Interview with Mike Anthony
Solvent: You’ve called your campaign, the “One Promise Campaign”, and the one promise is “Give me your vote, and I’ll give you my best”. How are people reacting to that?
Mike Anthony: People understand it, and I’m getting positive feedback for it. It basically means, “No B.S.”. You give me vote, I’ll give you my best, is the only realistic promise I can make. You can make big extravagant promises, but when people get into council, they soon realize, as I did 10 years ago, that unless everyone around the table agrees with you, you can’t guarantee anything. What I can promise people, is that every vote, every issue, every time, I will do my best to consider every angle, every piece of input from citizens. It doesn’t mean I’ll be able to please everybody, but I’ll do my best to listen, and in the end I’ll do what I think is best for the majority. That’s a promise that I can keep.
S: That must be one of the luxuries of incumbency, because if you make one promise, you can name off all of your achievements from work on past councils, so people know what they are getting when they vote for you.
MA: Even though I’m not going to make you B.S. promises, or make outlandish claims, you can look at my track record to know what I stand for. I’m able to point out to people some of the fiscal decisions I’ve made, decisions I’ve made to support the arts, or the decision to save Tweedsmuir Park, when I realized that the vast majority of the public doesn’t support reducing recreation space for any reason.
S: Speaking of Tweedsmuir, and your reversal on the issue, I kind of likened it to Nixon’s visit to China. When Nixon went to visit Mao, and established diplomatic ties, no one could accuse him of being soft on communism, because he spent his whole career fighting communism. Likewise, when you choose a park over a development that could help the city’s bottom line, the fact that you have played an important role on several fiscally responsible councils prevented you from losing your fiscal credibility while choosing the environment over financial concerns.
MA: That’s very nice of you to say, first of all. Number two, that’s a huge comparison to Nixon, and I never would have thought of it myself. Wow, that’s all I can say to that. For me it’s always about trying to listen. I answer every email, I take every call that I can… I’m not afraid to talk to people. I am pro development; I am a pro growth kind of guy. In this case, I was willing to look at the option of putting houses in there. We originally wanted 20 houses, and people kind of pushed back, so we went to 13. What started to break it down for me was at a planning advisory meeting back in May, I asked about the covenant on the land, and I never really got an answer that satisfied me. That got me talking to people. I talked to over 200 people in coffee shops, on the street, wherever, and I was amazed, but not necessarily surprised in the end I guess, but the vast majority, over 190, said, don’t ever reduce recreation space, for any reason. For me, there was a fundamental change of heart, I realized that people did not support that development.
S: When you consider the strength of the backlash over Tweedsmuir Park, would you agree that prior consultation could have avoided some of that?
MA: Oh ya, it could have been done better. As I talked to people, I realized that. It was a great learning experience. I will always push for as much public consultation and public input as possible. People in that area had the sense that they weren’t as well informed as they should have been.
S: Sometimes I like to imagine that I’m a city councillor. What would be the most difficult part of that? For me, I always think showing up at photo ops, and assuming the persona of a glad hand. It’s a performance to an extent. Do you think your past in radio contributes to your ability do the part of the job that requires a persona?
MA: Working in the media really helped me in the communication aspect, and it really helped me in not being afraid to speak publically, and it helped me to not be intimidated by events. The ribbon cutting stuff is important, and it’s important to be there for special events. I try to go to every business opening that I can as a show of respect for someone investing in the community. The real work is sitting around that table making the tough decisions; the stuff that most people would find boring. Sitting around a table for weeks on end battling it out over whether to put a four way stop at a certain intersection. There’s stuff that isn’t all that attractive to talk about, but that’s where the real work is. For me council was a real learning experience. I’ve been on there for 10 years now. I was young when I got on, I think I was one of the youngest ever. I was about 30 or 31. It was a big learning curve. As a reporter, I knew the issues, but it took a lot to get up to speed, and learn it from the inside.
S: Now that you have 10 years experience, would you say that you find the job more rewarding as the years go on? You must be seeing plans that you helped form 10 years ago coming to fruition now…
MA: Absolutely, speaking of seeds sown 10 years ago, when I was first elected in year 2000, there was myself, Al McDonald, Peter Chirico, who were quote, unquote, the newcomers. We were elected because there was a huge push in the city coming from the taxpayers association, which is a group that you don’t hear much from anymore, and they opened the people’s eyes to the fact that the city had a whole lot of expensive projects on the go with no plan to pay for them, and the finances were not being run very businesslike. The city was starting to carry debt with no plan to pay it, and no plan for future investment in infrastructure. We got in there and really exposed that. Myself, and Peter Chirico are still there, Al McDonald is trying to come back as Mayor, and Susan Church has moved on to the private sector. Over the years we have seen change in the way things operate. Most decisions are fiscally based. You see real investment in the infrastructure, we’re very aware of what the debt is, and have a plan to pay it off. You’re right, seeing all that come to fruition, it makes you proud.
S: A one term councillor would never experience that.
MA: You’re right, absolutely. At this point though, I honestly feel that I have gotten good at the job. Being good at it doesn’t mean you please everybody all the time. It means I am comfortable with it, I’m capable, I understand the issues, I can go in and get the job done.
S: You’ve formed a knowledge base that a newcomer would never have. One thing that I have always observed from afar is that there is a sense of camaraderie amongst city councillors.
MA: I learned that early on. Myself and George Maroosis were often on different sides of issues, drastically opposed on some of them. And yet, he taught me that outside of the chambers that you could still be friendly, and if you see each other you can have a coffee or a beer. That’s a big deal, and some councillors don’t have that. When they argue in the chambers, afterwards, it’s like they are public enemies with the other councillors for weeks or months afterwards. To me that’s silly. You do the job inside the chambers, and then afterward, outside, you’re people again. Chris Mayne and I have been on a different page on a few issues, and yet, I book vacations through him, he and I have lunch together, we talk on the outside, because … we’re people. Although we go in there and do our different jobs, we might have a different viewpoint and different stances, in the end we recognize that we both care, we just differ in terms of opinion.
S: If there wasn’t that kind of camaraderie, how would the newcomers learn the ropes from the vets?
MA: For example, Tanya Vrebosch-Merry has done a great job of getting up to speed. She came on in mid-term when Maureen Boldt had to leave, and faced a huge learning curve, but she’s done a great job. She’s learned issues, she’s become more confident, she’s become a better communicator.
S: She must have been helped by others on council eh?
MA: Absolutely, I don’t sit beside her, so I can’t interact with her much, but the people on either side of her have helped her a lot.
S: In terms of your past career, and experience that would lend itself to being a city councillor, I think being an employment counsellor at YES Employment would have helped. On one side you are a city councillor helping to create jobs in the community, and on the other, you are an employment counsellor, trying to plug people into those jobs.
MA: I am extremely fortunate, in that the work background that I’ve had has really helped me. Being in broadcasting me helped in terms of communication skills, and understanding issues. Then I worked up at the college teaching broadcasting, and I realized how much I liked working with young people. Then I worked at YES Employment, which I did for over 10 years. Working as an employment counsellor, I worked with new immigrants, I worked with the unemployed, I worked with the part time employed, I worked with people new to the city… everybody. People with special needs or challenges, and disabilities… and it really opened my eyes to helping people.
S: The dual perspectives of employment counsellor and city councillor, on the job situation especially, I see a relationship there.
MA: What really helps me with this job though, is that I am just a regular guy. I’m approachable. I get a lot of calls from people, and find out that other city councillors or city staff didn’t get the calls, and I think it’s because people know that I’m not intimidating, I’m not going to push you around, I don’t think I have all the answers. I’m just a regular guy. I’m willing to listen, and even if I can’t please you, I can look you in the eye and tell you why I decided to do what I did. I think people see that.
S: Is there anything that the city can do for the arts that it is not already doing?
MA: For sure, if the budget was unlimited, I would love to do everything for everybody and make everybody happy. But, we have done more, we just now have put money into creating an arts, culture and heritage plan. We’ve actually invested money, but we got half of it from the province, because they understand the importance of arts, culture and heritage. We are investing in creating an official municipal plan and policy so that groups in the arts world can be guided by it. They can get our help when they go for funding from the other levels of government, so they’ll have a better chance of getting it. It will help us create an inventory of what is in the community. Your arts, your culture, and your heritage are truly important things that define what your city is. The city needs to invest in arts, just like in sports and business development, there has to be a balance. Also, the environment has to be invested in. The balancing act is the fun part, juggling all that stuff.
S: Speaking of environmental issues, you’re going with no signs this time around? Or just no lawn signs?
MA: Just no lawn signs. However, I just found out from Chris Mayne that they are getting more bio-degradable, which is really cool, but for me, I’ve never believed in them. I’ve been elected 3 times, but I’ve never used a lawn sign. I didn’t like the idea of them, I think there are too many of them. I have a few 4 by 4 placards that I’ll place at key intersections, and when I say a few, I mean 10 or less. I purchase advertising, like billboards, and on the net, stuff like that, but I just don’t like the lawn signs.
S: Do signs even work?
MA: Yes and no. Like anything else, it takes expertise in terms of the message you want to deliver. Simply putting your name on a sign, may or may not help you. It creates name recognition. But, what I try to do is to tie it all together. On every sign or ad that I do, I put votemikeanthony.com, my campaign is called votemikeanthony.com. The name of the campaign, is the name of the web-site is what I want you to do.
S: When I imagine myself as a city councillor,…
MA: You should run, you’ve said that 2 or 3 times now.
S: Haha, I’d just like to put myself in someone like your shoes, and imagine what that’s like. When I come into a place like Twiggs, I don’t necessarily have a connection to every person here. You automatically do, with everybody, because the work you do helps shape the lives of everybody in this community. How does that affect you, having that kind of responsibility.
MA: When I think about it sometimes, it terrifies me. Literally, it could keep me up at night. But being on the radio, I remember the first time I went on the air, I got sick, because I was so nervous. This was when I was in my early 20’s, and it was my first professional radio gig in Halifax, I worked for a summer at 780 CFDR… all hit radio all hits all the time, because that’s the way you want it… and when I did my first newscast, I was so nervous, I literally got sick to my stomach. You get used to it though. You never forget it but you learn to circumvent it. By the same token, if I thought every moment about how important every decision is, and that every one of these 56 thousand people could be affected, and that every one of them may be angry or happy because of something I’ve done, you just get used to it, otherwise it would overwhelm you. You get used to compartmentalizing it, and I don’t let it drive me. You’re right though, when you stop and think about it, what we do, is the closest level of government to people’s lives. What we do will affect your everyday life. We affect your potholes, we affect your garbage pickup. We affect everyday life.
