Handicapping the arena vote

Calgary’s city council votes on Tuesday afternoon on whether or not to move ahead with the arena deal. With an eye towards what’s going to happen, here’s a quick rundown of who’s likely voting which way.

There’s 15 members on council and they need a clear majority of whoever shows up. Council member Ray Jones has been dealing with some health issues lately, so it’s unclear if there will be 14 or 15 overs present. Either way, eight votes gets the deal done.

The three Event Centre Assessment Committee members – Jeff Davison (Ward 6), Shane Keating (Ward 12) and Ward Sutherland (Ward 1) – have been shepherding this deal through for the last 14 months. It’s their baby. They know the deal backwards and forwards and are the most likely to be comfortable with it.

As a council member on the Calgary Municipal Land Corporation board Jyoti Gondek (Ward 3) is very familiar with the Rivers District plan and is the most likely to be confident in CMLC’s ability to develop the area around the arena. (George Chahal of Ward 5 is the other council rep on the CMLC board, but he’s asked for an extension to the feedback period.)

Mayor Naheed Nenshi publicly declared support for the proposal on Twitter.

Sean Chu (Ward 4) told CTV News he would be voting yes. Joe Magliocca (Ward 2) has only retweeted pro-arena things on his Twitter, so he’s likely voting yes. That’s seven votes right there.

Ray Jones (Ward 10) hasn’t been to council in awhile due to an illness, but his Twitter bio page includes him wearing a Flames jersey.

Diane Colley-Urquhart (Ward 13), Gian-Carlo Carra (Ward 9) and Peter Demong (Ward 14) haven’t publicly declared themselves one way or the other.

Evan Woolley (Ward 8), Jeromy Farkas (Ward 11) and Chahal have all asked the city manager to ask the Flames for more time. The city manager has passed that request on to the Flames and is expecting to hear back on Tuesday.

During last week’s budget discussions, Druh Farrell (Ward 7) called the city’s job cuts cruel. She’s a virtual lock to vote against the deal.

Unless the “no” group is joined by four more council members, or the Flames decide to extend the public feedback period, the deal will likely be ratified.