Last weeks + Regular Council Meeting April 6, 2021
Last weeks highlights
Special Meeting March 22: With heavy agendas starting to weigh down our meetings, Mayor Heron called a Special Meeting of Council to handle the items from our March 15 meeting that we weren’t able to complete.
Arts Development Advisory Committee Meeting: This regular meeting was mostly an information session to get us ready for some decisions and recommendations that will be made over the next couple months. The committee is looking forward to making recommendations to Council about the Mayor’s Celebration of the Arts and the Young Artist Legacy Award grants. (Please share with all the 13-21-year-old artists that we are actively taking applications for the Young Artist Legacy Award!)
Homeland Housing Regular board meeting: The highlight of this meeting was approving the external auditor’s report and audited financial statements. I’m proud to be part of an organization that consistently performs in a way that results in a clean audit.
Agenda highlights
I suspect our Tuesday meeting will be another long one…
COVID-19 Recovery Task Force Business Resiliency Program
This volunteer task force is recommending to Council that $100,000 from previously approved covid-19 recovery funds be used to “to hire a marketing student to promote local businesses and develop a grant program where eligible businesses can either apply for a Marketing Grant (to a maximum of $500) or a Digital Transformation Grant (to a maximum of $1000) per eligible business”. My questions about this recommendation include:
Why are we specifying that the person hired should be a student?
How do we define eligible businesses?
Will demonstrated financial need be part of the criteria? (I suspect Costco or Fire & Flower do not need assistance, for example.)
What do we mean by eligible “marketing” or “digital transformation”?
Is $500-$1000 sufficient to make any difference for any business? (Strathcona County, for example, has a grant program specifically for non-profit Arts organizations that sets a grant ceiling at $5,000. Although this is a targeted grant for a specific industry, the cap seems more in line with the amounts needed to make a difference.)
Service & Service Levels Inventory Annual Update
Services (RCMP, road maintenance, transit, community events, waste management, parks, recreation facilities, etc.) form everything that we use as residents, and pay for as taxpayers. "Service level is a statement that tells clients what level of service they are to receive," like for snow removal ( St. Albert Trail and Ray Gibbon Drive, within 8 hrs. after a snow event, plowed and sanded after 2-5 cm of snow accumulation), Business Licensing (payments are available online & we respond to all inquiries within one business day), Traffic (for emergent safety issues, response time is one hour), boulevard grass mowing (1X/2 weeks), etc. This is an opportunity for Council to review and ask questions of the entire list of municipal services & service levels. The summary of changes is helpful and includes:
The change from reading water meters bi-monthly to automatically.
Removing the Rental Assistance Program. (It no longer exists.)
Removing the Athlete and Artist Development Grant. (We discontinued this program during the 2021 budget deliberations.)
Changing the hours of the recycling depot. (Due to Council motions passes last year.)
Land Acquisition for Fire Hall #4 ($2.55M)
After many years of planning, this is to approve the acquisition of about 17 acres that will be used for a new firehall and transit site in the north, and to accommodate the extension of Fowler Way.
Fire Hall Station 4 Borrowing Bylaw (1st reading, $2.25M + $26.5M)
This is to approve $2,250,000 from the Off-Site Levy Recovery Fund to support a land purchase, and to advertise 2nd/3rd readings of a borrowing bylaw with a ceiling of $26.5M. This max would accommodate projected costs for this project and would keep us well within the debt limit set by the province and our internal policies:
Fire Hall Station - $16,341,000
Fire Engine - $1,540,500
Fire Aerial Apparatus - $2,469,800
Fire Tanker Truck - $779,000
(Total Costs = $21,130,300)
Council Strategic Plan Update and Updated Corporate Business Plan
There are no major changes to our strategy, but we do assess and adjust these plans every year. For the Corporate Business Plan, added projects include:
Explore options for business incentive program
Regional partnership for recreation service delivery
Assess delivery of economic development related services to new and existing businesses
Focus on regional and sub-regional economic development
Community amenities needs assessment and concept planning
Complete the Energy Corporation Feasibility Assessment
Develop recommendations for social and economic recovery to build stronger resiliency post Covid-19
We also removed “mature neighbourhoods revitalization strategies” from the plan, with an expectation to reintroduce this project through the 2022 budget process.
Land Use Bylaw Riverside Stage 31 (2nd & 3rd Readings)
This is a request from the developer in Riverside to redistrict the new section of Riverside to allow a greater diversity (and density) of residential housing products. I expect that quite a few residents will address Council during the public hearing preceding these motions.
Home Energy Retrofit Accelerator Program
Mayor Heron is proposing that we develop a policy and associated budget to take advantage of a program that supports homeowners in retrofitting their homes to be more energy efficient.
Hen Bylaw Amendments
This is a motion that would direct Admin to amend our backyard hen bylaw to increase the permitted number of hens from 4 to 6. Administration is supporting this change, and they’ve advised they can have a revised bylaw to Council after May 31. Background information from the Gazette:
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. Members of the public can also register to speak if they have information to present to council. Full agenda packages can be found on the stalbert.ca website.