Regular Council Meeting February 18, 2020
Agenda highlights
Outdoor Refrigerated Covered Rink ($1.175M)
Last week, the Community Living Standing Committee (CLSC) recommended to Council that we cancel this project which would have seen one of our existing outdoor ice rinks converted to a refrigerated/covered skating amenity. Council will consider this recommendation and make a final decision about the project. Should we accept the recommendation of the Committee and Administration to cancel the project, a refrigerated surface will still be considered as part of the scope for some of the larger park developments being planned, like Millenium Park downtown and the future north-west amenity site.
Styrofoam Recycling at the Depot ($8,000/y)
Last week, the Community Growth and Infrastructure Committee (CGISC) recommended to Council to permanently offer styrofoam recycling as a municipal service. I suspect that Council will approve this plan.
Transportation Network Speed Study ($20,000)
This is to have staff prepare amendments to our Traffic Safety Bylaw and to authorize $20,000 for public engagement in advance of the bylaw presentation, a plan that was unanimously endorsed by the CGISC. One of the reasons I attended the CGISC meeting last week (I’m not a member) was so that I could see the full presentation from our staff and consultants. Prior to the committee meeting, I was skeptical about the price tag for “public engagement” in addition to our normal public hearing process; Administration’s explanation that this engagement will assist with buy-in and education of the community was helpful.
Birthing Centres
Mayor Heron’s motion about allowing midwifery in residential areas has been replaced with a recommendation of the CGISC to direct Administration to work with the St. Albert Community Midwives organization to find a solution that would “establish… in St. Albert a facility at which childbirth, attended by a midwife, can occur in circumstances that mirror as closely as possible the experience of home birth”.
Preliminary Year End Surplus and Reserve Transfer ($1.7M)
In 2019, we finished the year approximately 1% under budget for our Operating budget, so Administration is recommending that we place the surplus of $1.7M to our Stabilization Reserve. This follows our standard surplus policy.
Capital Carry Forwards & Completed Projects
This is to shift around the funds from capital projects that are still active in 2020 and uncommit surpluses from projects completed in 2019.
“In 2019, the City had a total of 171 Municipal Capital Projects, of which… 125… remain in progress at the end of 2019 with an approved budget of $135 million. A decrease of $121 thousand is recommended due to a reduction in costs required… <and> 46 projects are being recommended to be closed with a total budget <surplus> of $1.4 million. Of the total budget, $30.5 million of actual expenditures was incurred resulting in a $1.4 million realized net surplus.”
Reduced Dog License Fee for Seniors
My description of this motion prior to it being considered by the CLSC: “This Council motion would see the fees for dog licences decreased by 50% for seniors for a 1-year trial. For dog owners who pay on time and have a spayed/neutered animal, this would equate to a savings of about $19/year/dog. The $32,000 cost of the reduction is proposed to come from one of our reserves. Additional costs would be for updating our computer and application systems to add a different fee for certain users and to capture owner age information. I assume there would also be costs for advertising the pilot, staff time for inputing/verifying ages, and managing refunds/complaints when a 65+ resident pays the full rate in error.”
None of the CLSC members (Councillors Hughes, McKay, and me) were prepared to recommend this motion after it was presented to the committee.
Free Transit for Seniors ($44,700)
The CGISC has recommended that Council approve a pilot to offer free local transit to seniors. This would only apply seniors who are not already eligible for free transit through our low-income “All Aboard” program.
On a related note, Council decided not to extend Dial-a-bus service ($67,400) during Budget deliberations last year. We also heard the following in our Community Satisfaction Survey, which didn’t appear to have recorded any complaints about the cost of transit services:
This is a brief and incomplete overview of our meetings, with my personal comments sprinkled in - In no way are my opinions representative of the official direction of council or the City of St. Albert. Please let me know of any typos or errors. I encourage everyone who is able to tune in the the live-stream of the meeting (2pm here) or attend in-person (3rd floor of St. Albert Place, hang a right getting out of the elevator). You can also register to speak if you have information to present to council. Full agenda packages can be found on the stalbert.ca website.
