First-time council members should be ready for a 'firehose': Former councillors
A rookie candidate who wins a seat on city council in the upcoming election on Oct. 20 should expect a steep learning curve, two former city councillors told Taproot.
Jon Dziadyk, who was the councillor for the former Ward 3 from 2017 to 2021, and Bev Esslinger, who was the councillor for the former Ward 2 from 2013 to 2021 (ward names and boundaries changed in 2021), talked about their experiences running, winning, and losing, with Taproot managing editor Tim Querengesser during a members-only livestream on Oct. 10.
Some reporting suggests that some council incumbents may be at risk of losing their seats. Meanwhile, current Mayor Amarjeet Sohi is not running for reelection. Given this context, Esslinger and Dziadyk offered insight for any rookie candidates who win.
Both used the idiom of "drinking water from a firehose" to describe the experience of arriving at council as a newcomer.
"The learning curve is great on a lot of issues," Esslinger said. "You're learning a lot of information quickly, and I think you have to be willing to put the time in to do the work, because when you get a huge binder of information before a meeting, you've got to do the work and read it and figure it out. You can't just wait until the council meeting to understand issues."
Dziadyk said councillors receive an orientation shortly after the election, but there's pressure to learn quickly. He added that in the hurry, he could struggle to keep up at the beginning. "At the end of the day, I was laying in bed (asking myself), 'Did I really just vote for that thing that I didn't really want to do?' It happened so fast. You have some reflections like that, and I don't know what the best answer is … Maybe you could add another week or two for familiarization."
Esslinger said candidates are likeliest to succeed if they are currently knocking on doors and making connections as the time before the Oct. 20 election winds down. "I heard one candidate say, 'I'm just doing events; I don't really have time for the doors,'" she said. "Then I don't think people have time for you. I mean, you have to go out and do the work. That's the job. That's how you get signs, that's how you get commitment, that's how you get dollars. So if people aren't doing that, they've missed the key element."
She added that candidates have to be comfortable doing face to face work. "If you're not willing to do the work, it's probably not the right job for you."
Dziadyk won in 2017 having self-funded his campaign but lost four years later. The result was a "gut punch," he said, but also a mixed blessing. "Don't get me wrong, there's some fear of missing out," he said. "But also, I see the existing councillors walking around with their two cell phones, heads down. They look tired half the time, and they're hustling, because that's part of the job. But I'm currently getting good sleep and I have time to go to the gym."
Taproot holds members-only livestreams, which we call Taproot Exchange, every second Friday, where guests such as Dziadyk and Esslinger go deep on issues of interest to Edmontonians. Become a member for access to future livestreams.
