Last week
Community Growth & Infrastructure Standing Committee Meeting
I ended up being able to attend this meeting. I was impressed by the discussion & will support committee recommendations that I wrote about last week.
Meeting with E&Y Consultants
As part of the external review of St. Albert’s services, service levels, and operations, I met virtually with our consultants to discuss my thoughts about our future state as a municipality.
Homeland Housing
I drove out to Westlock for our regular meeting of HH. One interesting agenda item was a presentation from the town of Westlock about a potential opportunity to take over their Affordable Housing building - I look forward to hearing more about this proposal.
Agenda highlights
Most of our agenda seems to be on consent - with the expectation that recommendations will pass unanimously without comment; Items include recommendations coming out of committee meetings last week, approval of meeting minutes, and approval of support/non-support for Alberta Urban Municipalities Association resolutions.
Community Capital Program Grant
One member of Council has pulled the recommendations for this grant program, I suspect because the Community Living Standing Committee recommended that funding for Dynamix be decreased from $94,000 to $65,000. This recommendation was made to ensure that we will have more flexibility with funds next year for projects that are accessible to the general public, like school parks, etc.
External Audit Plan for 2020 (2:15pm)
Every year, our auditors present their proposed plan for approval. Following the audit, “the Auditors Year End Recommendation and the 2020 Consolidated Annual Financial Statements will be presented to Council on April 19, 2021”.
Erin Ridge North(?) Highschool Site
This is a strange item - Council has been asked to provide a letter of support for a proposed school site north of our boundaries that is part of a deal between Landrex, a developer, and St. Albert Public Schools. These lands are part of the annexation discussions, and may be part of St. Albert by year-end. This request is further complicated because we don’t know the details of the deal, there has been no community engagement regarding this proposal and, should the lands be pre-dedicated to one district, our two other school boards would be excluded from the standard process for allocating school sites. With that in mind, the proposed letter does not indicate support, but rather an openness for discussion about the details of the proposal.
Annexation Agreement ($600,000)
St. Albert and Sturgeon County have been in negotiations regarding land annexation for most of the current council term. The agreed-to “annexation area boundary encompasses approximately 1,500 ha of land. It represents an overall land supply (residential and non-residential) of approximately 45 years”. The agreement also includes compensation to. the County of $600,000. If both councils approve the proposed agreement, we will submit the proposal to the province for approval.
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.
