less about the individual wards,” he said, noting localized concerns will always be heard by councillors.
“But the focus is really going to be us as a city and how do we move forward from here?
“Personally, I think Calgary is in a very unique spot. As hard as we’ve been hit, I do think that we’re one of the unique jurisdictions that could come out of COVID(-19) better than we went into it.”
Davison said the “compounding pressure” of the downturn in oil prices and the coronavirus pandemic presented economic challenges across the city.
“I think the challenge going forward is really how do you do more with less and how do you figure out how to to find a path forward to to get back to prosperity again for Calgarians?”
Davison played a role in negotiating the planned arena/event centre in Victoria Park, a deal that included the City of Calgary, the Calgary Stampede, the Calgary Flames’ ownership group and community organizations.
On Tuesday, Ward 3 Coun. Jyoti Gondek was certified by Elections Calgary as a mayoral candidate, joining Ward 11 Coun. Jeromy Farkas and local businessman Brad Field.
Davison would not rule out running for mayor, but said it’s still very early in Calgary’s election season.
Five city wards will have no incumbent running in them, with Gondek and Farkas entering the mayoral race. In June 2020, Ward 12 Coun. Shane Keating announced he would not seek re-election in October’s municipal election. And Ray Jones retired from representing Ward 10 in October 2020. On Friday, Ward 8 Coun. Evan Woolley announced he would not be running for re-election.
Candidates have until Sep. 21 to finalize nominations with Elections Calgary.
Calgarians go to the polls on Oct. 18.
–With files from Global News’ Adam MacVicar
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