Not sure I would agree. I have done a bit of backpacking in Alberta, although not a city council one of the towns I was in Grande Cache had it's share of corruption, zoning was done poorly(probably the ugliest town I have seen, in a pristine area) so the land with the best vistas had the industrial area built on it, the zoning was done by someone related to someone on the council. Town was also bankrupt(for example, $60,000 on a motivational speaker to do a talk) despite having a rich coal deposit that was exported to Japan for steel manufacture. Heard of similar things in other countries, even open corruption.
When I was in Calgary I noticed a lot of property development, maybe might be a good idea to think about aligning interests somehow. It might help if you have a spouse that is charismatic, photo opportunities.
Freedom and Accountability. Not sure, plenty of legal corruption that is possible on the accountability end. Stefan did a book The handbook for human or livestock management something like that. Maybe try to decentralise power, a lot of the smaller towns were decimated in population when logging quotas were brought in.