When was the last time a city councillor called you and suggested you get together for a chat?

I suspect that, for most of us, that has never happened. But it does happen to me from time to time and it causes me some concern as to what I should do.

I try to write this column from the point of view of the average person. I’m not a journalist, I’m a commentator, and I have no intention of devoting my life to hanging around city council, city councillors or members of the civic administration in order to understand what is going on in our fair city.

My understanding of what is happening and not happening in Edmonton is the same as yours. It’s based solely on what I hear and see as I navigate my way around the city. I do not want to write anything based on information that you don’t have or don’t have access to should you want it. So that takes me back to invitations to chat from councillors.

I turn down those invitations. I’m not particularly interested in who our councillors are. I don’t care if they love their mothers or say their prayers at night. I don’t care if they have children or if they are straight or gay. It is of little concern to me if they have a cat or a hamster or if they belong to an organization that helps widows, orphans and stray dogs.

What I am interested in is what our city councillors and our mayor manage to achieve. Not what they want to achieve, or hope to achieve, or wish they could achieve, but what they actually achieve.

So if the roads aren’t cleared of snow in a timely manner, whether or not our councillors are nice people does not mitigate that fact. I don’t care about their talk about creating a sustainable city when we continue to push development farther and farther away from the older parts of the city.

In many instances, listening to our councillors talk is like listening to a surgeon explain how an operation was a success even though the patient died. I believe that you and I decide on what our city is and isn’t based on what we experience, and not on what we are told. And what we are told often doesn’t match up with what we experience.