Last week + Regular Council Meeting October 3, 2022
Last weeks highlights
Edmonton Global forward slash event: It was great connecting with business and political leaders at Edmonton Global’s first major networking event at the Edmonton Convention Centre. From St. Albert, Mayor Heron and Councillors Brodhead, McKay, and myself joined the CAO and Economic Development staff for an evening of connections related to the economic vibrancy of the region.
Library Meeting with Council: I was able to attend the first half of this annual meeting with the library board. It was interesting to see their preliminary audit results, and my hope is that the full report will be available soon.
Alberta Asset Management Framework Update: I was thankfully available to attend this last-minute provincial announcement about the divestment of provincial assets to support affordable housing growth in the province. Unfortunately, most municipal representatives were unavailable as this meeting coincided with the Alberta Municipalities conference. My high-level notes from the Q&A:
Two "surplus" sites that have never been used for affordable housing/that are vacant will be put up for sale in the next few days.
The province is keeping Housing Management Bodies (like Homeland Housing in St. Albert) & non-profit operators, so transfers of provincial assets to these organizations could be provided at a nominal cost. Municipalities could also acquire these properties for use as housing sites.
The province is selling up to 200 assets over the next 10 years. This is out of 3000 assets, which could also be transferred, retained, or invested in.
~$9M in asset sales over 3 years (mostly vacant land) will be reinvested in affordable housing.
Grant opportunities may be available with transfers to Housing Bodies/nonprofits.
No asset inventory is being shared, but they can talk about specific properties on request.
Alberta Social Housing Corp assets will be transferred to housing bodies or non-profits when possible.
All the announcement details were released online: https://www.alberta.ca/release.cfm?xID=846362FFA05E2-D508-BB88-C491C98DDAB78EBE
Agenda highlights
St. Albert Philanthropy Award
This is a recommendation to rescind the policy creating the philanthropy award as it is not longer used by Council.
“The purpose of the St. Albert Philanthropy award was to recognize an individual or family whose donations significantly contributed to the success of not for profits that operated in the City of St. Albert. Over the years it has been increasingly difficult to single out one family, one person to bestow this honor. Our community has a robust and dedicated volunteer base, and the difficulty continues in identifying one person/family over another who is worthy of this award… Many community members exemplify the values of volunteerism, going above and beyond, and we recognize that an event that celebrates one individual/family as opposed to a community of volunteers does not embrace the values of St. Albertans.”
Heritage Reserve Fund ($5,000)
This is to provide funding to contract a Conservation Architect to assist in work to address heritage elements related to upcoming repairs/replacements for the St. Albert Place building.
Police Services Building Borrowing Bylaw (1st reading)
This is a series of motions to realign several projects related to updates at Maloney Place (where Municipal Enforcement operates) and for the renovations/expansions at the RCMP detachment. For Maloney Place, the project cost is expected to be $1.7M. For the RCMP building, it’s being recommended that the borrowing bylaw is set at $7.5 million, which includes a 50% contingency over the 2020 $5M project estimate. Second & third readings of the bylaw are expected on December 19, 2022.
This is a brief and incomplete overview of my activities as a councillor and Council 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. Residents can register to speak if they have information to present to council. Full agenda packages can be found on the stalbert.ca website.
