Ladies and Gentlemen... meet your new Wards

Calgary City Council, quite quietly, passed a motion on February the 9th to amend the city's ward boundaries as follows.

Here are the Wards as they existed at the time of the last municipal election, when 4 dozen-or-so Calgarians came out to vote for City Council.

Here are the wards as amended.

A bit of a change? OH, yeah.

• Ward 1 stays mostly the same.
• Ward 2 gains a neighbourhood lost by Ward 1
• Ward 3 loses its top-left half, fully 50% of its area, but gains a slice of Ward 5.
• Ward 4 loses its bottom-right corner to Ward 7, but gains some of Ward 7's northern reaches.
• Ward 5 swallows up much of what was formerly Ward 10, effectively doubling in area.
• Ward 6 gains several small pieces of land from Ward 8.
• Ward 7 changes pretty heavily - it gobbles up the northern "leg" of Ward 9, loses its OWN northern leg to Ward 4, and gains some of Ward 4's southeast fringe.
• Ward 8 gains a tiny corner of Ward 11, and loses bits of its western edge to Ward 6.
• Ward 9 gains a little at the expense of Ward 12 and loses a little on its southwest flank to Ward 11, it loses its northern leg to Ward 7, and then expands northwards to fill the space formerly occupied by Ward 10 that wasn't already gobbled up by Ward 5.
• Ward 10 has been completely moved. It is now in what was formerly the top-left half of Ward 3.
• Ward 11 loses a tiny bit of land just north of Woodbine to Ward 13, but gains what looks like Acadia and Southwood, among some other tracks of land to the east of its current boundary.
• Ward 12 loses Riverbend, Willow Park, Maple Ridge, Acadia and a few others in its northwestern quadrant.
• Ward 13 loses a parcel on its northeast corner, but gains a parcel of the same approximate size on the northwestern corner, both interactions being with Ward 11. It also loses a tiny slice on the far southern edge of city limits, to Ward 14.
• Ward 14 gains said tiny slice from Ward 13, adding it as a western panhandle.

Now, the new ward boundaries typically aren't enacted until the next voting day, so you still live in the same ward you think you do, and are represented by the same Alderman you thought you were, until October of 2010.

It will be VERY interesting, though, to see where the incumbents who are most affected by this choose to run. The incumbent's advantage, familiarity in the community, doesn't necessarily apply in newly-added communities to the ward - and CERTAINLY don't apply if the entire ward itself has moved (good luck, Ald. Chabot).

Floor's open to you, Nation. If you're in Calgary, will your ward change? Are you happy about it? Getting a great new alderman, or moving from a real public servant to a seat-warmer?

- E.S. (who gets to keep his Alderman)