The head of the city's law department says a city alderman will be able to vote on the city’s long-range planning blueprint despite a call for him to be disqualified because of a quote published in Fast Forward.

And another alderman who's actively courted the development industry in the run-up to the lengthy public hearing (happening as I write this) will also be allowed to vote, despite a request that he be disqualified as well.

"There would be nothing that, in my view, would disqualify any of those two aldermen from participating in the Plan It proceedings and to be eligible to vote at the end of the day," says city solicitor Paul Tolley.

In April, we put together a cover package on Plan It, and as part of that package I interviewed every city council member (except one) about the plan, trying to gauge how they'll vote on Plan It. Here’s what Ald. Ray Jones said: “I have a gut feeling to vote no because I’m kind of more on the development industry’s side on this one. They create a lot of jobs for a lot of people and, in particular, I’ve got two kids that are in the industry. I think jobs are a very important part of livelihoods.”

The Better Calgary Campaign (BCC) took issue with that quote, citing the city’s policy on ethical guidelines for council members. The policy says council members are to "avoid any situation that could cause any person to believe that they may have brought bias or partiality to a question before the council."

In a letter sent to Tolley earlier this week, the BCC’s Naheed Nenshi and Chima Nkemdirim said Jones should disqualify himself from the Plan It vote. “The mild disclaimer (‘gut feeling’) aside, we feel that his statement, weeks before a public hearing, certainly injects a sense of partiality or bias into the process,” they wrote, adding that Jones should also disclose which companies his kids work for.

Nenshi and Nkemdirim also asked for Ald. Joe Connelly to exclude himself from the hearing and vote because he recently asked a development industry lobby group to spread the word about one of his fundraisers. That move "suggests to us that Alderman Connelly has already made up his mind on Plan It and leaves us with a reasonable apprehension of bias," wrote Nenshi and Nkemdirim to Tolley.

But Tolley says there's "an extremely high standard" to disqualify a council member from voting, and he doesn't see anything of concern in either Jones's or Connelly's situations. "Aldermen are elected to have opinions and having an opinion is different than saying: 'I have my mind completely made up, I have no intention of taking anything that happens in the public hearing into consideration in my vote,'" says Tolley.

"That’s the type of standard that you have to meet in order to have someone disqualified. To have them say before the hearing: 'My mind’s made up, I have no intention of listening and paying attention at the public hearing. I’m going to vote a certain way, and I’m not going to be dissuaded.'

"None of that’s happened, in my estimation, at the moment."

Tolley also says the city relies on council members to declare if they have a financial interest in something that goes before council. "We don’t go around sort of policing that on behalf of the aldermen. We rely on a self-declaration when something comes up, because we don’t know all of their financial interests and all of their family members and all of the buinsesses they may be involved in."