Edmonton Minute: Budget Update, Funding Meeting, and a Commonwealth Games Petition

Edmonton Minute - Your weekly one-minute summary of Edmonton politics

This Week In Edmonton:

• There will be a City Council Public Hearing this morning at 9:30 am to deal with a number of land use amendments. As for other meetings, there will be a City Manager and City Auditor Performance Evaluation Committee meeting at 3:00 pm on Friday, but the more exciting stuff will happen in the middle of the week.
  
  
• On Tuesday, there will be a City Council meeting at 9:30 am, with a potential additional meeting on Wednesday at 9:30 am in case the first meeting doesn’t wrap in time. On the agenda are Capital and Operational Budget updates for the year ending December 31st, 2022. According to the capital update, of the 64 capital profiles reported, 62 are within the acceptable tolerance for budget, and 57 are within the acceptable tolerance for schedule. However, City is forecasted to exceed its (recently raised!) debt limit in 2027 and 2028, and likely to remain above the limit into the 2030s. Also on the meeting agenda is an annual report from the Office of the Integrity Commissioner and a report from Administration about creating a permanent electors register and voters list.
  
  
• The Juno Awards will be broadcast live from Rogers Place this evening. The city hosted a number of musical events over the weekend leading up to the big day today. Edmonton last hosted the Juno Awards in 2004. Although a bid to host again had been in the works for a number of years, the COVID-19 pandemic hindered the show’s return to Edmonton.

Last Week In Edmonton:

• The Cities of Edmonton and Calgary, along with the Province, the Tsuut’ina Nation, and the federal government, officially launched the exploration phase of bidding for the 2030 Commonwealth Games. After Edmonton walked back its last Commonwealth Games bid due to projected costs, and failed in a FIFA bid, it’s time for the City to stop jumping from sporting event to sporting event. No budget was announced for the Alberta games, but the 2022 budget for the Birmingham Commonwealth Games exceeded $1.2 billion. Common Sense Edmonton has partnered with Common Sense Calgary and the Alberta Institute to oppose the use of any public funding on the Commonwealth Games. If you agree, click here to sign our petition.
  
  
• Mayor Amarjeet Sohi met with Premier Danielle Smith and three provincial cabinet ministers to discuss issues facing Edmonton. In the meeting, the Mayor requested more money for social services, pointing out some discrepancies in funding between Calgary and Edmonton. Specifically, Sohi asked for more shelter beds, supportive housing units, and drug treatment spaces, as well as $100 million for business revitalization areas in central Edmonton. The Mayor said he felt the concerns were heard and that Smith would work with the city on these items. Smith "brought forward the need to collaborate on large capital projects and raised concerns about high property taxes and their negative effects on small businesses and jobs, particularly downtown.”
  
  
• A Shigella outbreak in Edmonton's inner-city population has been re-declared by Alberta Health Services after five new cases were identified in the last three weeks, all of which required hospitalization. The outbreak was initially declared on September 8th, 2022, and was closed on February 16th, 2023, following two weeks of no new cases, but has now been reopened due to the rise in case numbers. To date, 211 people have been diagnosed with Shigella, 144 of which required hospitalization.

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