Citizen Driven LIFA: Land Inventory Food Assessment Request to City of Calgary Council

For immediate distribution to all City of Calgary Aldermen: Release date: 07June11



Dear Mayor Nenshi and City of Calgary Aldermen,

RE: Citizen Driven LIFA: Land Inventory Food Assessment

As per "Chain of Command", I approached my Ward 7 Rep, Alderman Druh Farrell, to sponsor the LIFA Council Innovation Fund (CIF) request for $11K.

This request was denied.

I am now approaching, on behalf of the Citizen Driven LIFA Team, the remaining Aldermen of the City of Calgary for sponsorship of the LIFA application.

Will you sponsor a CIF app for $11K to complete the LIFA for Calgary via a unique citizen driven, citizen engagement, collective intelligence, crowdsourcing process?

Background:
CIF: Council Innovation Fund, the same fund that gave $150K to Bow2Bluff for citizen engagement which essentially duplicates the Mission Road Main Street Innovation Project Charrette, which was granted $300,000.

LIFA: Land Inventory & Food Assessment, a term used to describe a unique community food system assessment approach, the first of its kind in Canada.

CIF Criteria: Successful applications will address one of the following:
a) One-time start up or “seed” funds for initiatives or programs which will support or contribute to
Council's priorities.
b) Pilot projects or experiments that have the potential to change city-wide policies and
procedures.

The Citizen driven LIFA committee would be applying as they would be using the funds to complete the project. Compare this request for $11K vs Edmonton's budget of $416,000 and City of Calgary's EAC LIFA Sub Committee potential budget of >$200,000+.

LIFA is an innovative approach to assessment/analysis that the City of Calgary has never embraced previously. All Calgarians would benefit from the information. Decision makers (Aldermen/YYCCC) would also benefit from the superior understanding of empirical data on the local food system, not to mention the socioeconomic potential of such.

LIFA is a 2 month process. The report will take another 2 weeks to author. We will deliver by 01Oct11. It involves unique citizen engagement at multiple levels. It is cost effective & provides unrivalled ROI. It creates deep knowledge roots municipally and actively engages citizens in their own Food System.

LIFA meets the criteria of the CIF application guidelines, including seven (7) City of Calgary Council Priorities.

Having access to this knowledge in advance of the City Driven LIFA deliverable date of April 2012, essentially means we will not miss the 2012 growing season to begin initial implementation of any critical Food Policy outcomes from the LIFA process.

We look forward to working with all of you to build a sustainable local food system, meeting or exceeding imagineCalgary Food Targets & providing access to nutritious food for all Calgarians.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions about the Calgary Citizen Driven LIFA Initiative.

Respectfully,

Paul Hughes
Volunteer Citizen Coordinator,
Citizen Driven LIFA
Calgary.AB
@hughes4yyc